Irrelevant

Yeah, you heard me right. The internet is killing creativity. You may have heard it a thousand times before, echoing across the halls of your favorite echochamer. Or perhaps you may be saying, “Hold on, isn’t it ushering in a creative renaissance? Look at all the creators! So creative! The world has never seen so many people’s art before!”

Yeah, the world has never seen so many people’s art before, but the world has also probably never seen grandma’s quilts or that weird table that your uncle made. This is because the eye of the “world” isn’t what makes people create. Furthermore, most of the people who are creating now would have been creating without the view counter ticking above their art like some popularity-scoring eye of Sauron.

What I’m talking about is the people who, instead of creating, are scrolling.

The people who think “I’m no good” because it doesn’t look like the Instagram photos are the ones who would probably be hammering away at something random and fun if the world of entertainment wasn’t served up on a silver platter.

The internet is killing creativity by bludgeoning boredom to death, murdering confidence, and poaching time.

If necessity is the mother of invention, boredom is the mother is creativity. By filling every moment of every day with stimulation, we are filling up our minds on empty calories. The pressure to justify its existence and exhibit it on the internet is just another nail in the coffin.

When it comes to creative pursuit, I think of being a kid. I was always doing something, be it drawing, writing, painting, you name it. Now? I am a busy adult, a mom, and I dont do much in the way of physical art anymore except fill in coloring pages alongside my 4 year old.

At a certain point, art becomes for those who are “good at it” when you are an adult. Just like singing, dancing, cooking, and other life-giving activities. We get this idea as adults that in order to do something, it’s like you have to shine at it–which I think is performative bull shit!

We need to give ourselves the permission to do things badly, or at least not perfectly, before we can make anything amazing. Beauty lies in the persuit, not the end result.

Time is also a constraint. Why? Because somewhere we got this idea that money is time.

If this is true, why do so many spend so much time consuming media? Probably hubris or something. Our smartphones and other tech are stealing all the time they claim to give back to us. The result is all of this creative potential being wasted on what-ifs and when-I’s.

Not every creative hobby needs to be a side hustle. It’s ok to create just for the sake of creation. That’s an aspect of our nature–to create. It’s a part of us being made in God’s image. It’s written in our code.

Do yourself a favor. Let yourself be bored, dont be intimidated by perfection, and don’t pressure yourself to conform to the hussle. Create. Do it for yourself. Don’t post about it. Keep it a secret between you and God. Because it’s a love letter. A love letter to your nature.

With love,

JJC