creativity keeps me sane.
i prioritize it as much as possible — writing, sketching, collaging, photographing are familiar pastures. but for a good chunk of the year, i've hardly grazed them.
starving.
most of the year i was in a weird creative block — a fairly depressing one. but after my tortured artist tantrum, i decided to reframe this curse into a positive. i wrote about it, and while i believe a lot of what i wrote — there are no creative blocks, just incubation — i was missing something critical: perspective.
creativity is unexpected yet omnipresent.
over the last few months i’ve picked up new hobbies. or, i should say, old hobbies that, in “growing up,” i grew apart from.
early this year, i went to my local bike shop, picked up a new bike, and, a couple days later, i was up at 3 am binge-watching bike mechanics videos on youtube. this led me to drop a few hundred on a project bike. i’ve still got a long way (and a lot more hundreds) before i deem this project finished, but the late nights working and building have been some of my favorite this year, probably second to riding with loved ones, going new places, and experiencing the city with fresh eyes.
i spent most of the 90s and early 2000s, like most boys, staring at CRT screens, LAN partying, and teabaging noobs. gaming was life. until my late teens when i stumbled onto the self-help industry and got seduced by modern hustle culture. long story short: grind culture's obsession with productivity, optimization, and material success beat my love for gaming out of me.
it wasn't until last year, when kai, my 33 year-old girlfriend who never in her life had used a right stick, picked up a nintendo switch and started pouring hours into "stardew valley," that i was reminded how much genuine joy a console and a game can bring to someone no matter their age, gender, or experience. watching her lose her worries — wandering her farm, watering her crops, wearing a smile she'd never worn before — reminded me how much of growing up is forgetting about the kid, and how much of healing is remembering them.
a few weeks ago, i finally pulled the trigger on a nintendo switch 2 and got lost in the magic of “zelda: breath of the wild.” about 100 hours into the game, i’m happy to announce that princess zelda is home safe and my love for this art form has been rekindled and reimagined — hell, i didn’t even consider it an art form before.
as soon as the ball dropped, i deleted social media and became obsessed with the indie web, personal sites, and re-experiencing the internet that once was — before the apps killed it.
i’m no web designer or developer, but i do have a lot of myspace under my belt and, this year alone, i’ve redesigned my site three times (v3 is live). i’m not spending the same amount of time working on the site as i am pedaling around the city or slaying lynels, but the few hours spent materializing a vision for my site and playing with it in an unfamiliar medium have been a real treat.
the biking, the gaming, the designing have all kept me sane. i’ve just been too proud to notice.
creativity, like god, is everywhere.
talk soon.
<3 santi