Although I’ve never dealt with writers block, I do occasionally feel uninterested in what I create or creating in general. Creators depression if you will. When each word to land on the page feels empty and foreign. As if it fails to convey the intended message or emotion. Like trying to read a page through fog. Clarity is missing.

It’s times like these where thoughts feel hazy. When it’s least obvious what’s missing from the work is when it’s the most frustrating. The satisfaction of finding a hundred problems each sentence comes with the knowledge that you can jump in and fix it all. This is more like trying to find the right needle hidden in a stack of identical needles. It hurts all the way through. It’s even worse when the reality that what’s missing may never be found settles in.

It’s been said God might dead. Maybe he’s just lost somewhere trying to find where the problem is. Unseen flaws he merely feels but can’t identify. He doesn’t want to start over. Yet, he keeps making changes hoping eventually whatever is lacking will simply stand out. And it never does.

But all broken things have a fix if looked at from the right angle. The preferred approach is jogging the memory on what art is to start with. On how the point of the art is for the artist to show a tangible representation of what happens inside their mind, heart and spirit. The purpose is to display one’s insides to whoever is watching. Once this comes back to memory, like writing a bike, it becomes clear what was wrong and doing what’s right becomes natural. It’s organic. It just flows.

The problem the creator faces most often is trying to give “the thing” shape before it’s made. But something that doesn’t yet exist can’t be shaped. Get rid of the energy in its most basic form and then approach the molding stage. The editing stage. The modification stage.

The lack of interest I felt was my own fault. I was trying to create something with inherent definition. Rather than letting the art speak for itself and tell me what it’s meant to be after I can stand back and watch it from a third person perspective. I remember now.