This is why you're unhappy.
Stop consuming. Start creating.
The times I’ve been locked in my worst cycles of Depression wasn’t only when I witnessed the pillars of my old life crumble around me, but also when my Creativity grabbed my face, looked me in the eyes, and whispered:
“You’re not using me for yourself, and for that reason, you have betrayed me.”
You know Creativity, and you know her well.
She dons a different look. Like a chameleon, she shapes herself into the visage the individual needs in order to connect with her. She must do this, so you can see yourself within her, and she can guide you by the hand and eye into what is required for her to breathe innovation, action, and art into you.
It’s a symbiotic relationship you can’t afford to sacrifice, no matter how aware you are of her presence.
Creativity has strolled into the lobby of my Mind in many forms—a long-necked owl with feathers sculpted from twilight; a strong and massively tall and woman (or man) with sharp, inquisitive eyes, carved out of gray and white marble; a shapeless fog draped over fields of untouched, frosty grass; a sea of ambient cello strings echoing in an endless black void.
What’s interesting is, I’m only telling you these specific depictions because these are how she appeared in my mind when I asked. I imagined Creativity as a living form within me, and asked her: “What do you actually look like?”
And these were the responses. They’re abstract, and concrete. This isn’t a new concept, and in order to create beautiful work, you need to understand and work with the relationship between those two realities.
Now, not everyone thinks this way. Not everyone has this kind of personified approach of viewing different emotions, concepts, or ideas. It would be strange if you and I thought exactly the same way, with exactly the same outcomes.
That’s not how Creativity is meant to be, and that’s not how you should expect Creativity to work.
I’m not here to convince you that you should think exactly the same way as me in order to interact with Creativity. It’s the opposite; the dire warning that you, against all odds, must connect with Creativity through confronting her form directly within you, and discovering how she appears, how she speaks, and how she works through your individual design. Creativity should be
You have your own unique methods of viewing and working with figments like Creativity, and seeing her for all the forms she possesses through a vision you can call yours. That uniquenesss creates originality, and that originality leads to the creation of bodies of work that are connected to your soul, and no one else’s.
The less influence you have—and the more constraints you give yourself—the more autonomy you exercise, and the more art you make that speaks to you.
This is how Creativity should function within. you.
Anything less is an imitation of what Creativity should be. Anything more is an exaggeration to make you feel comfortable with the idea of Creativity, and not working with Creativity herself. There’s a version of her that lives as an idol and not as a partner, and that’s the most dangerous way of interacting with her. It’s forming a relationship based on projection and ideation, rather than understanding, and diving deep within the Self to unravel your taste.
If you try to connect with Creativity, you should feel an immediate response.
This is not a debate. This is not a theory. When Creativity stirs, she is not quiet. She is not silent. She assaults you. She rips you open and dives into the sinews of your meandering dreams. She confronts you with the uncomfortable and urges you to weaponize it.
Creativity is your Mentor, your Seeker, your Muse, your Keeper, your Abuser, your Shield, your Sword, your Canvas, your Script, your Mind, your Soul, your Reason, your Vision, and your Protector.
Once you feel Creativity, you cannot escape. And you won’t want to. You will become so in love with her that you have no choice but to accept her with open arms. You will adore her so deeply that there is nothing that can tear you apart. She will fill you with such unabashed, obsessive, reckless love and a lust for using her that nothing will echo with more seduction than her arrival.
Once she does arrive… there’s a silent understanding between you.
She’s a stranger you’ve always known. She’s a friend you’ve always yearned for. She’s a lover you had waited to meet until the right time. She’s a flame you snuffed out when you were afraid. She’s the embodiment of all desires you’ve never known before and all the desires you will know.
You should be able to feel her whispering in your blood. You should hear her voice dancing in your dreams. You should feel her holding your hand as you dive into the projects you actually want to work on.
This is where it gets complicated, and most people abandon Creativity. They start to fear her. You start to fear her. I have feared her.
It’s not a conscious decision.
It’s a decision that happens when you’re afraid of your potential.
You become enraptured by the delusions of the Outer World. Instead of listening to your Inner World and all its paintings, music, and flaws, you become entranced by the promises of perfection, and material things, and the works of others.
