Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about satisfaction and joy. Or, more precisely, the difference between satisfaction and joy.
Every few months, I clean out my fridge. I wait for a day when there’s not a lot of groceries in it and then I set to work- taking out everything, washing the veggie drawers in bleach and water, removing the shelves, scrubbing the bins inside the door. I toss anything expired or moldy. It feels good.
This is satisfaction. The sense of accomplishment that comes from completing a task.
But it is not the same as joy. It is not as though I love the process of cleaning out the fridge. Instead, I love the outcome. Joy is not something I seek from cleaning a fridge. Joy is, however, what I want to feel when I do creative work.
Satisfaction feels good. It’s a good feeling and I get it all the time on the blog. Every time I post something new, I feel a little jolt of satisfaction. I think it’s really easy to mistake satisfaction for joy.
I’d been feeling very stagnant about the blog. Stagnant about my art. And generally frustrated. I liked how I felt when I finished something (satisfaction!), but I hadn’t lately been wanting to start anything new or finish much of anything I’ve started. The number of semi-penciled things in my sketchbooks is a testament to that. I kept telling myself I would feel joy if I just “did the work”, but somehow doing the work wasn’t fun and certainly not joyful.
But because satisfaction feels close enough to joy to pass for it in sufficiently dim-light, I sort of fed on that and kept telling myself that it was enough.
But, after the paper doll party, a few long talks with other artists, and a bit of self reflection (and some whiny draft posts that would make an angst-filled 13 year-old Rachel wince), I’ve decided I need to see how I would feel if there was no pressure on me to create anything. Like what if I was back where I was when this whole blog started (metaphorically speaking, I have no desire to be 23 again) and just did art because I felt like doing it.
And gave myself space to play. That was what Procreate has given me this last six weeks I’ve been learning the program- space to play.
It had been so long that I’d forgotten how it felt to just enjoy making things. Joy instead of satisfaction.
So, that’s my new goal. Just make stuff I feel like making for a little while. Experience some creative joy.
I’m sure in a few a weeks, months, something I’ll need to move again towards satisfaction. I need both, but right now, I’m going to be hanging out in playful land.
And that means, things might be a little erratic and strange around here while I sort out how/what I feel like exploring next.
As always, I’m happy for anyone who wants to hang out along the way. Leave a comment if you see something you like. And later this week, I’ll be sharing a new paper doll that was another experiment- this one with color and texture.
Sometimes when I start a project I’m really exited and all these ideas are flowing, but as I work on it, it becomes more of just that- a project, a chore. There are many unfinished piles where I just lost the inspiration to continue, they weren’t what I wanted or what I had in visioned and yes a few times I will just finish it to be done with it and move on. I don’t give myself a lot of deadlines except for holidays due to this.
For some people (like me) deadlines are wonderful and sort of freeing. For other people, they are stress inducing. I think you just need to know yourself really well and what things motivate you vs stress you out.