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LFN Musings: The Meaning of Life...
12 Plays3 days ago
Being creative and expressing ourselves can provide a sense of meaning and purpose, but it can also get tangled up with our ego. 😬
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Transcript
Introduction and Hiatus Discussion
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome friends to another episode of Life's F-N-N-U-T-S One man's stories and ruminations on being humid in an upside down world I am your host JR Coming at you live Tuesday morning from um cloudy Berkeley, California I have not recorded released an episode in a long, long time
00:00:29
Speaker
And that's kind of what I want to talk about in today's episode.
Creative Desire and Its Role
00:00:34
Speaker
The desire to create. And for those of you who've listened to the show before, you know that this is an ongoing theme of mine or kind of an open question in my life.
Existential Doubts About Creativity's Significance
00:00:49
Speaker
What the role of creative expression is, what it means to have a desire to create.
00:00:59
Speaker
Whether there's actually any substance or merit
00:01:06
Speaker
to creating, to putting stuff out there. you know Often I have kind of an existential debate within myself.
00:01:18
Speaker
and Throughout my life, <unk>ve I've had this kind of duality where one part of me
00:01:26
Speaker
from time to time gets really inspired About the idea of creating.
00:01:36
Speaker
Of putting myself out there.
00:01:40
Speaker
Of trying to capture life.
00:01:45
Speaker
To drill down to the core of it. And to reflect it back.
00:01:54
Speaker
And other times. I kind of think to myself.
00:02:00
Speaker
Like, what's the use? What's the point? This is stupid. There are... The world's on the brink of environmental collapse. There are wars.
00:02:11
Speaker
There are injustices. There's 7 billion people scrapping and fighting and clawing.
Struggle with Self-Importance and Meaning
00:02:18
Speaker
and I want to record some stupid podcast?
00:02:23
Speaker
Do I think I'm that that important? Yeah, I mean, sometimes I just get turned off by even the the concept or the thought or the idea of grandiosity or self-importance. Because I imagine most of us, 7 billion plus, have this sense of, at least some sense.
00:02:45
Speaker
i don't even know most of us, but I imagine I'm not the only one who has a sense of self-importance. That my thoughts matter, My ideas matter. My voice matters. My experience matters. That I'm somehow consequential in this larger scheme of life.
00:03:09
Speaker
That I'm not just some random speck of dust.
00:03:15
Speaker
So there's there's always been this tension or this duality or this battle within me. Because...
00:03:23
Speaker
The reality, the objective reality probably is that I am just this relatively meaningless speck of dust. There's so many people on this planet. There's so many billions of people who've come and gone on this planet.
00:03:38
Speaker
And I'm just this tiny little speck amidst it all.
00:03:45
Speaker
And so I'm sure there is some objective validity to the idea that I ain't shit. Like I have this tiny little self-important sense of consciousness, but
Creativity as a Lifelong Drive
00:03:57
Speaker
I ain't shit. I'm sure there's validity to that. But the problem is that that for me, at least that worldview or that mindset that I'm this inconsequential speck of dust floating around in this enormous universe,
00:04:16
Speaker
It's depressing. like That's a depressing worldview.
00:04:21
Speaker
like Why do anything if that's if if that's the if that's the reality that I'm working with?
00:04:34
Speaker
I mean, I'm sure I could still come up with good reasons for doing things. you know you just you You try your best to be a good person, to be a force for good in the world, to create community, to be there for others. like i'm not I'm not trying to invalidate
00:04:49
Speaker
the importance of
Challenges of Podcasting and Creative Freedom
00:04:50
Speaker
those kinds of things. But in terms of doing something like art or creativity, creative expression, podcasts, writing, stuff like that,
00:05:01
Speaker
it Things get a little trickier when you start to consider want your own meaninglessness.
00:05:09
Speaker
Nevertheless, my desire to create. My desire to create. I like that phrase. My desire to create. I'm 41 years old. It has not left me entirely.
00:05:23
Speaker
I'll go through periods where I feel like what's the point? What's the use?
00:05:30
Speaker
But my the the underlying core reality of whatever that is, that impulse in me since I was 15 years old to want to create, to have this vision that it is important.
00:05:47
Speaker
That it is meaningful, that it is
00:05:52
Speaker
kind of an integral part of a healthy life for me to create. It doesn't go away. It hasn't gone away. It always resurfaces. There's always this resurgence of this desire and this need to create.
00:06:09
Speaker
And as I've shared with with you guys who've listened before in the past to other episodes,
00:06:17
Speaker
I, you know, I, how would I put it?
