I must have some sort of creative disorder, and it’s only getting worse as I get older. I find that lately, it is at it’s full boil, and I have been taking on more projects than I could ever possibly follow through to completion. I just have all of these ideas in my head, and I throw myself full force into so many of them at once, that I find myself ridden with anxiety and stress of my own making. I end up dropping things and picking new things up so frequently that nothing can move ahead. In order to fixate on the creative-whim-of-the-moment, I end up dropping all of the other projects that I’ve worked so hard to build up. I want to channel all of my passion into one outlet, but I have always found it very difficult to do this. As a result, I have never really been able to stick with something long enough to develop it into a permanent fixture in my life. I want to do everything, but I am only one person. I am perpetually possessed by a bunch of different muses who all want to do different things, and it’s impossible to tell them no. It’s always been this way, except that now there are more of them.
For the past few months, I have completely abandoned my self portrait work. This makes me mad, because it was such a passion of mine, and I was really starting to get the work appreciated and accepted into and by some really wonderful situations. But when I turn my energy and passion away from something, it ends immediately. There have been few opportunities and acknowledgments of my work lately, because I turned of the switch. I stopped putting energy on it and it ended. I’ve totally forgotten about it. I want to go back and turn the switch on again, but there are too many other inspirations pulling me in other directions.
Last week, I was completely obsessed with craft-related projects, and was particularly stuck on making Scrabble tile pendants. I must have made 200 or more of them. I thought it was something I would continue to do, but now it is completely out of my system and I have no desire to make any more. Thank God for Etsy, where I will just keep them listed for 6 months or so and just hope that at least half of them sell (hell, if I can sell 20 I’ll be happy). Now, I am hung up on making these ghostly images out of sea glass, and I have been making these day and night since Friday. On top of this, I am trying to learn to wire wrap jewelry, and I want to make theatrical masks out of paper mache. I also am trying to compile a small book of poetry. Not to mention, I find something nearly every day that I want to make, learn, or start. I need to STOP. I have terrible sleeping issues because of all of this. Lately, I have been sleeping about 2 hours a day, and often I will go 24 hours or more without sleep. Since Sunday, I have been a total craft zombie…even though I have been suffering the flu.
Obviously I have some weird obsessive creative/art karma. However, thinking back I realize that this sort of thing also runs in my family. My grandfather was an insomniac because of his inspirations, and I remember that he would often stay up for days on end composing and recording music and writing stories. Sometimes he would record an entire album in one night. He was also fond of inventing things, and this also contributed to many of his creativity-induced insomniatic sprees.
I feel like maybe I should just drop everything and force myself back into conceptual photography mode. Or at least limit myself to the photography and one other thing….like the sea glass project, for example. Oh, then there’s the faux desserts. I might stick with them too, just because they are a good niche and can be developed for more income. I’ve just realized that I’m spinning out of control and getting unreasonable. I cannot possibly do all of the things I am compulsively pulled to do and keep my sanity in order. Lately, I just do not feel big enough to house the impulses and inspirations that bombard me. I know that I am swimming through an illusion (temporal existence), and the water around me sometimes looks so beautiful I can drown trying to taste it thoroughly. I cannot possibly learn, do, or create every single thing that I feel passionate about.
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