Just finished ➡️ currently reading • • • Over the past few years, I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself and my creativity. While I’ve never hated what I’ve done, it’s been a lot more tormented than it should have been. Instead of listening to my characters and learning about them, I was focused on how I could get them to get me where I want to be in life in the fastest way possible. It crossed the line from visualization to strapping my worlds to a chair and threatening to push the button if they didn’t build themselves lickity split and the people who lived in them didn’t tell me their life stories in an easy-to-swallow pill. My most wildly unimagined “success” happened when I wrote nothing because of what it could gain me, but because writing it gave me enough. It’s no coincidence that trying to manipulate and direct my ideas made them bottleneck until they barely came out in a slow drip. This is about as peace, love, and rock n roll as I get. If bodies breakdown under the tremendous strain we put on them in attempts to manipulate them, minds and the ideas in them can, too. Thinking about this after finishing my January read reminded me of how I felt when I was an undergrad and wondering how I could have ever treated my body with anything other than gracious appreciation for what it is instead of what I’d like it to be. There’s nothing bad about wanting to feed your soul and stomach simultaneously. But it’s unfair to ask your creativity to help you without first trying to help yourself. Every new day and experience I gain allows me to give the multiple teams of people, friends, families, and lovers in my head something as they’ve given me something by making a cozy little home in my brain is more than enough. I don’t know how or when or even if I’ll ever be able to support myself off this, but I do know that at the end of it all, I haven’t been able to stop, and I won’t ever (despite multiple attempts at self-sabotage... lol). xx • • #elizbethgilbert #bigmagic #creativeliving #harukimurakami #norwegianwood #book #books #amreading #currentlyreading #readers #readerlife #readersofinstagram #readersoninstagram #purple #sunshine #eyes #peekaboo #goodeveningtowrite https://www.instagram.com/p/BtbmAHuDJ2w/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=16otzys16kvsv