On Creativity, Routine, and Nihilism

By luck or fate or some other reason, you’ve found yourself reading an email from Thinking Is Cool, *the* podcast to listen to if you want to have better conversations. If this email was forwarded to you, sign up for regular correspondence from me, Kinsey, right here:

Hi! Been a second, but I’m back today (and much more frequently from here on out) with some words that I hope will make you think. Let’s take it anywhere.

In a Silly Goofy Mood

Some days, I wake up and think today is going to be a really good day. Other days, I wake up and think I can’t wait until I can get back in bed tonight. And other days still, I wake up and think I have never once in all of my life had a creative idea and all I am is a collection of cells living on a giant rock floating around a ball of fire that will eventually consume me.

I’ll admit—my life is pretty great, so I don’t awake from a restless slumber to that third thought all too often. But lately, the nihilist who’s lain dormant inside me since I took Dr. Scott’s AP Literature class in 2012 has been making more and more cameos in my otherwise incredibly, almost unnervingly happy life.

Perhaps that’s because we’re nearing the end of year two of a pandemic that’s gobbled up a good chunk of my mid 20s and completely obliterated all sense of the routines I once held sacred. Perhaps it’s because January is objectively the worst month of the year. Perhaps it’s because the Real Feel™ yesterday was 1 degree. But more likely, I’ve come to realize after a healthy dose of self-reflection, it’s because I’m actually not a nihilist at all.

I see meaning in every part of life, in everything—every choice we make, every relationship we tend to like a delicate houseplant, every feather I find in my pocket (it’s good luck!), every Bernese Mountain Dog I see in the park. A life this full can’t be meaningless—maybe in the cosmic sense it is, but today, in this eon and on this planet, I choose to believe in meaning. I’m paralyzingly preoccupied with it. What will my impact be? What will my legacy be? What will be the meaning of this life?

These are the questions I’ve been wrestling with lately as I claw my way out of a season that’s felt mostly like a lot of wheel-spinning. Lately I feel I haven’t been entirely living up to the expectations that come with my bewildering privilege—young, smart, capable, able-bodied, loved. What a biblical waste it would be to do nothing with the tools I’ve been handed.

These are the years during which I’m setting myself up to use those tools—for a life that’s either meaningful or not. The choices I make and the things I say and the ideas I have today at 27 years old surely won’t be the beginning and end of my life’s legacy, but they’ll be a part of it.

And I know I sound like a self-absorbed asshole and I know it doesn’t help that I’m literally a podcast host and I know there are bigger fish to fry, but Joan Didion died and when your biggest inspiration dies and you’re gutted and you’re a water sign, you hold a mirror up to your own life to realign yourself with what you hope might someday be a legacy that perhaps, if you’re lucky, scratches at the surface of Joan Didion’s.

I think this idea applies to anyone who wants to leave this world different than the world found them—every day, our small efforts compound to create something much bigger than just answering the question “what kind of milk do you want in that latte?”. It might sound obvious, but it’s something I’ve internalized more than ever before as I age into really, truly feeling like an adult woman: We get to choose how we want to live.

I want to live in pursuit of kindness, curiosity, confidence, thoughtfulness, empathy, self-awareness, self-respect, creativity, and structured discomfort. I haven’t really lived in the pursuit of those things lately. I’ve been distracted and restless and going with all the wrongs flows.

So I’m promising to myself that I’ll make a change. Or, rather that I’ll make many small changes that will snowball into a more fulfilling season of life than the last. And not in a cringey New Year New Me way. In an “every single day that we’re given the privilege of living has meaning and none of them should be wasted” way.

I’m working on mending fences that are broken. I’m working on making space for writing that has virtually no ROI. I’m working on celebrating the things I love about my life. I’m working on reading more. I’m working on asking more questions. And lately, I’m working on recalibrating my relationship with creativity.

That last one is manifesting in two ways:

1. Some exciting changes to the Thinking Is Cool cinematic universe coming soon

2. A new content diet dreamt up and designed by the breath of fresh air that is my wickedly smart new editorial assistant, Natalie

See, much of my frustration with my own depleted creativity stems from the fact that I’m not consuming anything creative. When all you read are the same three newsletters everyone else reads and the New York Times and The Atlantic, you don’t make much room in your inbox or your life for the novel. How can I expect to strike creative gold, push my own boundaries, and live in pursuit of that aforementioned creativity and discomfort when I’m just regurgitating the same stuff everyone else is?

