I wrote this essay as part of a thirty-day writing challenge. There are no recommendations, but I hope you enjoy these thoughts.
I also recorded an audio version if you’d prefer to listen. It should be available at the top of the page.
I had breakfast with a friend recently and he told me that his parents, post-retirement, are spending their time more creatively. His mom was always crafty but is spending more time on art projects. His dad dabbled in music when he was younger but has begun to take it more seriously. He's working with a producer and recorded a few songs that are "actually pretty good (and lyrically explore some topics he wasn't sure he was ready to hear his Dad discuss... ha!). He finally has the time to do the thing. Some people aren't so lucky.
Another friend has been getting closer to her dad lately. She’s been so happy to see him finding the joy in life again, after what seemed like many years of numbness. He's traveling more and following his curiosity in unobstructed ways. They're having conversations they never could. I'm not sure she used the words, but what I heard was that he is slowly becoming himself again. That's a crazy thought: that one could spend years or decades far away from himself. Of course, that's probably more common than not.
It prompted me to wonder if--or why--many people spend years resisting who they are. Another friend spent a chunk of his youth performing music before becoming a more "serious" person. He didn't drop making music, but performance was much more rare. Lately, he's returned to performing. It's almost like he stretched the rubber band out only for it to sling him back to the center, doing something he can't help but do. Hitting the tennis ball.
Two of these three stories are about older people in retirement who now have the time, money, or lack of obligations (probably: children) to return to doing what they love. Were they right to neglect those parts of themselves for so long? They were surely unselfish. There are also plenty of people who put off growing up in search of something, only to realize they weren't even looking for the right thing. Or that life rewards unselfishness and discipline just as much as it can reward being in touch with yourself and your passions, whatever that means.
How do we balance responsibility and growth with listening to and acting on the parts of ourselves that feel the most true? How do we know which things we must hold onto and which are simply luxuries of a more youthful or selfish time? Or to consider revisiting when life isn't so demanding? I don't think any of us would recommend hedonistically pursuing one's passions (creative or otherwise) at the expense of others, family, or serving other people.
This tension is one of the reasons I've deliberated longer than expected about what to do next professionally. It feels like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, with the rare lack of constraints and freedom of choice more associated with a 20-year-old, combined with the perspective of someone who's tried a few more things and felt some of the frustration of feeling distant from myself. What a privilege!
Yet I'm a bit paralyzed by the risk of choosing wrong or getting lost or obligated or caught up in whatever it is people get caught up in, and ending up a person who doesn't even remember the things that lit me up when I was twenty (or thirty). Then again, it’s worth asking: how good am I at even seeing those things now?
I do think there's truth in the idea that we are who we are. People can grow and change and become all kinds of things, and yet somewhere, deep inside, there's that kernel of them that was always there.
It's cliché, and I promise not to directly quote Rick Rubin, but it does seem that when it comes to creativity, those who are most fulfilled are doing it for themselves. I have some yearning in me to create things, but candidly, I think I'm much more in love with the feeling of putting things into the world than the act of making itself.
These feel contradictory but might not need to be. My friend L says that writing is not done until it is read. Art is not complete until it is received. Art without an audience is just meditation. Make no mistake—it should be as much for you as it is for them; it should emerge out of your taste. Creating art is yelling out into the void, this is what I’m going through— does anyone agree? Whether or not anyone agrees is inconsequential. The question is how to put things into the world without letting external feedback loops, motivations, and demands shape you so much you lose track of why you’re creating in the first place--or stop altogether.
Creativity is but one part of authenticity, of course, even if it can be a type of backbone. There are more abstract ways of hanging onto the things that make us, us. Speaking for myself, I think it's most important that I hold onto some of the following:
an admiration for ideas, for picking them up, taking them apart, and putting them back together. For yes-and'ing them.
a connection to stories and the people who tell them
a love for meeting people early on in a journey and giving them a nudge or a bit of help, even if only emotionally
an appetite for big questions, especially the unanswerable ones
a positive-sum worldview
an optimistic curiosity; a disposition that the kids will be alright
a joy in finding and talking to people about the things that light them up
an admiration and curiosity about design and products and the ways they can be intuitive, inviting, and agency-inducing. for how they can make people more creative and connected.
a love for sharing: for overflowing with energy about a person, thing, idea, or otherwise and offering it to the people I care about. maybe even to the whole world.
It's funny: while doing the exercise above, I stumbled upon a note from April 2023. In a discussion with my friend G in a tea shop in Ginza, Tokyo, I took an impromptu stab at a personal mission statement: to help people be true to themselves.
I'd never articulated anything like that before and frankly forgot about it. Maybe that's not such a bad mission.
Thank you for reading and for making my writing whole.
Jackson
This was great. Thanks Jackson.