I’ve been thinking about it quite a lot on this trip. I always keep a travel journal and am entranced by taking boatloads of pictures and making videos. Why? I’m not a professional. I don’t have thousands of followers, just a very normal blog that’s used as my creative outlet.
Would I love for thousands of people to see my work? Absolutely. Will I continue creating content if only 10 do? Absolutely.
For me, it’s never been about the recognition. The process of creation itself is absolutely magical and fascinates me. We can take thin air, less than nothing, and use our minds alone to turn it into an idea or thought that progressively tumbles into being something else: a story, a video, a sculpture. We see exactly what every other animal on this planet sees, but we have this innate ability to interpret those experiences and then create something from them. If that doesn’t change the way you see the human brain, I don’t know what will.
Whimsical rant aside, I love the process more than the output. That’s not to say the quality of my final product isn’t important to me. It’s that I love what happens to me when I’m consumed by an idea, enamored with a vision, whether it’s for a blog piece, video, or photograph. The clock breaks and I drop into a world where it’s just me and my work. No distractions, no outside thoughts, just one flow and wavelength.
There have been times when I’ve worked on a video for so long that the time for multiple meals had passed without so much as a thought in my mind. That’s the inexplicable beauty of finding something that you love doing; it makes you so present. You aren’t in yesterday’s problems or tomorrow’s anxieties. You are here, right now, exactly where you are supposed to be.
I hope to pursue this love for as long as I can. Whether it’s 10 viewers or 10 thousand, I’ll be here, creating and loving and living, chasing the flow and finding the present moment. Is there really anything better than that?
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