UNcreative Rock Bottom

Here I am at work again, blogging away about my "desires to live creatively"...when really, it'd be more honest to say "alleged desires." I haven't felt the "creative spark," the "art bug," the "craft gene" in awhile. And while I want to wholly blame my job--the 9 to 5 that claims me five days a week--I don't necessarily believe it's THE problem. Yes, work HAS become a routine (And how could it not? I'm required to be there at 8 in the morning till 5 in the evening, 5 days a week)--I do the same work everyday for 8 hours. So, naturally, it's hard for me to get up in the morning and get excited for "the expected." But lately it's become a problem (though again, not THE problem. I can blame this winter weather we've been getting in the middle of Fall for my dullness too, right? "I [am] like every kid who [grew] up in the country, allowing the weather--good or bad--to describe life for me: its mocking, its magic, its contradictions, its mood grip. Why not? One [is] helpless before everything."--Lorrie Moore, "A Gate at the Stairs.") I've been so unmotivated that I can't even start an art project to re-enthuse me. For example, last night I thought about flipping through magazines and cutting out pictures and words to make a word collage. But instead, I went to bed at 9PM, too bored and tired to even stay up and watch TV! And it's gotten worse since then! I'm sitting here at work, surfing the Barnes & Noble website for self-improvement books--The Magic of Thinking Big, The War of Art, Wreck This Journal--to get me going again. Self-improvement books, people! I've hit UNcreative rock bottom. SOMETHING'S gotta change.


And I think it's my attitude. Yes, my corporate office surroundings and mundane job tasks are to blame for my lack of motivation...sort of. It's all how you look at it, I know, I know. As A's mom has told me time and again, "Don't see your job as 'work.' Consider it an 'activity.' Let anything and everything you do be an 'activity.' Because then everything you do is on the same plane and nothing is worse or better than anything else. Everything is 'activity.'" It's true, too. When I arrive at my job with the attitude that today is a new day full of opportunity and possibility and that all my actions are simply that--activity--I work differently. At the very least, I work neutrally, without dread, without boredom, without the desire to leave IMMEDIATELY, haha. And at the most, I work positively, with anticipation, with energy, with interest. Changing the flavor of the day is as simple as that, I think. And I haven't been thinking it...


So, as it stands, this is a 2-part operation. Part 1: Change my attitude. My job is an activity. Part 2: While everything is an activity, I still feel the need to incorporate some inspirational or creative activities to, you know, balance the neutral activities ;) Say I read some poetry every day or write a little 5-line creative diddy every day? Speaking of which...


While tonight I fully intend to start that word collage, I read about this OTHER idea in some book awhile back:
A woman took 4x4 square pieces of cardstock paper and each day, took one, wrote the date on it and journaled on it or colored on it or glued paper to it or sewed fabric to it...you get the idea. So each day she was making some kind of a creative record. Talk about an artist's journal! And I remember reading that she specifically picked 4x4 cards because they were just small enough to be a manageable daily art project and yet they were just big enough to feel like an accomplishment. I think I might cut up some cardstock tonight while I'm going at that word collage ;)


*image from laberintodeespejosrotos.blogspot.com