You’re never too old or young to find a passion.
Whatever it is, it’s always going to be waiting for you to find it. Sure, you need to put in a little leg work in order to find what that passion is, but once you do you’re going to find this existence that much better. Playing an instrument, writing, painting, drawing, archery, long distance running, toy collecting,…I don’t know what your flavor will be, but it’s there for the taking.
I had a very meaningful talk(text) with my 19-year old yesterday about this. She’s moved out and on her own, working second shift. So she’s kind of fallen into a rut in that she stays up too late, sleeps too late, and then has time only to get around and then go back to work. A job she’s not crazy about, mind you. It’s a “job” job. Not a career. I mean, she’s only 19. She doesn’t understand that she’s got time to fart around(thanks Mr. Vonnegut) a bit and figure it all out. But she sent me a text telling me she was driving home from work and was thinking about wanting to find a hobby. She felt she didn’t have that “thing” to fill time with that offers some kind of creativity.
Anyways, she said she had a Spotify playlist playing as she was driving home and thinking about not having something of her own when one of my songs came on. She said hearing me sort of inspired her. Not gonna lie, that hit me pretty hard at 5am yesterday. That she heard an old song of dad’s and it inspired her…and that she has one of my songs on a playlist? Wow. My year has been made.
I responded to her with lots of fatherly advice, but one thing I told her was that I felt that finding a creative outlet is the most important things I think we can do as humans. It’s the closest we come to a kind of lucid transcendence. A kind of elevated living when our minds our occupied with nothing more than the act of creativity.
I think it’s almost like going back in time to being a little kid and coloring in a coloring book. Nothing is rolling and toiling in our brains in that moment. It’s pure concentration in this one lyrical act. Tapping into our imagination when it’s the brightest and at its peak. As an adult our minds are clogged with worry, anxiety; sidelined by responsibility, keeping up with the Joneses, and the twister of misinformation and unsolicited opinions found in social media. All of our bandwidth taken up by garbage. Making things goes into the old hard drive and defragments all that useless crap, opening the head and heart to creation.
I told her this more or less.
I also told her that she’s far more creative and imaginative than she gives herself credit for. She never watched movies and shows with us as a family once she was a certain age. Maybe 10 or 11. She was always in her room recording dance videos, making little movies, and listening to music. Her mind was always on the go and always burning the midnight oil, letting her imagination fly. Her favorite toys as a kid were her cash register and her lap table. The cash register was for selling goods and services to the people that lived in her self-created world, while the lap table was used for drawing. The table had it’s own LED lamp on it as well. She loved drawing as a kid and in school. I’ve still got quite a bit of her artwork at home. One is even hanging in our living room. I find it absolutely lovely.
All of this to say is that I just think she lost sight of that creativity and imagination. Somewhere from high school to now she found working and friends to fill her time. Now that she’s grown up and friends have scattered for their own life’s adventures, she’s struggling to know what to do with that time. She felt that everyone in the house had their creative thing except her. I told her that she’s the most creative out of all of us, and I meant it. They weren’t fatherly words to make her feel better. Her mind and imagination has always been far more lit up than any of us. I told her she just needs to tap into it and find what excites her. Art again? Maybe strum a guitar? She’s a lover of music. Always has been. Hence the playlist with ol’ pops on it.
She’s been inspired to pursue something else now, which I’m excited for her. She’s coming over Sunday to fill us in. We’ll help her out however we can. She’s going to talk to her therapist about it as well this week. I think she’ll figure it out. In fact, I know she will.
So if you’re feeling kind of heavy and that you’re wasting time on the hum drum of the work/eat/sleep repeat cycle, then fill some time with some creativity. Hell, even if it’s just getting lost in a book, record, videogame, or filling the time getting some miles in with a walk just get lost out of your head a bit. You don’t need to be creating a Picasso or the next Blonde On Blonde or writing the great American novel. Just work some muscles that don’t require scrolling thru gobs of worthless zeros and ones feeds on some junk platform. Step away from opinions tirades and step into a world of your own making; be it words, melodies, or colors.
Grab a coloring book and see what happens.
Complex Distractions 