The pandemic was a pretty isolating period of time. For whatever reason, maybe as a self-defense mechanism, it ended up being an amazing time for being creative and making stuff. I can't remember any other time in my adult life where I did more creative work. I wrote code every week of 2020, I did a radio show, I built MLocker, I watched Masterclass... so much making. It was deeply satisfying.
In the last year, I'm not making much of anything. I've generally given myself room to be OK with this, because you do have to "feel it" to do creative things. I'll never understand how writers that need to make a living can do it, because if they're not feeling it, they're not making a living. But for me, doing that stuff is deeply satisfying. I mean, to this day, I kind of get giddy to use MLocker, which I use quite literally every single day.
Why am I not feeling inspired or driven to be creative? I don't think that it's any one thing, but certainly the cognitive load of life in general likely has something to do with it. I do feel like I'm getting better with this, if for no other reason that I feel forced to roll with the volume of stuff more effectively. I wonder if something is changing in my brain to make the ADHD worse, too. I am extra aware of my thought spirals, and the never-ending noise in my head. There's an energy cost there. I also wondered if maybe the depression I was feeling three years ago was no longer being treated well by the bupropion, but if anything, feelings good and bad are far more intense, not dull. I'm sure not editing my short doc, and the feelings of regret there, don't help.
I do know that some of my concern is rooted in the fact that I put a lot of my identity in the fact that I can and do make stuff. For the last five years or so, I've been trying to figure out what my identity is, though fortunately this hasn't resulted in me joining any cults and worshiping an orange idol. This isn't performative, and I'm not interested in crafting a persona. This is for me.
My instinct is that the vibes will return, it just feels like a lot of time has passed without them.
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