I Want to Create

Creating is both easy and hard. We may live in a world where it seems easy to share art, but beneath the surface it’s actually really hard. Especially when you work full time, don’t have traditional ways to approach art, or you’ve been making art for a long time and no one really takes you seriously. Combine that with social pressures and everyone having some critique of something it becomes a nightmare. But the real issue sometimes isn’t how tired you are, unmotivated, or worried about having your feelings hurt, a bigger issue is how often content is blocked. (The cynical comedian in me really wants to mention Big brother… Because censorship is a huge reason people get blocked, but I’m beefing with audio copyright in this particular post).

More often than not, I struggle with this more when I dance then when I write. I think I have been writing for a long while now, that the limited views, small audience and general lack of being able to turn this into a job, no longer bothers me. And it bothers me even less now, than it did before, when I read my work and see that I’ve made some spelling mistakes or don’t actually sound as clear as I meant to. If anything, I am realizing as I get older that I am not the best at communicating. So when someone read a poem I have written, a story or even a personal article/essay and get something completely different out of it. I don’t worry as much as I use to about it. If anything I think it’s really beautiful. And well I do have a lot to say about the world of writing and how easy it is to write but how hard it is to turn that art and creating into a side hustle or even a job. And writing while it can get taken down and restricted, there is a level of freedom in it that I feel I didn’t appreciate as much until I started trying to share my dancing.

I love to dance. I love it so much that I sometimes wonder why I didn’t try and become a dance teacher. I think to some degree; I was taught to be practical about my dreams. And being a dance teacher didn’t seem to fit the mix. I knew at a young age I wouldn’t be a professional ballerina. I never had the natural talent or the right body for it. And to some level I gave up on trying to be a preforming artist for the sake of making sure I ‘got a good job to have a good life’….. Something a lot of use end up doing for the sake of fitting into society and for gaining stability. Because as much as I would love to jump off the deep end. I know that without security, I’m not going to be able to create or dance. It costs money to go to classes, to cross train, to get yourself the materials you want. And as I have mentioned before, I have no idea how to turn this into a solid source of income. And I haven’t figured out how to be less afraid of my debt to be willing to but more energy into investing into myself to change my life. I am trying in small ways. Because at the end of the day… I do just want to dance. Even if no one watches the video I post on the many forms of social media. Or if I can’t make it into preforming or teaching. It’s a low state way of creating. But it will open me up to a lot of criticism. Because I don’t have the 'traditional’ dancers body and I am by no means perfect. I also like to fuse together different styles and take things and explore how it is to move. To me dance is both this beautiful world of culture and if movement. To the internet though, you risk being called out for appropriating a culture or of not knowing anything about a style. And people can have their own thoughts and ideas on the subject. I am more than willing for someone to have a conversation with me about it then to be a bully. If it’s feedback that can make both of us grow and learn. It is always welcome. But online media has created a world where this isn’t the norm. People will comment something mean for the sake of their own perceived righteousness. Even the good comments can be self serving. I lot of people do comment for their own sake rather than for the creator. However, I am not fully willing to believe there isn’t people out there that comment to be good and to engage in something bigger than theirselves. Art is suppose to give us power. It’s suppose to bring people together, make them feel alive, and build communities. It is suppose to be shared. And with the online world, that sharing means its suppose to be easier to find your people. Because not everyone’s people are in the same country let alone city as them.

It has become so hard to create and to share what you’ve created. The number of times I have come up with a really cool piece or idea to a song that is immediately blocked or muted on a video I post begins to make me wonder if it is worth it. The censorship of certain words, beliefs or because someone decided to flag the video to be mean, creates a playground where a lot of people are harmed. And a lot of times accounts or creators that strive on harming others and being mean can go unchecked. But lord forbid you mention a women’s body, suicide awareness, or breathe wrong. I cannot imagine the stress full time content creators feel when they need a video to do well for money. In a way not being able to monetize somethings for myself (both from living in Canada and from not really knowing how to successfully) means I have a bit of privilege in that I’m losing financially stability if my videos are taken down. But full transparency, I would love to make money from dancing, I’d love for someone to see my videos and go, hey do you want to preform at this show, festival or tour with our band and dance? I’d love to be notice by someone famous. The dreamer in me thrive on the idea of it, the realist in me rolls her eyes. But no matter how unfair and wild west online platforms seem to be somedays they still have so many benefits. Especially when you may not know how to or want to build up your own sites.

