It has been a while since I have done a rant on my blog, and I thought it was due, especially considering that I have felt really passionate about this topic lately, and that topic is creative living. I apologize if this rant is a little all over the place, but I felt a spike of inspiration and just wrote without planning. Please leave any comments or opinions down below because I would love to hear all of your views on creative living!

Creative living is like falling into a river and letting the water carry you; watching as it leads you towards a sea of unknown. Along the way there are forks in the stream, and once and a while, the water will shift you into a completely new direction. It is a little scary at first, the journey will be filled with uncertainty and hesitation as the roaring water carries you away from your initial destination. You fight it at first, treading against it until your muscles ache, but eventually you give yourself up to the push of the water and it continues to carry you away. After a while though, the water calms down, and instead of fighting against it, you let it carry you to this new place. There are still twinges of hesitation and uncertainty, but they are swallowed by a new feeling; a warm, tingly feeling in your stomach. Curiosity. And that is what you are agreeing to when you travel down the path of creativity.

Creative living is often looked down upon because of its journey, and its usual end result. While the end result of pursuing creativity may not be mounds of money and a big, fancy house, it is usually happiness and fulfillment because creating something that you feel so passionately about will always be worth it in the end…whether the world pays you for it or not. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be nice to be generously rewarded for pursuing creativity if it is what you really wanted, but there is more to life than riches. Besides, being rich doesn’t guarantee happiness. However, creating does.

What amazes me, is that young people are so often steered towards accessing their creativity in school by having various options of art and music and theater classes to choose from. Yet once you leave high school, creativity is just seen as a hobby. However, labeling your creativity as just a hobby is fine, because you may be more interested in other subjects, but for those who see their creativity as more than a hobby, but a way of life, it is frustrating. Once you descend into post secondary school, there are a lot more options to join classes and clubs on creativity, but if you say you are going to be majoring in art or theater or writing, you will ultimately be faced with the question: well what do you plan to do with that? What stable job could you even get with a degree in art? Well there are a lot actually. They just might not pay as much as a doctor, or a lawyer. When I say I want to pursue writing, that doesn’t automatically mean all I want to do is write a novel. Besides, I know the risks and outcomes that come with wanting that, and only wanting that. Even though I may look it, I am more than a small child with stars in my eyes and a dream that is slightly out of reach. Since I know what a life of creativity means, it means I am open to the possibilities of non-fiction, creative non-fiction and technical writing…really the list goes on and on. The point is, I know it won’t be the easiest career but that’s okay. Its my dream.

We have to remember that every job is hard, and requires you to work for it. Creativity just happens to be a bit more of a bumpy journey; especially if you go into it with the mindset that you are going to become a world famous artist or an author whose first book is going to sell millions of copies and be turned into a movie…that most likely won’t happen, at least not right away. But if you keep practicing and exercising your creativity, I see no reason why you can’t pursue it as a lifestyle and at least be semi successful, whether that means you make some money off of your art or you just have a blast doing it. Creativity only asks three things of you in return, and those are to never give up, to ignore the negativity of what others say, and to be flexible to whatever pathway of unpredictable and wondrous adventures it leads you down.

That is all for today and I really hope you enjoyed! Don’t forget to check out my last blog post: Reading/Writing Update 🙂