I’m dedicating today’s post to a concept I have been well aware of for years now but also one I have tried to rationalize with myself for the sake of “realistic” terms.
I put “realistic” in quotes because that word is a dud for me. It holds very little value in my books since there are footprints on the moon, self-driving cars, cures for once incurable diseases, and what have you. “Realistic” is for the people who can’t see past the mental blocks they’ve either adopted from others or put up themselves. It’s not for me… anymore, that is.
Anyway, back to my main point, my creativity depends on my environment. How much I’m learning, how much I’m growing, how much I’m pushing myself, and what newness I’m being introduced to, be it a grain of sand or a 14 footer mountain.
My creativity is directly influenced by how often I put myself in situations and places that I am not familiar with and navigating my way through solutions with broadened perspectives.
In other words, I have to live life for me to maximum this gift I’ve been given, and when I say “live” I don’t mean wake up and let the world tell me what’s next. I mean carve out my path by being at the forefront of my decisions. Calling all my own shots. Truly, truly living so I feel invigorated. I need to be intentional in a way that is dowsed in purpose.
However, on December 20, 2021, I was slapped in the face with all the dust I had been sweeping under the rug the minute I stepped into Boston Logan International Airport.
With no exaggeration, the very second I step into an airport and on a plane, I am engulfed in inspiration and literally oozing content to the point where I have to sift through what I’m creating and hand-select the ones that are demanding ink, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Arriving at the airport and sitting on a plane are only the beginning stages of travel. Everything thereafter is tenfold inspiration-based. No other situation in the world creates a reservoir as deep for me as traveling does, and I have not only experienced that firsthand time and time and time again, I am also extremely aware of how the lack of travel dries up that same reservoir and starves me of the content I yearn to create.
The stifled environment of “same in, same out” is detrimental to my greatest, most valuable asset— the life and depth behind my love for writing. My gift.
In the simplest terms, I will not grow as a writer (let alone human), and I will not produce what I know I am capable of producing, if I do not travel.
This is something I have been well aware of for years now. Ever since I studied abroad in Prague, Czech Republic in 2018, I have been addicted to what travel does to and for me. Yet, I have squashed my yearn to consistently travel because, well, let’s face it, it’s expensive, it’s time-consuming… it’s just not really “realistic”, right?
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
That’s what the scarcity part of my brain tells me. That’s where the mental blocks come into play. Those are parameters that I have adopted from others and internalized as my own, but thankfully, I’m at a point in my life where I can call out those bogus limits and question why I ever clung onto them in the first place. And as quickly as I question them, I can let them go, too.
Last summer, when I got home from living in Utah, a family friend graciously offered me her house in Lake Como, Italy. The “realistic” part of my brain made excuse after excuse as to why I couldn’t go. My excuses mostly consisted of cost and time, but there were other factors thrown in there, too, that were on par with “realistic” reasonings as to why one couldn’t just pull the damn trigger and go.
But my family friend also said to me, “You would be surrounded by so much inspiration to write, if you went. That place is dripping in it,” and that stuck with me.
I’m not sure what the rest of my life is going to look like. I don’t know what my future holds, but I do know that I love writing almost as much as my lungs love air. I’m positive that my creativity (in some form) and love for writing is what my livelihood will eventually depend on, and if by chance it’s not, at the very least, it’s definitely what my soul thrives on.
All this brings me to: depriving myself the maximum potential of my creativity is self-depreciation at its finest, and when I find excuses to support why I can’t or shouldn’t travel, I am no better than the people who have put “realistic” limitations on their lives.
Mic fucking drop.
~
I want to add that I wrote the majority of this post on the morning of December 28th. I was sitting in the living room of my Airbnb in Amman, Jordan, and I was looking out the window at all the beige-colored buildings in front of me.
I sent a snapchat to my family group chat, and afterward, I noticed that my memory from a year ago was a picture of a page out of Rupi Kaur’s poetry book, Home Body. It was a poem that stuck with me. One that resonated so deeply. I read it and immediately felt validated knowing I wasn’t the only one who had had those thoughts. Something in me said, “yes, this is it,” and I have felt secure in the decisions I’ve made since then, regardless if anyone else understood.
The poem reads:
if you want to be creative
you need to learn how to
do stuff that has no purpose
art isn’t made by
working all the time
first you’ve got to
go out and live
-the art will come
Listen to what’s calling you. Whether it’s the mountains, the ocean, your passport, the neighborhood two towns away, or a voice no one has ever heard before. Listen with intent.
And last but certainly not least, middle fingers up to anyone who tells you to be “realistic". Keep marching to the beat of your drum.
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