Sunday, June 24, 2007

writing about writing

I talked with a couple of friends about creative energy, and about writing itself. I realized that I did not write anything over the past two years or so that I was proud of, that really expressed my creativity, and that exercised my brain.

When I first moved to New York City, I worked but my job was not so mentally and emotionally draining and I still had creative juices, and I wrote several things – several essays, started a few stories that I never finished, (maybe I should look them up and see if I can finish them, or at least re-write them), and sometimes just wrote for the sake of writing, the sake of using my brain creatively.

Grad school then started, and everyone who has been through grad school knows what it is – all my energy was poured into writing several 15 – 20 pages research papers each semester. I did not mind doing so; in fact, I actually enjoyed writing those essays. I loved the intellectual challenge, and probably did one of the craziest things I have ever done – doing it full time as well as working full time.

I took a year or so off everything, all “extra” stuff after grad school – I missed my friends, I missed sleeping in, and I missed not having any obligations aside from work, so I did not do much over the year after I got my masters. Later, I started working behind the scenes on some films, helping a few friends with the “collaboration” process, and that was part of the creative work that I was enjoying, and for the time being that worked.

Then, as I said in my first blog entry, a larger human service agency took over the company that I worked for, and almost immediately, you could see an effect on many people who worked in that office – I stopped doing any extra creative work, I did not want to work on other people projects (even if in fact it was something that I immensely enjoyed), and I continued the “habit” of not writing, as it was the easy thing to do, not to fight the emotional and mental drain that was exhausting me.

I did not think that I realized this until last week, when I finally resigned, and after a few days of just doing nothing, sleeping almost the entire weekend away, and basically, in the words of a good friend, JR, flushing the agency out of my body. By Tuesday or so, I could feel brain cells growing back, I actually wanted to do something else than just flopping on the couch and reading or watching television. I actually had energy, I wanted to get out of the house and do errands, writing blog entries become less of a “chore” and something that I wanted to do. JR said that he went through the same process. He worked on various film projects, and they immediately became a lot more fun and his creativity output changed after he resigned from the same aforementioned large human service agency.

So, these are just a few thoughts put together about the concept of creative energy, and the fact that after a few years my fingers are getting back into the habit of writing what I am thinking, and just getting used to it again. Hopefully blog entries will improve in quality, and just expand and I will try different things as my brain cells continue to grow back.

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This blog consists of my personal thoughts and opinions. It does not in any way reflect the position of the United States Government or the Peace Corps.