A little unhinged, but still attached somehow?

I would like to say my frazzled and scattered mental state is due to the Holiday season or due to learning new routines as a family of 3, but if I am honest with myself I tend to exist in this zone most of the time. Not only do I exist, I feel like I have somehow managed to make some things work in this state. I know I can’t be the only one out there who feels the same at some point in life. Scrolling through various social media content of people who can express this feeling with a lot more humor than I can have confirmed my suspicion that I am in good company. In an effort to better understand myself, I took a minute to pour through my thoughts like a file cabinet and I came to a realization – I love to start things and I don’t know how to stop! If I am being really honest, I am not sure I want to stop. It excites me to chase the next big thing, develop a new item or way of doing something, or even just find the next song or music style that I want to investigate and binge to expand my Spotify playlist.

Now for the downside to this. When I said that I poured over my thoughts for this, I tried my best to really take the time and look at the whole situation and found where my shortfalls are. Starting things comes very easy to me, but maintaining things and pushing them through to the finish line has become my Achilles heel. That is not to say that crossing a finish line is void of giving a joyous hit of satisfaction and completeness, but for some reason the hit of serotonin isn’t the same from that stimulus. Like pie and cake both sitting on a table at a party, both are desserts, but you will probably prefer one over the other. The question I really contemplate around this subject is how do I setup ways to give the upkeep of things the same mental hit as kicking something off? Can that even happen? When something is fresh and new, there is the challenge of discovery and the thrill of invention. As it stands, upkeep is just that, keeping things going on the track they are on. We aren’t making a new wheel, but pushing the same wheel continually down the road so it doesn’t fall over. 

As sure as I know that I am not the only one going through this, I also know that I am inviting a flood of suggestions of how people have dealt with this in their own lives – I welcome this! Creativity has been one of the concepts that I have enjoyed honing in 2023 and I believe that this concept is one that lends itself to a creative solution. What is it about making a new wheel that differs from pushing a current one? To me, it seems like the excitement of something new is centered around one word, possibility. A blank canvas waiting to anything and everything by effort, whereas when you see a half-finished painting, there is usually some kind of understanding on what the finished result will be. Even if we aren’t sure about the full finished product, there are key elements that are usually in motion in something that is half-way done. The practical side of my brain tells me that this is the way it is, but thanks to 2023 creative focusing, I sense that maybe I’m looking through the wrong set of lenses. Until anything is finished, it has potential to be something new. Possibility, or better yet, the limitations of possibility are not defined by the art, but by the artist. 

So what does that mean practically speaking? I like this example of art on canvas so lets keep it as the focus. If I came across a canvas with a table full of paints and materials randomly with a sign that says “complete this” and I notice that there is a nicely drawn face on the canvas, the limitations are now set based on my creativity. Do I just see the elements and continue to add what I can to best create what I think the original intent is? Or do I completely restructure the canvas and design to open up the potential. The second part of that is what I strive to achieve with exercises in creativity. The initial print is now re-framed as a mirror of someone who wishes this what they look like. The canvas is moved into a new setting and light/shadows are cast in a way that conceals/highlights features to make it a completely new face. The canvas is added as a pixel into a picture comprised of thousands of canvases that ultimately make a larger image. These mental images I’m trying to convey to express my thoughts on how I want to approach the “wheels in motion” of 2024.

What are things that you consider a “wheel in motion” in your life that you could use a new perspective on? For me, one of the biggest things I can think of is house work. Such a mundane, monotonous list of tasks that will never be fully “done”. In the years to come, I want to look at a pile of laundry as a possibility. Who is to say that it can’t be? Cheers to a focus on positivity and possibility!