The Addictive Properties of Creative Work
Filed Under: My Writing, Writing Process
As I enter a phase of high productivity, I am reminded of the parallels I detect between the way I interact with my creativity and the effect of addictive drugs (as I have read, anyway. I’ve never taken any, unless you count xanax.)
Acts of creativity bring on an emotional and energy high while I am in the act, but after the work is done, that high dissolves rapidly and often becomes a full on energy crash. Novelists call it the post-book blues, I think? I get the post-Flickr upload blues. I wonder if chemically, the act of creation operates in a similar effect–or is it really just the zen state that we enter when we act without thought, when we are in the “zone” that has the high/crash/addictive properties. It’s a bit of a chicken-or-egg problem in that context.
I find that the best way to keep from crashing after a project is to roll immediately into a new one. Finish a photoshoot, process it, upload it, bask in the awesome comments of my blog readers, and at least do 20-30 minutes on the next thing. The basking part, the positive feedback, is part of the addictiveness as well, and the part I don’t manage as well. It stretches out the high, I think, and carries the good feelings from the creation onward longer. After I post new pictures, I have a hard time leaving the computer, and not refreshing Flickr and checking my email 10 times an hour. I find myself craving that injection of warmth, and as it peters off, as all things do, then I get cranky and low. I’m trying to value feedback a little less, but given that my self-esteem is tied in some ways to the external perception of me, it’s not an easy thing to do. “Awesome image/story/website” are the phrases that boost my self-confidence more than almost anything else. I’m trying to change that, but that’s another subject entirely.
Do any of you have this problem of the post-work crash? How do you deal with it? What are your coping strategies?
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