“I am large … I contain multitudes.” ⏤Walt Whitman

Almost every good management book says that the most difficult part of a project is simply getting started, but an equally powerful, and largely invisible, obstacle is the resistance to change course once a project has successfully launched. If it took years, for example, to work up the courage to write that first mystery novel, you might, unsurprisingly, ignore the inner voice that tells you your next project is an algebra book. Both are content creation. Both are writing. Both align with your vision of being a person who uses words to add value to the world. Yet somehow, the pivot from one to another seems like crossing a great chasm or betraying your creative spirit.

If you hold on too tightly to a successful project, and identify too closely with whatever title it provides you (poet, essayist, drummer, accountant), you may never discover what other projects lay within you, and what else you are capable of creating and achieving. Some of the most creative and dynamic people reinvent themselves over and over, launching different ventures in multiple fields. Just because you’ve invested time and energy into building something doesn’t mean you can’t alter it, pivot away from it, or abandon it altogether. Once you invite the creative spirit into your life, be prepared to follow wherever it leads. You are following a river, not a road; a wisp of smoke, not an arrow.

Things are rarely as they appear. That dry spell, that multi-day or multi-week period without inspiration or creative focus may just be a sign that you are turning down a different path, that one door is closing, and another is opening. Trying to recreate the magic or seamless flow of your last creative project may only lead you to frustration and disappointment. A flash of intense creativity can leave as quickly as a bad cold, and nine times out of ten, you aren’t being abandoned so much as led somewhere else. Instead of trying to pry open a door that has closed, look instead for the new doors that present themselves to you. These are the doors with a river behind them, ready to burst open.

Sometimes a door is simply a persistent idea, a creative thought that keeps appearing to you, trying to get your attention. If you found your voice writing poems, then bravo, and wonderful, but don’t let that stop you from finding your other voices. If you’ve always made jewelry, who can stop you from making suits of armor? When the level of creativity is high or surging, it can jump the banks just like a river, and go in a totally different direction. When a door opens, walk through it into the land of the new, into the wild kaleidoscope of creativity. It is deeply unlikely that you’ve been given only a single narrative voice, only a single creative talent. Seek, and you shall find multitudes within you.

Copyright 2024 Kesel Wilson (entirely, 100% human-created)

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