Sharing a video of the dancing I do, that I create is still a way to share art with other people. Both people who love the music and love dance. But then it gets blocked for one of the million reasons they have in their rules and regulations. With the world become increasingly social media influenced, you’d think there was some easier way for copyright. I never want to take away the hard work an artist did to create their music; they’re creation is often a huge inspiration for my own. It’s almost like dance and music go hand in hand with each other. But it’s never that easy. It isn’t as easy as mentioning who the song is by, or getting the music from a legal source, or even using the music from the bloody app you intend to post on. One day the song could be fine and by next week it’s muted. Even if you think the music is safe…. Somewhere down the line there is an issue.Now I could solve this by changing the music I want to dance to, and yeah that’s one way around it. However, each song I chose comes from a place of care and love for the music and the artist behind the music. Even if I am not super familiar with an artist, their song inspired me to create. I find I love trying to pair dance to heavy metal too, which isn’t a new concept, but sometimes their songs just aren’t popular enough and then I cannot find the music correctly or it gets blocked more frequently then a song that is popular. And if it’s not the app telling you that the sound is in violation, or restricted. Then it’s other people telling you how your basic and just doing what everyone else is. Because the only songs you can use are the over played popular options. And suddenly you become a copycat. Which hold’s it’s own forms of frustration. I mean I see it all the time when people post commentary on dance. You’re more likely to find an overused song video on tiktok than an actual video of someone dancing. Because the negative gets more clicks than the positive.

I see it on Instagram and Facebook too. People will market their thoughts, products and programs through the lens of the negative rather than the positive. They’ll promise to make you better by helping you not commit the same ‘mistakes’ they did. Or sell you the top five things that show you’re not a bad dancer. The negative consumes our lives and I know I am contributing to it by being worked up enough to write a whole blog on how fucking hard it is to post a silly video of me dancing some days. It’s a whole other issue and I hate that I am self aware. That being said, it’s still important to call it out, and frustration and anger can make beautiful art too.

It’s the honesty I want to bring forward with my personal writing.

So, while I am trying to create for myself and not for others. It is hard to not want to throw in the towel every single day, especially when I have to go back to the drawing board or post a video somewhere else when I wanted to share it with friends or even with strangers that I figured would be able to find it easier on one platform over another. Some days I really just want to go back to dancing alone in my basement and writing poems in a notebook hidden on the shelf. I don’t want that. I don’t believe that’s the only way to make art. Because while it should first and foremost be for myself, art is for other people too. And I want to be able to impact other people, especially the ones who struggle in the same ways I do. I want to make things that make the world feel a little easier and a little better than it was before. There has to be more happiness in this world. I just cannot accept how sad it all seems.

And I do think its better to just create. Both in private and in public. Using my brain to create makes me happy. Being seen makes me happy. Sharing what I create and think of, makes me happy. And at the end of the day, I have to chose myself. I have spent far too much of my life trying to chose someone else. So while I am exhausted. While I feel like I am stagnating in some of my skills and really want to give up. I’m still choosing to write. I am still going to post my silly videos, even if I have to post them differently then I wanted to and with the notion that they may be taken down, blocked and never seen. Because I can’t give up on it and I can’t give up on myself just yet. I don’t want to be what everyone else wants me to be.

Then I would be damaging my soul. And my soul is already suffering from being in corporate and having to be in a full time job to survive. Because that’s what we all are ‘suppose to do”. I am already damaged from taking the path that turned art and passion into a hobby and not a life. I am already scared of how much I think about giving up, of being another soul with suicidal ideation that flares up so bad somedays. That to not write… to not create… to not dance, would be worst then having a video taken down, or having accidentally not credited someone properly for their music. To not do something because it is hard or because of fear doesn’t make sense. And it shouldn’t be this hard.

At the end of the day the songs I want to dance to are chosen because of how they make me feel or how inspired they make me. I wish it was easier to share some of that creation, that inspiration, and how interconnected art can be when it brings communities together. That for me, it’s never to hinder or harm a band I love. It’s deeper than that and I don’t know how to explain it, besides that it’s a way to both create something else but also that yeah, your art inspired me to create my own art. I don’t want to grow just because I used a song for more clicks and to get money. I am not looking for Hozier to see one of my videos and praise it. I am not hoping that because I have so may Powerwolf songs I have dance ideas to, that they would go out of their way to engage with it. I certainly do not post my dance videos with their songs to try and take credit for their music. I am trying to be mindful that I have to give credit where it is due, but the how is become increasingly hard. And I fear it isn’t to protect other artists… I could be wrong here, I really could be. But sometimes even if you follow all the rules laid out, it will still be taken down because it threatens the order established by those who wish to keep power all to themselves.

I just wish it was simpler. And I wish we lived in a world that was more willing to allow people to share their art and their stories. That it wasn’t all tied up in monetary value, and that the instant you became a threat, not even to other artist who try to make money from their art, but to the companies behind it all. You didn’t get shut down for trying to make something and share it. Because not everyone who makes something is stealing. If any thing those who do steal others art…. Are doing it because we’ve gotten to a world where it is easier for the bad to succeed and the good to disappear.