"Creation Myth"

I cannot help but feel the need to be creative. It's actually more of a desire or dream than anything else. People paint, sculpt, photograph, layout, build, write, or compose, I unfortunately feel as though I cannot do any of these things. When it comes to painting, sculpting, or composing I simply cannot do it. I have tried my hand painting (if 4th grade art time counts) and I just don't have the skills (or eyes) necessary to create pieces where people “ooo and ahhh.” If I tried seriously painting it would come out with red grass, lavender sky, brown leaves, and dark purple water-- something I am sure would cause the critic with the strongest of stomach lining to lose their lunch. I can actually draw, provided there is no living thing in my work. I can do straight lines, landscapes, and man-made objects, but how many times can you draw a skyline before thinking 'this guy needs to branch out?' Composing is almost completely out of the question, I don't like curb myself or my abilities, but it would take too much time to learn and it honestly should be a skill I started when I was five.

I think I would have my best chance at photography or writing, after all that's what I am doing here, writing. I am sure you all agree that I am not the best of writers and most certainly not the wittiest, silliest or creative-ist. I dabble in poetry every now and then, but it's nothing special, nor anything you will ever see as I am way too embarrassed to let it see the light of day (I only wax poetry at night.) Photography is a wonderful hobby of mine. I enjoy capturing moments and images that I want to remember forever. As a matter of fact some of my pictures are wonderful, but, to some, photography is their “thing”. I don't want to impede or cheapen their “thing” by claiming it is my thing as well. Nothing makes you lose interest in something when you realize someone else is better at it than you.

I know it's silly and superficial, but maybe I cannot find a defining creative outlet because I am not the best at any of these things. I know it's not the point of artistic ventures, as a matter of fact I am probably cheapening art by adding a competitive twist to it, sorry. There is a light at the end of this very dark tunnel of insecurities (look--it's kind of poetic, metaphors!) I love appreciating art. Give me a painting and I will be one of the first to discuss it or hag it up. Play me music and I will be first to copy it to iTunes. Write a poem and I will gladly be the first to read it and snap my beatnik fingers. Take a photograph and I will be first to make it my desktop picture. Cook something and I will be first to consume it (provided there isn't any meat). I think you get the picture. I may not be the best at creating art, but I will try to be the best at appreciating it.

In the meantime I will sit here, listen to music, write my blogs, and look at my iPhoto library for the picture I enjoyed taking the most. Keep creating, there is at least one person here to appreciate it.

To a Blogger

We all make plans. Some more than others, but every person does it. Whether it's what to eat, where we're going, or what we want for the rest of our lives, we all do it. The unfortunate downfall to our inability to be 100% spontaneous is we're constantly at risk for failure. The plans we make are vulnerable to variables we do not even consider nor can we control. Some plan on staying in a certain place for an extended period of time then an event unexpected happens and even the best, most thought out plans fail.

I am not trying to qualify Robert Burns' line from “To a Mouse” ( “the best laid schemes o' mice an' men, gang aft agley”) I am letting my life's experiences do the typing. I can plan to graduate college and pursue a job after the fact, perhaps get married somewhere down the road and have a family. Unfortunately, events in life can make that perfect plan of graduating, getting married, and holding a career can skew it so far from ever being carried out the way we hoped. They are so vulnerable to the unplanned events that when our plans do fail we feel as failures. We can do a few things to counter-act this, we can understand that if we make plans that we will fail at them from the get-go, this is a very skeptical way of dealing with it, but it works. However I think the best way of dealing with it is to stop planning the minute and and only plan on the bigger milestones and not to date them. I may now plan on graduating from college within four years, but something may happen that prevents me from doing that, instead I should plan on graduating from college. Turn plans into goals.

I discussed the weighty plans, the plans that effect life's direction. There are other types of plans that are in need of addressing. The small plans we make daily, that also, are pretty much doomed to failure. My goal the other day was to make myself a sandwich, however the cheese I wanted on it was not available. I planned on having that cheese, but life kicked my ass again and disallowed me from having my sandwich the way I planned. My sister planned on taking a trip to Anaheim with a friend Thursday night, but circumstances (another car rubbing paint with theirs) prevented their plans from being completed in the ideal way. They went to Anaheim a day later, did they fail at their plans? Hell yeah they did. One could argue since they didn't make it to Anaheim on Thursday they automatically failed. Or maybe they didn't since they made it to Anaheim eventually. The point of this was to show that even the best laid plans can go awry. (I thought I planned on not qualifying that... fuck)

We will make plans and they will need to be changed, I think the best we can do is try to make them as dynamic as possible. Don't dwell on the failures, celebrate the successes and enjoy the company.