00:06:27
Speaker
Whatever it was, I don't know, six months ago, nine months ago i've I've lost track of time these days. i don't It's hard for me to gauge exactly how the passing of time works at this point. But whenever it was that I did that raw and uncut exploration, ah ah season three of Life's F and Nuts, my my vision was, okay, I can't keep sinking money into this project. It was costing a lot of money to produce the episodes.
00:06:56
Speaker
a lot of time to promote them and to edit them and the whole thing. it was it was i was like
Liberation from Feedback vs. Need for Appreciation
00:07:01
Speaker
I was really trying to go for it. you know I had a little bit of extra money and I i said, i'm going to invest some of that and see if I can make this work because I really enjoy it. If if there was some reality where I could get paid to talk, I'd be like, yes, that's what I've always wanted. I want to get paid just for being creative, for being myself, for storytelling, things like that. like That would be the dream.
00:07:26
Speaker
But then as i'm as I'm referencing, I kind of said to myself, myself i can't I can't do it anymore. I can't do it in terms of the financial cost and the time and the energy. So for season three, I was like, you know what?
00:07:39
Speaker
I'm just going to just go for it. Just as as a labor of love, as almost like a spiritual practice, I'm just going to record episodes and not edit, not produce, not sink any money money into it.
00:07:55
Speaker
Not um promote. like I'm just going to record for the love of the game. Because I genuinely like it. I genuinely, as I've shared many, many, many times, I genuinely just like talking into a microphone.
00:08:08
Speaker
Exploring with my words. Looking for
00:08:14
Speaker
streams and currents of inspiration and truth and whatever else.
00:08:22
Speaker
And my plan too was like... who I don't care i'm i'm I'm liberated from caring whether people listen or not i'm I'm doing it for the love of the game and if it catches on awesome if not
00:08:36
Speaker
i I still get a lot out of it because I enjoy talking into a microphone it's fun it stirs things up in me it moves things around yeah it enlivens me you know you know what I mean you know what I mean friends And so that was the experiment.
00:08:56
Speaker
and And kind of flopped because even though on the surface, in principle, I was liberated. i wasn't actually liberated.
00:09:08
Speaker
I think I've shared about this already, but just to rehash it since I haven't talked about it in a while. I was still obsessed with, know, I would check my every single day. many are listening? How many people are listening?
00:09:20
Speaker
And even though I wasn't promoting it, some somehow my brain was thinking, well, but people should still be listening. People should just find it randomly on the internet or whatever. And it was kind of discouraging. And I'm like, what's the point? What's the use? If no one's listening, why am I even doing this?
00:09:43
Speaker
And so... Yeah, I mean, some stuff came up in life too, some personal stuff that I had to deal with. So kind of cut into my bandwidth a little bit. And just generally, I was just not feeling, i was just feeling, it was kind of in survival mode, I would say a little bit.
00:09:59
Speaker
But now again, I have this resurgence, like, you know what? Like I, I want to be creating. i just want to be creating, man. Anyone else relate out there?
Balancing Self-Expression with Audience Reception
00:10:07
Speaker
Raise your hand if you're with me. I just want to be creating,
00:10:11
Speaker
I want to be creating. want to feel alive. want to use my voice. want to explore. want to put myself out there.
00:10:21
Speaker
don't want to just be a machine, a cog in a wheel, going through the motions, dead inside, predictability everywhere I turn. I don't want that. want to feel alive, man.
00:10:34
Speaker
want to make my contribution.
00:10:39
Speaker
Or something. I just want to play, you know. want a space to play and explore and be myself. and and i And ideally, i would like it to mean something to someone.
00:10:51
Speaker
that's the That's the vision. That's the the dream for me as a creative person. And it's something that I've never really been good at. I've never been able to, for whatever reason,
00:11:02
Speaker
i mean... Maybe the answer would be complicated, but I don't like people generally. my i mean, I've gotten some positive feedback throughout the years, but my work, my expression doesn't seem to catch on in ways that other people's work does.
00:11:18
Speaker
You know, you'll I'll just sort of see people who are just sort of crowd pleasers, like something about the way that they are, the way that they create, the kinds of stuff, the kinds of themes they explore.
00:11:29
Speaker
Sometimes it seems like it just comes kind of easily to people that people just
00:11:34
Speaker
gravitate towards certain things and for whatever reason, and and this couldn't this could be untrue. Maybe ah A,
00:11:47
Speaker
maybe it's never as easy as it looks. Maybe even those people who I'm looking at who seemingly they're able to create an audience, maybe it's a lot more work and a lot more messy then than it appears.
