What an awkward experience taught me about creativity
On a good day, I really hope that I am going to be a famous writer one day.
On a bad day, I remember what happened the other night.
A good friend of mine was celebrating his birthday with a late-night gathering in the neighbourhood park. Lots of people hanging on one hip around lamp posts, thumbs in belt loops, glass beer bottles in hands, an offensively loud speaker on the ground—that sort of vibe.
I am an introvert and I genuinely find big gatherings (anything with more than two people around) a bit hard to navigate. I feel awkward, and that isn’t even because of responding ‘Thank you’ to somebody’s goodbye, or all the patchy eye gaze and swallowed words, or the fact that I don’t wear my contact lenses. It’s more that I find it difficult to just ‘be myself’ and to answer all the questions served around with the beer: What’s up? How’ve you been? What’s new with you?
I feel a bit like I imagine Pippi Longstocking did when she was given a single sheet of paper to draw her horse. The answer is just too wide and too real for the designated time and space.
And yet, I try. I try to present myself, my life, the state of affairs in a concise, yet accurate, way without losing the listener’s attention. It usually ends up being neither concise nor accurate. I give the whole megillah about how nice it is to have all this free time and forget to mention it’s because I got fired. And I realise this with biting annoyance, post-factum as all the perfect replies that I could have given, but didn’t pick at my self-image and haunt me in the small hours of the morning.
But back to the other night, as it was somewhat of a precedent in that context.
I half-randomly—half because they were the closest to me—made my way to three guys standing in the middle of the park. It was as if there was a chalk-outlined rectangle on the ground with their names on it. I knew one of them, and we said our hellos. As I approached, it became clear that they were playing a game. Not hopscotch or ring of fire, though when I learned what it was I surely did feel as though I was in a literal ring of fire, scalding my sense of self. In this game, devised by slightly inebriated brains on a hot August evening, we were each given a word and had to come up with a sentence that sounded nice. Whether this was my biggest dream or the greatest nightmare I couldn’t tell. You see, as a writer, you’re meant to dig that stuff. I immediately pictured Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Wallace standing next to us in a circle of their own and Hemingway saying ‘boats’ and Fitzgerald blurting back: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
If I had any talent, here was my chance to prove it. And before I knew it, the words started falling like dominoes and the clock was ticking. Freedom, bird, rock’n’roll. Round after round I kept losing, feeling more and more like an imposter. “If only I could have a pen and a paper and some uninterrupted time I could show them,” a voice inside tried to soothe me.
And while the event passed and blurred with other insignificant activities in my episodic memory, the question stayed with me: Why is it so much easier for me to write good sentences on paper than it is to say them at the spur of the moment?
And I might be thinking this to negate feelings of inadequacy, but I think there are a couple of valid reasons. First, I think it is because creativity can only flourish when it is not afraid of being judged. Second, it’s because creativity needs the privacy to change clothes many times before it calls out ‘I am ready’ and is seen. And last but not least, it’s because creativity hates to be used as a means to impress people. It would always rather be a channel of authenticity.
To Reality,
With Love,
N.
