I am a haphazard creature. Sometimes a creature of habit and sometimes I just want to break free and be let go. Habits, sometimes, might seem to tie me down in creating and rigidity. I do not do well with schedules, heck I spent most of my high school life asleep on my desk because the repetitiveness of it all was just numbing. Also, I used it as an escape.
Chaos amidst creativity
Years later, I keep coming back. I keep finding myself keeping routines, breaking them, finding new ones then breaking them again. In addition, is my creative style. One day I will sit down, plan, and record podcast episodes, the next I would have forgotten entirely about it and I will be hunched down on a new painting series. Haphazard, I said.
My creativity doesn’t flow in straight lines. Some days I plan out an entire podcast season, other days I forget it exists and dive headfirst into a new Procreate series.
Permission without judgement
And I am currently trying to embrace my whole self. Which means being content with my haphazardness and giving myself permission. Permission because, everyone, including my mind, keeps insisting on consistency. But my creativity does not work in one linear manner.
I have different platforms for different things, YouTube for Tech Demos, Instagram for Art, Newsletter for catch-ups and my blog post which I terribly abandoned because not all my writing is linear. Sometimes, I want to write about Artificial Intelligence, and others I want to put my thoughts on my blog post and move on.
Any day I get a random idea, I want to see it created to the end. But I barely reach the end because I am stuck in the cycle of - I am supposed to build a consistent brand. But true to myself, I am not a consistent brand, and I want the world to see me as I am, rough on the edges, but continuously creating. I want me to see me as I am.
A garden in the interwebs
I am now visualizing my platforms as a garden. A farm even. When tending to a garden, you have multiple plants; herbs, flowers, vegetables, cereals, you name it. A garden has all these colours but and they all coexist. On a walk, I would have a ton of pictures of flowers on my phone. One route, different colours.
So that’s what I want to do. Because, I am consistently creating, I want to give myself permission to put my output out there in whichever format, and on whichever topics. To stamp my notion, I have recently come across a couple online blogs posts and platforms by my colleagues that show the different seasons, and formats.
It might not make sense to seek evidence when giving myself permission, but it helps me build courage and move forward.
The burden of proof
One of the blog posts I came across was Pamela Fox. She’s a voice in the python community and her posts range from python related content to personal posts. Other websites I have come across are: GalaSoft and Cassidy Williams. The last one is a colleague I have witnessed reinvent herself over and over again, check her LinkedIn.
The lingering what ifs…
If the world stopped moving. If I lost my income. If the world stopped looking, I would inherently be creating. I would be looking for new ways to create good in the world. First, I create to teach, because I know education and knowledge are two things that still makes us all equal, even in the age of AI.
Next, I create for my future and past self. I create for Bethany who was, who is and who will be. I create to give her confidence, to give her courage, and to be able to express what she could not. I create because it is in my inherent nature.
The final thoughts
My biggest fear is what if everything I put out in the world is too much. What if all the cracks within me now exist in public domain? And currently my response is nobody cares. Nobody cares beyond what I care most about the things I care most. And maybe that’s the truth, most people won’t care as deeply as I do. And that’s freeing. So what if my entire life can be found in a piece of the internet? It shows me what I care about most, it helps me grow, and when everything becomes too much, I can always archive it.
But most of all, I have the permission to create. Create the world I want to live in, coupled with my strong opinions and voice. Be the best version of me out there, and maybe I can find my constellation in the wild.
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