00:11:59
Speaker
And B, maybe people do like my work more than I... more than I realize because I have gotten positive feedback. It's not like it's not like it's complete crickets when I create throughout my life.
00:12:10
Speaker
There's been moments and times where people seem to genuinely appreciate, you know, my creative, whatever, my creative contribution.
00:12:22
Speaker
But nevertheless, I've never been able to
00:12:30
Speaker
achieve the level of kind of receptivity that I desire. It it would be so cool and so awesome if if me just being me, me exploring, expressing, creating was of value to people.
00:12:50
Speaker
And I've probably shared about this a million times because like I kind of often I'm i often i'm circling around kind of core important themes in my life.
00:13:02
Speaker
But that would be awesome. That would be really awesome.
00:13:09
Speaker
um So all that being said, i think, i mean, who knows where my inspiration will go, where my bandwidth will go. You know, life's complicated, lots going on in my personal life, lots going on in the world at large.
00:13:22
Speaker
um
Hope for Organic Growth Without Promotion
00:13:23
Speaker
So who knows where this will go. But I do feel kind of a little bit of a resurgence of, you know what, I want to be doing this. I want to be creating.
00:13:33
Speaker
And, you know, I also am kind of making a little bit of a pact with myself
00:13:40
Speaker
to not check my numbers on listens, like how many people are actually listening, to just to put these out there and to really try to, you know, what I was trying to do before, which was liberate myself. i want to see if I can actually do it this time.
00:13:56
Speaker
And maybe maybe that's it's unrealistic anyway. Maybe it's a ah a kind of crackpot idea. This idea that I could be completely liberated from expectations. Maybe inherently we live in a contextualized world and creating into vacuum is
00:14:14
Speaker
meaningless. You know, um if I'm only creating for myself, then i don't know. Then...
00:14:25
Speaker
then then maybe I'm not hitting the mark, doing what I actually want to be doing. And maybe if people aren't listening, i need to kind of take that feedback.
00:14:37
Speaker
And if if if what I want is to create in a way that's meaningful people for people, maybe I need to you know be more responsive and not just create in a vacuum. I'm not sure. Because I think it's both. Partially...
00:14:50
Speaker
I think it's really important that I create for creation's sake, for the love of the game, without expectation. Because I think that will ultimately get me to my best art. But at the same time, ah do feel like there's an importance in in being responsive, um being tuned in to how I'm being received.
00:15:11
Speaker
So I think it's both, probably. But I think for now... I think I will benefit more from the liberation side. Because I think historically, i focus probably too much on wanting to be received.
00:15:26
Speaker
Wanting to be, yeah whatever. it' so Like wanting to be received. i Yeah, I just said that. You know, that's always kind of, and maybe it's because i have some underlying insecurities or something like that, that I have this, this sort of emptiness inside or this need to feel wanted or loved or seen, believed in appreciated the all those things, you know, maybe it comes from an insecurity. Um, so yeah, I think,
00:15:55
Speaker
I think I will benefit more for the time being on the liberation side, just doing it for the love of the game, creating for creating sake. I will say though, so I'm not, I don't have the time or the bandwidth or the energy or the money to promote this, but I do know that there are a handful of people who do listen to these episodes.
00:16:13
Speaker
Um, I think that last season, season three, the Ron uncut, I think, you know, probably average like 30 people listening per episode.
00:16:25
Speaker
So it's not nothing. um And so if you are one of those handful of people out there who are listening, who do enjoy this, who whatever, who get something from it, um it would be cool. if If you like what you hear, to share it, to talk about it with people, to whatever, send it to people.
00:16:44
Speaker
um and you know like i just don't have the time, energy, band bandwidth, or money to promote it. um and And also, like I said, I kind of philosophically, I don't want
Creative Resilience and Self-Belief
00:16:54
Speaker
to promote it right now. I just want to see if I can liberate myself and just create for the sake of creation and see if maybe somehow organically it can just catch on without me having to force it, you know?
00:17:05
Speaker
So anyway, yeah, if you are one of those handful of people who dig this um and genuinely dig it and genuinely feel inspired, please do share it. Send it out there. Like, see if it can get out there and just do its thing on its own without me having to have my ego all wrapped up in it.
00:17:24
Speaker
um And the last thing I'll say, I'm going to wrap up on this.
