Sofia's Blog

I have spent years wondering why I do not create more. Somewhere deep down, I believe myself to be a creator, someone who makes things. As a kid, I invented board games, and painted, and made up imaginary lands - perhaps like all kids do, but it is really the only satisfaction i get in life - from creating. In a short story I wrote when I was younger, my anguish cemented itself:

Maybe the reason I haven’t been progressing as an individual is because I spend all my time absorbing the knowledge of others, never taking the time to produce my own. I’ve been drawn into a world of screens and stimulation, failing to appreciate the remedial powers of pen and paper.

Like most modern humans, I have been one-shotted by short-form video content, doomscrolling, and this small rectangle in my pocket that provides endless instant gratification. There was a tweet that once said if David Foster Wallace were resurrected and saw the state of our modern world, he would kill himself again. I think this is apt.

I think the thesis I would like to make is something like: feeling blocked from doing things, is probably at root, an emotional issue (fear of failure, of criticism, etc) (but also the phones?) - but, there are also band-aid solutions that make the act of creation easier in the short-term, and the feedback loop from actually just creating more may help overcome the emotional blockers. This came to me a bit when I started "creating" in very small ways, for the first time in years.

It started with my polls.

And thne with Twitter.

And then with this blog.

And now with my journal.

Basically four vessels.

(TRANSITION NEEDED HERE – you jump from DFW to your personal narrative abruptly)

The narrative of stuckness

It’s not entirely clear to me when I lost my creative spark, whether it was entirely due to the phones, a lingering depression, or whether it was ever lost at all. In retrospect, the narrative I paint for myself is that at some point, about halfway through university, I stopped making videos, I stopped drawing, writing, I stopped engaging in creative side projects – a thing that, for most of my life, had come somewhat easily to me.

I existed in this narrative of “stuckness” – for the next 5-8 years, I assumed myself to have lost some essential essence in me, I assumed myself to be blocked. I still had many ideas, but I could only sustain them for a few minutes. I’d discuss this with my therapists, they’d assign me homework like “play the piano for 10 minutes each week” or “journal about this prompt” – but I felt, perhaps a bit pompously, that the very act of being assigned homework was deeply counter to the creative spirit.

(CONSIDER CUTTING OR CONDENSING: the next paragraph about EAs/rationalists feels slightly off-topic unless you develop it more – right now it’s a digression)

I grew frustrated with the communities I found myself in – the EAs, the rationalists, the status-seekers – I felt they had no soul, no appreciation for beauty – I think deep down I resented myself for not being able to bring this out – that they were creating, in their own way, and I was not.

Someone once suggested that I simply drop the narrative of being “stuck”. I found this quite insightful, and plausibly true that I over-pigeon-holed myself into thinking I was stuck. At the same time, there was truth to this stuckness – feeling unstuck feels fundamentally different, fundamentally freer, more alive. In the past two weeks I have begun to feel meaningfully unstuck for the first time in what feels like years.

(EXPAND HERE: What changed? This is the most interesting claim in the piece but you don’t explain it. The reader needs to know what shifted.)

I think I found this especially difficult, because somewhere deep down, it felt like my purpose was, in some way, to observe, ideate, and create. Exactly what – I am not sure, but without this, I felt dead.

They say to find your purpose, you must simply figure out what you were doing from the ages 4-6 (back when the soul had not begun corroding itself). So, I asked my mum, what was I doing from ages 4-6?

[screenshot of mum’s response]

(CUT OR DEVELOP: “I could write an entire novella on the theme of ‘purpose’ – but I shall skip that for now” – this is throat-clearing. Either skip it silently or actually say something about purpose. The next sentence is good though.)

I could write an entire novella on the theme of “purpose” – but I shall skip that for now. What I care about is existing in a way where one does not dread waking up, where the contents of each hour are interesting enough to keep us sane.

The question then becomes, when did I stop creating? As a kid, I’d make art, I’d invent board games, I’d write magazines, I’d make videos and animations, I’d run experiments on myself and my family.

(RESTRUCTURE: The “as a kid/as an adult” comparison should come earlier, maybe right after the 4-6 years old bit. It would flow better there.)

As an adult, I see other people create beautiful things, and I feel pain. I wonder, why not me?

(CUT: “I think one could link this to emotional blockages, there is some emotion you are hiding from… yes… but I’m tired of emotional work” – this feels dismissive and doesn’t add anything. If you’re tired of emotional work, don’t bring it up.)

I think one could link this to emotional blockages, there is some emotion you are hiding from… yes… but I’m tired of emotional work.

All you need is a vessel

(BETTER TRANSITION NEEDED: This is where your actual thesis starts but it feels sudden. You need a sentence or two to bridge from the problem (stuckness) to the solution (vessels).)

But also, all you need is a vessel. If you are not the type of person who is motivated enough to sit down and write an 800 page novel in a cabin alone, without falling down the temptation of a phone rabbit hole.

(FIX: This is a sentence fragment. Should be: “If you are not the type of person who is motivated enough to sit down and write an 800-page novel in a cabin alone without falling down the temptation of a phone rabbit hole, all you need is a vessel.” Or restructure entirely.)

I like asking questions, I do not have the sustained motivation to do research-deep dives into these questions, but I like the act of asking them anyways. Hence, my daily poll group chat. Have a question > getting it out in the world / with responses > under 3 minutes.

Same for Twitter. Have a thought? Tweet it. Takes under 1 minute. This is often not an ideal vessel because people who I know in real life follow me and this causes a strange self-filtering mechanism where I do not act completely unfiltered. I guess that is a high bar.

Hence this blog > have a thought, slightly longer than a tweet, that you maybe don’t want certain people who follow your Twitter to see? Publish a blog.

All you need is a vessel.

(EXPAND: Give more examples or go deeper on what makes a good vessel. Right now you list three examples quickly but don’t develop the concept enough for it to feel like a satisfying conclusion.)

Writing this, I feel a bit weak. I imagine the great artists of ancient times simply had more will, imagine they had to have like clay near them all times in case they had an idea for a statue.

(BETTER LINK NEEDED: The Elizabeth Gilbert quote is good but needs setup. Don’t just drop a URL – introduce it properly: “Elizabeth Gilbert has a beautiful way of thinking about this in Big Magic…” Then quote/paraphrase, then link.)

“In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about ‘ideas going away’—she believes that good ideas occasionally visit you, but if you don’t allow yourself to become a vessel for them they go to the next person. She writes, ‘If inspiration is allowed to unexpectedly enter you, it is also allowed to unexpectedly exit you.’ There’s this great anecdote about how she and Ann Patchett had the same extremely specific idea for a novel that later became State of Wonder that’s worth reading. I’ve always resonated with that: intuition knocks, but it’s up to you to open up.” [link]

On the to-do list being an anti-vessel. It captures the energy of your idea without you actually engaging with it. a false, empty promise. terrible. get rid of your to do list! either u do it or u dont. to do list is for beuarcracy – not creativity!!!

the to do list has done us great harm. because it creates a separation between doing and action. ideally, one must shorten this distance as much as possible, the brain should feel the “do” urge and simply “do: