Embracing Slow Creativity
We, as human beings many times feel that time must be captured and beaten in order to acquiesce to our will, when in reality, we should learn to move with time, not against it.
Hola Beloveds,
This blog post has been a long time coming. I must admit, I’m relatively joyful and happy to be presenting myself to you through the medium of writing again. Since stepping away from blogging, I haven’t truly had time to remember what it felt like to write words and phrases centering on the essence and purpose of creativity.
My last few posts were efforts toward this, but the act of writing wasn’t sticking. I think maybe, it was the break I needed to recalibrate. To learn the art of stealing away long enough to hear God’s small still voice again.
One of the things I have resolved myself to this year is slow creativity. The act of creating slowly. Not for the purpose of content sharing or b-roll footage for social media. It is easy for me to get lost in the rat race of pushing content for the sake of being seen or interacted with, but not so much engaged. I don’t mean engagement for analytics’ sake, but engagement for the sake of community, vulnerability, and simple connection with other human beings. In being consumed with numbers and how many videos and poems to post per week, I lost track of why I do what I do. Or rather, why I began at all in the first place.
The goal was never to reach a massive “following” but to tell you and anyone else willing to listen that “you are creative. That God has given us all a measure of creativity and how we cultivate it and what we choose to do with it is up to us.”
I have found such joy and healing and community in creativity, and I realized I wanted others to discover this same thing. It is in creativity that the world around us and within us begins to make a bit more sense. The act of making art through words or dance slowly helps me to be intentional with what comes from me and, if I share it, what comes to you—what you get to be a part of.
It seems that much of our human nature is to go as fast as we possibly can. This is proven in how we work, rest, and even play. We, as human beings, feel that time must be captured and beaten in order to acquiesce to our will, when in reality, we should learn to move with time, not against it.
Slow creativity, the practice of creating with intention and purpose is slow. It’s quiet and sometimes, possibly boring. For me, it looks like consuming less and choosing silence. It is paying attention to sunrises and sunsets, favorite albums, and favorite poems that exist not always as influence and inspiration but as enjoyment. Creativity isn’t always doing, many times it’s just being. Choosing to create at a slower pace and even in a more private way allows me to know that my gifts are not commodities. This way of living teaches me to treat creativity like the gift and expression from God that it is.
And I think as creators, we can all learn from setting rhythms and intentions of living and creating slowly.
Want More on Slow Creativity, Check Out My Lastest YouTube Video
Thank you so much for reading. If this blog resonated with you, leave a comment below and keep the conversation going.
~ Antavia ☺️