00:17:31
Speaker
I think in in several episodes of the show, I've alluded to this particular time period in my life in 2021 after so I got laid off. This three and a half month period where it was probably like the most like psychologically ferocious I've ever been.
00:17:53
Speaker
Something just came over me where i I just felt, you know, my back was to the wall. I was i needed i was running out of money and I needed a job badly. And so with my back to the wall, I just i i just decided, i mean, again, it's not like a noble thing. like I needed a job. So it like it was like it was like a kind of survival thing.
00:18:14
Speaker
But there was something about that time period where I just... I was single-mindedly focused on getting a job. I didn't care. I got to a point where I didn't care how many times I got rejected.
00:18:26
Speaker
I don't care. i didn't care how much bad feedback I got. I didn't care how many people looked at me sideways or doubted me or questioned me. and there was a lot.
00:18:38
Speaker
ah i I've shared before that during that period, I think I applied for 74 jobs. um So it's 74 rejections. That's a lot of rejection. A lot of people telling you, no, you're not good enough. Or whatever, some version of that.
00:18:53
Speaker
But i I just developed, creatively speaking, I developed this thick skin during that time period.
00:19:01
Speaker
And I was just, ah I was so focused on what I wanted to achieve and my my underlying belief in myself. Because I did have that underlying belief in myself. yeah i would get knocked off that belief when I would get rejected or when I would get negative feedback or whatever.
00:19:20
Speaker
But i I found a way to keep coming back to that underlying belief in myself, to my underlying love of the game, my underlying passion for the thing. just kept coming back to it in a way that I never had before creatively.
00:19:34
Speaker
Historically throughout my life as a creative person,
00:19:39
Speaker
I would lose my confidence very easily. If something didn't work out the way I wanted it to work out, if I got negative feedback, if someone looked at me sideways, i would lose my nerve. I would i would you know it'd still create, but I wouldn't create with the same kind of conviction.
00:19:55
Speaker
And so, yeah, that was that stands out to me, that time period in 2021, creatively speaking. I felt like I reached another level, like a i I elevated um to a to a kind of different plane of creative existence.
00:20:15
Speaker
and and it And it did bring out the best work in me because, i like I said, I i was unconditionally creating.
Passion for Creativity vs. Conventional Work
00:20:23
Speaker
I was doing it for the love of the game. And i I was learning and I was taking in the feedback. It wasn't like I was just plugging my ears and closing my eyes. I i was taking i was taking my licks and I was, you know,
00:20:36
Speaker
swallowing my pride and um you know get knocked down onto the mat and sort of take the feedback that was knocking me down. But then I'll get back up be like, okay, that's fair.
00:20:48
Speaker
you know i'll I'll find out what's true about that feedback. But sometimes the feedback wasn't even accurate. you know It's just people, whatever, just sharing their thoughts. ah Just because someone shares a thought doesn't mean it's true.
00:21:02
Speaker
So...
00:21:06
Speaker
That stands out to me. And that would be cool if I could do something similar with with this podcast. Because i really do enjoy talking into a microphone. if I've probably said it 10 times now. Probably annoying you half to death right now with all redundancies.
00:21:20
Speaker
But I just enjoy it. It's something that comes so naturally to me. And as I've shared in the past, I've always hated work. Like I just don't... Something about work that I that i really struggle with.
00:21:36
Speaker
Because it's the the world of transactional commerce. It bothers me. It upsets me. like And and you know i've I've figured out at times ways to kind of fit within the world of work.
00:21:48
Speaker
But my dream, as I've shared, would be to get paid to be creative.
Closing Thoughts on Creative Resilience
00:21:55
Speaker
So... I don't know if that's a reality. I don't know if I'm any good at this. I don't know if it's meaningful enough to enough people. have no idea. But if somehow I could just keep at this, keep creating, liberate myself from ah trap of k needing validation,
00:22:18
Speaker
That would be awesome. That would be awesome. And even if it didn't pay all my bills or hardly any of them, even if it just had a little bit of an audience and a little bit of momentum, that would be so good for my soul, my spirit, that it would probably make other, you know, the other kinds of works that that I do more tolerable. So we'll see where it goes.
00:22:38
Speaker
But, you know, this was an episode about my creative musings as you know i'm I'm prone to my creative musings and this is just another version of that. So that's it, my friends.
00:22:52
Speaker
Appreciate you tuning in. I'm JR. Hope you have an amazing day. It's a crazy world out there. Life's effing nuts, but we're creating in the face of it.