Time Jackers & Time Thieves
It’s getting away from you, it’s holding you up, it’s running out, it’s moving too fast, it’s moving too slow. Time, any way you face it it is not on your side. We battle against time every moment we are on this spinning rock. Some try to stop it, some try control it with auto alerts and calendar schedules or some just wallow in old stale time crumbs of nostalgia ignoring the present because maybe the present is too painful, scary, boring or just not what we expected. Time is an unforgiving foe, a terrifying carnival ride of life that takes all of our tickets at some point when time’s up.
It is a tricky one to navigate but something we have to. Sometimes I struggle with losing time if I throw myself into a body of work and it blips flashes and zooms by leaving me a bit freaked out over the fast forward in my time line. Other times I struggle with procrastination and losing time by not doing anything and as slow a drag as it can feel in an instant the realization of all the wasted time lost, again leaves me freaked out.
Mostly when approaching my projects I just do my best to put time out of my head and just focus all my attention on ideas I want to see come to life. I try to wrangle any stray feelings about spending too long or too short and just let the moment of creation happen.
I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.
Alan W. Watts
This won’t be an episode about time management I swear that is not my intention. It is more about the feelings of anxiety that time can have on our mental states and how this affects our creative process. I feel like I am in a constant battle to balance my time between work and home and on and on. Sure there are tricks or tools we all use to help us better navigate our waking lives but still that under lying feeling creeps in and sometimes it can be harmful to a creative project. Rushed along finished too soon or lingering too long and over done. This tight rope walk to get the things done we want to do is no easy challenge. It takes dedication, inner drive, focus and just passion. That strong belief in yourself certainly helps fight the ticking time beast. Quieting the second hands snaps as you get your idea out into this world.
Nostalgia is a sneaky time jacker that can creep in at down times and steal more than we would like it to. Wallowing in past memories down a memory hole time loop, nostalgia is a life suppressant that keeps us from being present. I am not at all against nostalgia as it can be a welcome comfort at times. I just feel like I need to be aware of it’s presence and the hold it can have over me and not let it carry me away down some memory hole that I will have to climb out of leaving me feeling more exhausted and full of brain fog than when I embarked on the memory dive.
“We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection. Something closed must retain our memories, while leaving them their original value as images. Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories, we add to our story of dreams; we are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost.”
Nostalgia can inform our work however and can be a welcome guest as long as it understands it’s place and why it’s there. Memories inform many of my works and I lean on nostalgia at times certainly but I try to maintain an awareness of why I am looking back there is a purpose for greater understanding or unfolding of ones self to fully express an idea. It is a balancing act of past and present pulling our heart in different directions without falling down a memory hole.
Future farmers are always watering the garden of tomorrow and not embracing the day. Planning too much can also hurt our creative projects as we never actually begin them instead we spend our time pondering their future existence forgetting to even plant the seed to grow as we are too busy planning. Scheduling too many meetings but never getting actual work done. I think for myself this is a form of procrastination a way to think about the work without actually doing any. It tricks me into believing I am making progress when in fact I have not touched the actual creative endeavor I am waxing poetic over. The way I solve this is just by going into my studio and picking up a brush or pencil and just getting to work.
The best way to predict your future is to create it. - Abraham Lincoln
Do you know that feeling when you read a really wonderful book and it’s over and you are sad you get to no longer spend time with it. It’s like we are mourning the end of this journey. I feel that way when I get lost in my own creative journeys - when I am in love with a painting and get lost in it I also loose time and when I come toward the end of that journey I realize 2 things - one I have realized an idea and feel elated then two I realize what time it is and so much time passed while I was lost in this world it can make me feel anxious that I was absent from one reality. I manage this anxiety and keep making stuff…. but time really can freak me out.
Too many ideas and not enough time. Crippled by lack of time and what should I focus on. I feel as a visual person I actually have too many ideas showing themselves to me in my notebooks which ones do I choose to nurture it’s overwhelming and difficult to choose at times. I need to determine where my real interests are what am I most passionate about and move forward with that one. Dedication means time invested. We have to allow ourselves time to investigate ideas to discover new ideas and connections and fully bring an idea to life. Choose wisely so you don’t feel like you wasted time. And if you do waste some time guess what? We all do time to time. Time heals all wounds they say but time also gets aways from us keeping us from the things that matter. Time can be a beast and not the easiest to wrangle.
Press pause. Stop look around assess your situation. Things can go fast and get way out of control and lost. We can try to slow down even if we do lose actual time doing this sorting out of all personal issues and cleaning out mental clutter sometimes can do the trick to readjust and restart. I think about new years eve… my least favorite holiday as it’s just a reminder of the passing of time. But on this “holiday” I tend to spend it looking back, clearing paths, pulling mental weeds and just give myself a tune up in my brain and also in my physical space to help me move with more agility against the clock.
Online Time Sucks:
In this age of social media and filter bubbles it often feels like it’s so much easier to fall off the face of a map and get lost then make your mark on one. So I say don’t waste too much time worrying over this algorithmic beast. It’s an unknown time suck. Zero likes, zero fucks given. Be grateful for the ones who follow your story but also just keep in the back of your mind if your online presence feels near a void we are all bombarded with information and not necessarily the information we would prefer to see in our newsfeeds. Don’t let this quiet your voice from sharing. Instead share what feels right but don’t get sucked into the addictive never-ending scrolling. Don’t swipe your life away. Sweep these social apps into a neat pile and keep the ones that give you value. Shed the ones that provide no emotional nutrients.
Social media can be a whole other topic to discuss it’s relationship to the creative process in another episode for sure. But for now I will leave this topic by saying often times it can be a time suck which we all have to sort for ourselves, to see where the value lies and keep that around and delete hide and unfriend all the time wasters.
How did it get so late so soon? -Dr Seuss
Well this podcast has run out of time on this somewhat brief mediation on time and creativity. Until next time Im Angie Dream yourselves awake.
No comments:
Post a Comment