You become disenchanted with the Inner Creator, and start indulging in the Consumer. You become morbidly obese with Consumption. With things. With ideas and thoughts and concepts and work that are not yours.
And as you do, Creativity withers and dies inside of you.
She cries. She weeps. She mourns.
She believed in you before you ever did. You pay her back with dead dreams, dead potential, and dead loyalty. You should be disgusted with yourself, but you’re so hypnotized by the promises of Consumption that you don’t care. You start forgetting your reason to be human in the first place.
You start forgetting those moments as a child, when you wandered, and daydreamed, and wandered just to find yourself lost, and you were delighted to let your Mind play, and make, and forge, and build, build, build.
You left Creative Sovereignty and chose the Consumer’s Temple.
This might sound harsh, but it needs to be harsh. Harshness contains truth. Most people are too satisfied with being Consumers instead of Creators.
It’s your business if you want to waste your life and destroy your potential investing all of yourself into the dreams of others. But, it’s not a fulfilling way to live—for you, or for anyone.
But God, you will convince yourself that it is. You will bleed for it if you must. You will do everything in your power to make excuses for the life you’ve chosen. You’re frightened of the responsibility and suffering that comes with making meaningful work, and so you’ve chosen a path of safety and cheap dopamine in order to brainwash yourself into believing your lies.
You’re damn good at it, too.
These pretty lies you’ve crafted could convince anyone. In fact, they’ve convinced millions, if not billions.
I would be impressed if I didn’t find this so horrifying.
Most letters instruct you with false steps and stupid promises on how to “reclaim” sovereignty or start venturing into artistry without understanding the individual. I’m not going to do that.
The most important thing for you to know, is to be aware.
You have to be honest with where you are right now.
You have to be honest about Creativity and where she stands in your hierarchy of wants and needs and pursuits.
There’s a reason you’re unhappy.
It’s not a mystery.
Depression flows easiest for smart people who are creative—and find unbelievable joy in the act of creation—but struggle to take those on as a mantle when their life throws them into destruction. When stress mounts, when anxiety turns its vicious head, when sadness and grief and emotions overwhelm, it can be extraordinarily difficult to open the doors and let Creativity inside.
You are saddest when you lose touch with Creativity.
This is your greatest mistake.
It was also mine.
When I suffered with forces outside of my control, I locked my Creativity away in a prison. I did not divorce her, but I told her she needed to wait. I told her she needed to wait, because she was not allowed to live and work under the roof of my skull, when I had to allocate my energy towards surviving—towards making money that barely scraped the bottom of the fucking barrel.
I was crippled with unhappiness. Depressed beyond understanding. Detached to a point where my days were consumed in a nameless fog. I wandered without joy, for months. For years. While my projects and dreams gathered dust.
Creativity was screaming. She was breaking down her cage, even when I had tried to reach her again. I was writing my novel. I was building brands. I was trying to connect with the pieces of Creativity that called to me, and remember why I did everything I did. I was so trapped in this cycle of survival that I had completely forgotten what it meant to be myself, and make things for me.
I started listening to Creativity again. I started letting her unfold her wings. This was years ago, now, but I remember it so vividly; that moment when everything started to make sense again, when everything started to turn around, and I started feeling my chest open up in gratitude, in joy, in happiness.
Today, I refuse to go back. I refuse to ever let Creativity disappear. I refuse to be brainwashed by the lies of my sadness, my blankness, my dumbness. I refuse to let Creativity vanish in the folds of the unknown, the Mind, and its many activities that support survival and safety but do nothing for artful expression.
This is not just Creativity…
This is Creative Sovereignty.
I promise you, you will find happiness once you do the same.
You will be happier when you start creating for yourself again. You will be happier when you start rejecting what others build, and start finally building what matters to you. You will be happier when you let go of every idea these outside influences have, and you start investing in your own dreams. You will be happier when you shut out all of the noise, and you choose a path of making, building, and creating. You will be happier when
Life is short.
You are creative.
You know this.
Stop lying to yourself and start taking responsibility.
Let Creativity walk into you.
Become a Creative Sovereign.
If you don’t…
You will lose yourself, and you will never find your way back to where you were always meant to be.
- Taylor