Against control
A few years ago, I was a compulsive writer, and I found great satisfaction in writing notes in my notebooks (original Moleskines or not...).
When I went through periods of deep introspection—where I had to face the weight of my past, the fear of the choices and responsibilities that the future presented, work stress, relational difficulties, the burden of my mistakes (and my wandering, in a broader sense)—I found in writing rivers of words a sense of relief, a clarity in my mind, and I could compare that process to a form of "meditation on paper."
Since I got married over 6 years ago, I have practically stopped writing. Those few times I do write are because I feel nostalgic for that past time, and I would like to engage in something good for myself that isn’t just a hidden form of selfishness.
For about a year, my diary was my blog. Between the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2015, I wrote waves of posts, poems, songs, reflections, and confessions. I stopped writing when everything started to "fall into place" in my life, but within a couple of years, my life had already been turned upside down again, between a serious injury, a job change, and developments in my relationship with my wife that, although positive, had made me actively put myself on the line.
Between 2018 and 2020, I wrote dozens of songs, some of which I even recorded on my multitrack recorder, but in the end, that too was just a chapter.
After the shift in 2020 due to the lockdown and my last job change, I began to focus on photography.
The important thing, they say, is to always have something to say, regardless of the media used. Learning to express oneself using a tool or an art is important, but without a message to convey, even the most refined technique is empty and self-serving.
What happened with the latest Pixar films is an example: millions of dollars spent on beautiful backgrounds, well-crafted animations, and pointless scripts, leading to embarrassing reviews—everything contrary to Inside Out, Wall-E, and Up!, where millions of dollars were well spent thanks to successful screenplays. The world doesn’t need "filler" films, children don’t need new "classics," and Pixar perhaps doesn’t need the money earned by exploiting such tackiness.
In the same way, I prefer to write little or take few photographs, but to be truly inspired. There have been times for me that were more "fertile" in terms of imagination, moments I miss now, but I don’t let it get me down: perhaps now is the time to gather experiences and insights that will be valuable someday.
Having control over creativity is impossible; one must be open to inspiration from anything. The bombardment of stimuli we are experiencing is not beneficial (and I say this as someone who willingly spends half a day on shooting games). What helps me is the classic exercise of writing in a stream of consciousness or using the cut-up technique: free from the control of what I’m writing, it opens my mind to see what I need to write. I find these two creative writing techniques very similar to the Rorschach test—a sort of "mirror" of the psyche, a probe of the heart and mind.
More important than controlling creativity or the tool used is the understanding of what goes through our heads. Paraphrasing a well-known advertising slogan, control is nothing without the power... of our ideas.