I blame the adults.
No, not really. Blame keeps us stuck.
But it’s good sometimes to look back and ideantify where we lost touch with unadalterated creativity innate within little new people.
When we were kids, the adults around many of us weren’t equipped to nurture creativity.
In their desire to set us up for more “realistic success”, they often stripped away our innate spontaneity and pride required to fulfill creative and unconventional dreams.
Some examples of this:
An artist grandmother, while creating the space to paint, sing, sew, play, and be curious, is hyper-critical of her grandchild’s drawing and writing.
A mother, while verbally supportive of the arts, can’t handle her kid’s need to perform songs or skits. She frustratedly asks him to stop, saying he is “just trying to be cool,” or to get attention.
A father asks his daughter wanted she wants to be when she grows up. She says she wants to be a singer, and sings “A Whole New World” from Aladdin for him. He tells her the song is nice but it is unlikely that she will become famous and might want to consider another path.
Dont quit your day job, kid.
I think many of us knew what we wanted to be when we grew up, but well-meaning adults weakend our certainty in either our abilities or the viability of our vision.
They didn’t understand that the creative spark is enduring yet fragile.
The components of its environment will either stoke it, stifle it, or snuff it out entirely.
I believe the more we provide kindling for this inner spark, the easier it will be to tap a lasting creative flash: our light will touch everyone and everything around us.
We begin to trust in the safety of our own forms of expression, and the gift that it can be to others. How it can illuminate a dark night, and give shape to previously unseen things.
Here I am, age 37, relearning how to be uninhibited, and unlearning shame around wanting to be seen.
I have no other choice. Repressing my innate curiosity, creativity, idiosyncrasies, and humor, is, at its best, missing out on a good time, and at its worst, a life not fully lived.
(In truth, I believe this repression can contribute to things like depression, ADHD and executive dysfunction, but a story for another day…)
For those of us meant to walk the path of the creative human being, trying to meet the expectations of the world will only drain the color from our rosy cheeks, and everywhere else over time.
Being blessed enough to be a parent, I will do my best to remember to nurture this spark within my little dude. It may be his lifeline in hard times, and his greatest contribution to the world.
Everything has a cost. I choose the uncertainty of the creative pathless woods and probable rejection of those who will not understand me; I choose this rather than compromise my own being.
I hope you’ll do the same.
