Coping mechanisms for the modern day creative - Part 1.
Good Morning. I say good morning and it is of course the afternoon, (as my mum would always love to point out) but i’m a creative, and as fellow creative’s would agree, it helps to put the morning at the start of your day, even if the start of your day is half way through the average persons…
I haven’t blogged for quite some time, why? Probably because the last one I did fell on deaf ears and it gave me a complex, or probably because I got a bit bogged down with life. But after meeting with some friends yesterday it got me to thinking (dangerous I know), and also this was far too long for an Instagram post…
We live at a time where being good enough isn’t good enough and perfect is the only goal worth striving for.
We set ourselves up for failure because realistically, perfection is an unattainable ideal that does not exist.
We filter, photoshop, nip & tuck our lives to manipulate strangers into thinking better of us, and somehow that effects our societal ranking.
We voluntarily consume poison every single day, some of us as soon as we wake up, telling us we are not achieving enough, we’re not attractive enough, we’re not cool enough. Didn’t we have all of this pressure at school? It’s interesting how we choose to invite it into our lives, into our homes and into our heads, now as adults.
As a creative, we tend to have no real routine, if you’ve managed to get one that works for you, I applaud you. This lack of structure can be great for some people, I for one, definitely thrive off of freedom, but if you’re anything like me, you might also find it’s actually quite daunting. Being the creator of your own days is wonderful. Discipline is key of course, it’s all too easy to spend hours staring into a screen hoping some work will come of it, only to find you’re in double figures of cat videos, or better yet, workout videos and haven’t even left your bed.
We are addicted to living vicariously through others. We stalk, compare and covet. The rise of gratitude journalling tells us all too well that we take for granted what we have, because we are so busy focussing on what others ‘appear’ to have. This leads us to have a disillusioned view of of life, that it is less than satisfactory, simply because it does not meet your expectations based on a life portrayed on a screen by hand selected ‘highlights’.
Having a career as a creative is quite an abstract concept. Our parents don’t really get it and most of us are still trying to figure it out. With career titles such as ‘social media influencer’ or ‘YouTuber’ becoming more and more tangible, this really is an exciting time to be alive for creative people. As marketing and advertising has evolved to reach us through social media platforms, our tactics as creatives for promotion and job seeking have also changed, meaning even if we wanted to ditch social media all together, we probably need to spend some time on it, just to stay in the loop. Create the demand for the supply and so on..
The problem we now face is that the boundary between work and social life becomes even more blurred. Our friends are often our colleagues as well. What problem does this pose? Well as quoted in Forbes Magazine ‘We Are Lonely.’ Instead of a network of like-minded people who are prepared to build each other up and create a stronger team, we have individuals who see others as a direct threat or competition rather than an accomplice to collaborative success.
We’ve forgotten how to connect with each other in a real life conversation. ‘Oh I saw from your post you’ve been doing this…’ ‘Oh you look busy, everything’s going well I see’. It’s gone from conversation starter to conversation killer. I’ve been at an event and spoken to someone i’ve hardly interacted with in person, but wanted to get to know more, aside from what I see on social media, and after they’d pointed out what posts they’d seen they completely froze from lack of conversational stimuli and made their excuses to return to the bar. We give away so much of our lives online that there’s less for people to find out about you when you meet. I was shocked, had we really socially stunted ourselves to such a degree that all that is left is getting drunk and taking selfies? We communicate so much through images now, it’s no wonder we’ve forgotten our words.
‘The second reason for millennial loneliness is the Internet makes it viral. It’s not a coincidence that loneliness began to surge two years after Apple launched its first commercial personal computer and five years before Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.’ - Forbes Magazine
‘The Internet temporarily enhances the social satisfaction and behavior of lonely people, who are more likely to go online when they feel isolated, depressed or anxious.’ - Forbes Magazine
‘One reason the Internet makes us lonely is we attempt to substitute real relationships with online relationships….Online social contacts are “not an effective alternative for offline social interactions.’ - Forbes Magazine
What’s more is our online connection is impacting our relationships.
“Our research found that partner phubbing led to cell phone-related conflict that ultimately led to lower levels of reported relationship satisfaction. This is serious because when we are unhappy in love, we look elsewhere for our needs for intimacy. This could lead us to look to others … to provide what we are not getting at home. But the negative ramifications of phubbing don’t stop there. Our research also found that those who are phubbed also report higher levels of stress and depression,” - Headspace.com
“If we want to feel closeness in a relationship … the assumption is that this is one of the most important people in the world to me,” says Friedland. “I want to feel safe and connected so that I can be open with some of my vulnerabilities, and I also feel that I have your full attention, so I can talk to you about things.” - Headspace.com
It’s all too easy to get ‘stuck in work’ and for creatives a lot of the time that means via a screen. Or to remain ‘on call’ for self-employed workers because a missed notification could be a missed opportunity, therefor missed income. While this is a difficult balance to master, it is a vital one.
