2.190 days of creative work - things are off.

It’s been a slow process. No big wall I crashed into, not a deep abyss opening up beneath me. Just a slow and steady loss of connection, like the fadeout in a 1980s pop track.

I have felt disconnected from any form of creative work for about 6 months now. It’s not a creative block, it is not a desperate but invigorating struggle. I can still do it. I can still do a little dance. I can still illustrate all the things you might want to see, I can still do the quirky little characters and silly short stories around them. I am still a graphic designer with skills and ideas and can make you a flyer just the way you need it. In fact I have made some of the (skill-wise) best work in the last year. 

But for the first time of my sentient life: I just simply feel no connection to any of it.

Ever since I can remember I used my creativity as a way to work through things. It could be a teenage heartbreak or an unhealthy obsession with a specific fandom, it can be deeply personal or a mundane side quest. It accompanied me through the toughest and nicest of times and after a few years of being praised as the creative kid it clearly became an integral part of my personality. It was not only helping me find my place in a society that sometimes felt alienating to me, but it often gave me an excuse for my otherness and some of my bad traits, like being a bit messy and forgetful. I just became this person because I made those things. 

I was never cool but I sure as hell was creative. 

The last year was filled with loss, scary illnesses and other challenges that drained me; but usually I come back from periods like this with a thirst for art and creating. I don’t know if it has just finally been enough of a shit year to kill the energy for it but this time around it sure feels different.

I kept thinking about what might have started this slow process of depersonalization from my art. Sure, this year has been tough and a break may be more than needed. But I soon found another culprit and while I know you are all sick of it by now: I have to talk about what the rise of AI slop does to creatives.

Because even if it sounds over the to: this is the death of joy in creating (for me). 

I consume so much AI slop involuntarily now on a daily basis that I simply can not proceed with my stupid little creative tasks without feeling like nothing matters. It does not matter if I make this stuff. It does not make a difference, because I already get sent ChatGPT pictures that people want me to recreate. I am already fading in the vastness of nothingness and even though I wish people would care about it or about creative work outside of efficiency and sellability, I know they don’t. I know one should not care about how things perform and what worth is put on my creative work, but the reality is: I started a business exactly 6 years ago with my seemingly endless pool of creativity and the skillset to put most of those creative ideas into a form that works and helps people and now the basis of this business is crumbling beneath my feet. 

I am sitting across my therapist trying to articulate what I mean: I am not feeling uncreative. I draw all the time. I finish big projects with good outcomes. But I simply don’t feel anything while doing it. It is not hard or sad or fulfilling. It is just that: a mechanical process void of meaning. She does not care for my melodrama and simply asks me one question:

what would you be if being a creative is no longer your main personality trait?

It is not a question I ever thought I would get asked and I feel attacked by it. 

I would be boring. I don’ have anything that defines me as a person more than this. I am not ready to give this up. So I am still unsure where this is going. I don’t want to give it up but I am lost in a sea consisting of AI generated slop that not only threatens my livelihood but in the long run democracy at large (but that is another topic for another blogpost for another day) and i am surrounded by colleagues and clients who are happily taking a swim in the sea that is literal made up of creative shit. And at the moment it feels like I am just letting myself float in it as well. I don’t have the energy to fight when people send me their ChatGPT texts that are just badly written. I do the dance, I don’t feel anything. I take a swim in the shit-filled sea.

So in a way to fight back, maybe I don’t need to keep on doing the work but actually find work that makes me want to do more great work myself. I am a firm believer that most creatives get a spark for creativity by finding work from others that they love. So in an urgent plea to you, my fellow creatives:

send me all the human-made stuff that made YOU fall in love with being a creative. What book, film, graffiti or poem made you feel things you never felt before? What quotes do you return to when things seem dire and useless. I am trying to do it like Frederic the mouse and collect and hoard them for the ongoing creative winter I am in and the real winter that is to come.

Thank you already – I do hope I get to do more of this creative work for the next six years. Even if the last few months have been rough, I was so lucky to work with wonderful people as well, especially in the education sector this year. Getting jobs that connect me to people who are passionate about educating the next generation in science and politics and trying to change things for the better has been more than inspiring. I hope I get to stay in that space a bit longer.