Creative (Re)Awakening
As adults, we’re all too often made to believe creativity and creative hobbies have no place and value in our lives, except as a soft skill buzzword on our resumes. Society seems to only value creativity and artistic inclinations in children but starts looking down on these pursuits as we grow up, even as early as our teenage years. However, pursuing casual creative hobbies in adulthood is extremely beneficial for mental well-being and can bring a lot of joy to our often mundane daily lives. So, how can we rediscover and nurture the creative parts of ourselves?
Via IG @itsnicethat @bybelter. Illustration by Kelly Belter. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
Art is a fundamental part of our existence and it’s one of the things that makes us human in the first place. Finding artistic beauty around us, whether that means going to a museum, reading a good book, or simply taking photos of your neighborhood and taking the time to appreciate it more than usual, is crucial to our mood, and can often get us through hard times in our personal lives. And yet, a very small number of adults consciously participate in creative activities on a regular basis. People around me have often said they miss the low-pressure creative challenges we had constantly thrown at us during childhood, and feel like their creativity has significantly declined since that period. Unfortunately, this is very common. According to groundbreaking research by George Land in 1968, children aged five showed a creativity score of 98%, while adults scored a mere 2% on average. This sounds ridiculous and makes us question how creativity declines so drastically as we grow up. But it makes perfect sense if we look at the structure of our lives after childhood.
While creativity is wholly encouraged and praised in children (your mom probably has an extensive collection of your childhood drawings/crafts somewhere in the back of her closet), this is less and less the case as we start entering our teenage years and the education system in general. Even in early grades at school, art class is usually not valued as much as other subjects, presuming it’s even incorporated in the first place. And it only gets worse as we get older. At my high school, art class was simply art history, and, as much as I loved learning that subject, I definitely missed a time in the school week when I would get at least an hour to just paint. Even though I was a really creative child and was raised by a mom who encouraged crafty hobbies with all her might, by the time I got to high school I unconsciously stopped doing almost all of them. I finished music school and wasn’t really practicing violin anymore, I would never think to sit and paint or draw just for fun, and I was barely ever writing (which used to be my biggest passion). I didn’t even notice this was happening. Over time, I just became absorbed in the all-consuming pressure of studying and the constant guilt if I wasn’t, so the only hobby I had was binging TV shows while feeling guilty for not being productive.
We are put into academic molds so early and so unnoticeably that we only become aware of it later in life. And this is largely what contributes to losing our creative hobbies over time—we are constantly being told and shown that creativity is not productive and doesn’t lead to success. Not only does it not get better once you enter the working world, but usually by this age you have forgotten how good these activities can make you feel in the first place, and you don’t even consider them an option for your free time.
It goes without saying that it’s incredibly hard to balance academics/career, social life, and individual hobbies, but if you care about setting off on a journey of rediscovering your creative self, you should set aside some time when you know you can fully dedicate yourself to it. The most important part of this journey is dismantling the preconceived notions you have about creativity and creative hobbies. One of the biggest misconceptions, except it not being productive, is the belief that you always have to be good at the casual creative hobbies you do. I’m still struggling with my perfectionism on that matter, and it’s been a big challenge for me to get over the beginning learning curves in some hobbies I’ve picked up. It’s really important to remember that literally nobody is great at it from the start—whether you’re getting back to drawing, picking up a new instrument, or learning a crafty skill like knitting or crocheting. Your goal should shift from getting great at it to just having fun and relaxing. Your creative hobbies don’t need to add productive value as you know it to your life—but they will definitely be productive in terms of bringing more fun and joy to your everyday routine and improving your mental health. It has even been proven that making art makes us understand ourselves better and have more empathy for others, which inarguably improves and enriches our human experience.
During adulthood, we rarely ever do something for the pure fun of it, without placing pressure and expectations on it. However, when we were children, we used to spend hours upon hours just playing with toys and making up stories about their lives. While that amount of free time is an impossible luxury for adults, we truly need to re-learn how to play. Even just regular daydreaming has been proven to improve creativity, even though we often chastise ourselves when we catch ourselves daydreaming in the middle of a productive task. Discovering and trying out new creative hobbies from time to time will bring so much fun to your life and slowly desensitize you to the beginning failures—the more you discover the fun in them, the less you’ll care about how “successful” you are in them.
Last year, while I was on an exchange semester in England, my friend and I went to a lot of free student creative workshops organized by our university, and it really helped me rediscover casual creativity. From tote bag painting to fun sip-and-paint sessions, we were reminded of how much fun we can have creating art if we don’t pressure ourselves, and this started our occasional tradition of art nights at home, where we’re allowed to do any type of creative hobby without any pressure or expectation. Earlier this year, I also started learning how to crochet, which has unexpectedly turned into a big passion and obsession that really fulfills me. So, you really never know what will awaken a new well of inspiration in you. Bringing back your unrestrictedly curious childhood self to the forefront can make you a much more relaxed and happier person in general. If you’re thinking of picking up some new creative activities, try not to limit yourself and just let yourself be curious and explore like a little kid—you’ll soon realize you’re probably much more creative than you currently believe.