Creatives are constantly at work, whether physically or mentally, we seldom take time off for fear of missed opportunity, which helps contribute to burn out and lack of meaningful social interaction. You see how the slippery slope of exhaustion, loneliness and depression can all so easily start?
Our team comprises mainly of ourselves, unless we’re really lucky to have management, PR etc, it’s all too easy to feel lost and burn out. We’re all guilty of pushing buttons to look productive when actually we’ve got no clue what we’re doing and we’re all just hoping for the best. Sometimes those buttons get us somewhere and we assume a direct correlation between our behaviour and the result. Yes hard work gets you somewhere, but sometimes you really were just in the right place at the right time.
Before we continue I’d like you to know a lot of these thoughts are obviously mine, but also backed up by some reading, if you’re interested here are some books I’d like to recommend.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life - Mark Manson
Selfie: How the West Became Self-Obsessed - Will Storr
So in summary, why am I writing this blog? My opinion is just that, my opinion, it is not fact, and everyone has their own experience of this industry/career path and how they ‘cope’ with it. This blog is titled ‘Coping mechanisms for the modern day creative’ because I’d love to spark a conversation that brings creatives together as some kind of support network. We’re losing too many young, creative people to suicide. "After they create this art, they still feel a bit lost, then obviously there's a limit to how much this art will help them." - The Insider
And with the rise of loneliness amongst people of our generation, I’d like to open up a platform for people to speak freely and connect with other creatives. There’s so many aspects of this job that aren’t posted about online such as failure, coping with rejection, maintaining healthy romantic relationships , insomnia, stress and anxiety and keeping a healthy routine that promotes positive mental health. Share your tips, share your troubles, a problem shared is a problem halved.
It’s not all glamour and gain, but I know we like to advertise the good parts more than the not so good parts. The issue with this is that it portrays an unrealistic picture of what’s it’s like to be a creative and work in a creative industry. When in conversation with friends, who ask ‘so how’s it going’, the last thing people want to hear is, ‘not great actually, i’ve not got much on and i’m feeling a bit rubbish.’ There’s a stigma attached that if you’re not busy, you’re no good and that just isn’t true. I’m witness to some incredibly talented people not getting the recognition they deserve, despite their best entrepreneurial efforts.
When we do hit the highs, it’s fantastic, and I admit that I definitely enjoy posting about those things. But it’s not the story for a lot of the time, we show the mountain peak, but not the climb. Struggle is ugly. WRONG. Struggle is fucking necessary. And you’re not alone in going through that. Would it be so wrong to show a little more transparency in the process. Some of us may not have thousands of followers, but our posts still have the ability to influence. We have a direct line to pretty much anyone in the world that has access to the internet, we are responsible for what they see. If you can inspire, support and encourage, would it harm you so much to do so.
While strength is in the beauty of individualism, because no one does you quite like you, strength is also in collaboration. No one can do everything by themselves, you’re going to have weaknesses, it’s human, why not work to your strengths and create something beautiful with other people (I said strength a lot but you get the point).
Let’s bridge the gap that our not so social ‘social media’ is creating by helping each other out, making time for people in the real world and make an effort to form meaningful relationships that involve you looking a person in their actual eyes. I know we’ve become incredibly anti-social, but it’s actually unnatural for humans to behave this way. By keeping us anti-social and dissatisfied, we are more likely to buy into the adverts that are tailored and targeted at us, we are more likely to buy into the industries that profit from our misery. You are a product, your information is sold and used against you, your insecurities are exploited, we sign up to social media platforms voluntarily, because the prospect of being digitally disconnected from people sparks anxiety. Children are growing up not being able to distinguish between different species of birds. We have lost skills such as reading the natural world. We are experiencing higher levels of anxiety and depression, we exercise indoors on machines like hamsters on a wheel. We hand over our freedom. We are not in control.
Anyway, this is just part one and it’s getting carried away into a different topic now so I’ll wrap it up (puts soap box away).
Basically, those of you who are struggling, you’re not alone and if you want to talk about it, I’m hoping this blog can provide a good starting point.
Links referenced:
Here are some helpful contacts:
MIND: 0300 304 7000
Help for Musicians:
0808 802 8008
Samaritans:
116 123
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