I can’t. I need newness if I want to create newness. So this month, I’ve gone cold turkey on the mainstream media that previously filled my feeds. I’m only consuming news and commentary from alternative sources. And it’s been about a week, but I feel freer already. My idea notebook is brimming in a way it hasn’t for months. Most days, I feel more energized to go out and make things than I have in months.

I know that’s not entirely because of this new content diet, but I think the regimen is playing a part. So in the spirit of no girlbossing, no gaslighting, no gatekeeping, I want to share the following…

A non-exhaustive list of things I’ve really enjoyed recently that I think probably haven’t actively made me think and write and dress and eat like a carbon copy of every other 27-year-old media girlie with a liberal arts degree in New York City // Things that have made me feel a little more creative lately:

1. How To With John Wilson. This HBO docuseries is the antidote to the Euphoria hangover you’re probably feeling (yes Jacob Elordi is a certified dreamboat but not even that jawline is enough to cure the secondhand anxiety). I binged most of the two short seasons of How To over the weekend, and I was transfixed by Wilson’s uncanny capacity for capturing so much of life—the beautiful and strange and random. The episode about scaffolding was a mind-blowing experience bested only by the episode about spontaneity.

2. Patti Smith’s at-bat for Yale’s “Why I Write” series, titled Devotion. It’s as if Smith, one of my most revered idols in both writing and bangs, opened to all of us her notebook and her mind and her heart. You get the creative’s process from start to finish, and it’s tremendous. And I say that as someone who typically resents the “here’s how I do it and here’s how you can too” of modern media (our lives and lived experiences are so vastly different and selling people books that suggest you, too, can live like [insert some hustle culture punk here] in 47 short steps should be criminal). This was a jarring experience in some ways—Smith’s brain just works differently. But a glimpse is a revelation for any of us wishing to do her creativity a bit of justice. And I hate that this is a major selling point, but it's very short (read it in one sitting, two if you’re the kind of person who gets sleepy reading after dusk).

3. Talking with the immensely talented journalist and producer Cleo Abram. I interviewed Cleo for one of my “continuing the conversation” episodes of Thinking Is Cool (which came out earlier this week—listen here) and I was reminded that optimism is, despite what you might hear, actually very cool. There’s room for skepticism and optimism to coexist.

4. Taking photos on the very old but miraculously still-functioning digital camera I got for Christmas in 2007.

5. Researching more about “the extended mind,” a concept popularized by the science writer Annie Murphy Paul that suggests we’re not tapping into our full potential until we recognize that thinking goes well beyond the brain itself. Full disclosure, I initially heard Paul’s POV on The Ezra Klein Show which is part of the NYT, but aside from that accidental slip-up (he’s still so Vox-y in my mind) I’ve been clean from mainstream media all of January.

6. I went to the American Museum of Natural History where I 1) looked at pretty things 2) contemplated the simultaneous smallness and bigness of any singular human life and 3) saw the big-ass whale everyone is talking about.

7. I’ve been trying really hard to become more confident in the kitchen. I know that’s not particularly revolutionary, but for someone who spent many years telling herself oatmeal was definitely a dinner food, it feels good to create things that are fruits of labor and love and can actually physically nourish me.

And that’s been my life lately, at least when I’m not typing words for a living. Some days I’ve felt so compelled to create new things that my hand and the pen it held could hardly keep pace with my racing mind. Other days, I’ve felt despondent and empty and scrolled TikTok for way too long. But life is about balance and some days you stray further from Joan Didion’s light and that’s fine. So long as you retrace your steps and get back on-mission the next day.

I initially sat down to write this email with plans of a quick check-in. The purpose was singular: share that I had a new episode with Cleo (please listen to it so this email isn't for naught). But as I wrote my introduction, I just kept going and going and suddenly here we are, many words later. I hope some of them resonated with you.

As always, I would love to hear about your own experiences with and treatments for creative ruts. I’m feeling good today, but the creative path is a winding one and I’m probably always going to be in search of guidance. So let me know!!

I’ll see you very soon for lots of cool new Thinking. Have a great day! You deserve it.

Xo,

Kinsey