How Being Unemployed for Months Affects My Creativity and Why

I've heard it all before: win the day, conquer the day, treat the day like my bitch and treat it like a lesser prisoner that I can use to my advantage.

Break the legs of the day while repeatedly yelling, "Where's my fucking productivity?" to let the other days know that I'm not to be trifled with.

Establish a tiny manufacturing firm and a sweatshop in a depressed day region where the collective day community has no choice but to work for me since I offer them appalling wages, undermine their working rights, and put all of them at danger at work by undermining health and safety regulations.

I got it. It's not exactly a novel idea.

But because I've never had to, for me, the idea of overcoming the day was just that—a notion. My schedule had previously been established by school, university, and employment.

Finding the openings in that rigid schedule so I could focus on my personal projects was all I had to worry about. I imagined a perfect world in which I was compensated for not working, was free of the pressure of having to do it, and could live out my creative aspirations indefinitely.

Then the coronavirus appeared.

Then, as I worked from home, my routine become more lax.

Then I was placed on furlough, had no job at all, and my routine was completely lost.

I was confronted for the first time with a vast expanse of free time. Greetings from paradise. What you desire for, beware.

One thing I've discovered after eight weeks at sea in these crystal-clear seas is that if I don't set out to conquer the day, it conquers me. In actuality, the word "conquer" conjures up images of a brief ground war, occupation, and a quick change of flags. In actuality, the day completely wrecks my spirit; it doesn't merely overpower me. It destroys my historical documents, tears down my sculptures, burns down my cathedrals and churches, and decimates my population. Everything is destroyed by the day, and I am left with nothing. Until tomorrow, that is, when everything recurs.

Why does it seem like we do less the more time we have?

Mornings slide through my fingers like icicles in the daylight, wetting my fingertips when my wife asks, "Can you walk the dog before dinner?" as the sun sets.

But I don't believe I've taken any action yet.

Nobody understands how lengthy, unstructured days make you feel bad in addition to the fact that you do nothing.

I wander around the home, constantly active but never doing much, with an unusual feeling of anxiety and restlessness. The battle for my self-esteem is a gradual one. What ought to be a wonderful break in my life is instead becoming a source of nagging guilt.

In principle, I should be able to plan my day because I'm an adult who knows and firmly believes that Jocko Wilink's maxim Discipline Equals Freedom—so much so that I actually possess the t-shirt.

However, there is no distinction between theory and practice in theory.

I'm reading Jerry Saltz's book, "How to Be an Artist," and in rule 13 he states:

"When you stand up, begin your task. or the earliest time after that. It should be possible to overcome those bothersome everyday demons if you can start it during the first two hours of the day. It's been too long—those monsters will defeat you—four hours."

Entropy is at the door and default is a b*tch. We must resist the devils' attempts to destroy us. I have to defend myself.

It has turned into a struggle during the past three weeks. If I want to do anything, I have to visualize all the strange things I said at the beginning of the post.

What's worse, what is more embarrassing, is that my stepsons, who are also suffering from the coronavirus, are up at 7am and working on their schoolwork, while I'm still vegging out at 3pm, taking a week to write an essay and promising myself I'll start tomorrow.

Therefore, something must alter.

It's Monday today. The reason I am sitting at the kitchen table writing this goddamn article is because something is going to come from this day, even if I have to fight tooth and nail for it. I got up before 9am, made my son breakfast, went outside in the cool air and wrote my "morning pages" as instructed by Julia Cameron, went inside and took a cold shower as instructed by Wim Hof, and now I am writing this goddamn article.

You may be reading this and feeling jealous of my time off, thinking that you wouldn't waste time in such a careless way, but I can promise you that you would. I work out every day, take a cold shower, stretch, and think constantly about what I should be doing. But there's something else I am as well: scared.

The "resistance" that Steven Pressfield writes about is the same as the demons that Saltz alludes to. He states in The War of Art:

"The act of creation is what matters most in art. Other than sitting down and making an effort every day, nothing else matters."

Because it drives me to work, a framework is what I need, not because I'm lazy, which is what this free time has made me realize.

My business obligations required that I rise early, write every day while crouched over my phone in a restroom cubicle, and flee from my job in an act of creative defiance. I wrote most of my previous articles in this manner. My previous routine made sense, like a suitcase that was stuffed to the brim and into which I could cram my creative endeavors like balled-up socks.

I'm currently gazing at a huge, empty luggage. My artistic soul is no longer in battle mode, which is silly because I have no corporate footprints on my back. It savors its newfound freedom as it withers in the heat, forcing me to confront my anxieties of innovation. I put off taking on this commitment for another 24 hours every day. Time is running out, and the demons and the resistance are once more victorious.

The latest battle began today. Not one against an outside force, but one against my own internal resistance. against the day, which charges forth like a mad horse. Instead of the other way around, it is up to me to seize the initiative, exert authority, and crush its soul.

Pressfield was correct that there is a war of art, but it took some time for people to realize that it is more than simply a metaphor.