On building walls

It is a very human thing, I think, to build walls. And it is a very difficult thing to acknowledge that we are building them, and make a decision to bring them down.

For many years now, I have walled up my creativity. It sounds odd, I know - but nevertheless I have come to realise that it's the truth. It's why I stopped writing this bloody thing. It's why my laptop is full of beginnings, middles, and ends of stories - but nothing complete, nothing whole. It's why I've picked up and put down art and illustration throughout my life, never quite making a go of it.

Why have I done this? It seems counter-intuitive to deny myself something that does, on balance, make me happy. Something that I think - with enough practice and flexing of the right muscles - I could be good at. It's not like I don't have ideas, either. I am positively brimming with ideas. Seriously, you should see how many beginnings of blog posts I have on here as drafts. How many notebooks filled with doodles, and sketches, and first steps that were never followed by a second. But here's the thing: it's far easier to create a barricade around that part of myself (with excuses like "I don't have time", or "I feel too drained after work", or "I don't have the willpower to keep up with it") than it would be to try, and to fail. God forbid I throw myself into something and not have it work out.

It sounds so self-defeating when I put it into words that I get angry at myself.

I suspect we're all guilty of this in one way or another. Other people build walls to save face, or to seem stronger, or to keep messy emotions inside. I've always been better at letting emotions roam free, but I can understand the impulse. Whether it's because you think people won't understand the more complicated parts of you, or that they'll think you're a bit crazy, or think less of you for showing "weakness"...I understand that fear.

It's hard, I think, to recognise that you are your own worst enemy. That the barrier you're fighting against in order to get where you want to be - to be happy - is a barrier of your own creation. And it would be too simplistic to say that recognising that fact is the answer. That tearing the walls down will bring you happiness, or even that you'll feel strong enough to tear them down in the first place. But it does feel like a first step (for me, at least). It feels like this might be the stick I need to whip myself into shape with. To not be self-defeating. To pour myself into things, even when it would be easier - less messy - to just sit down and watch Netflix instead.

I am making this promise to myself, and I am doing it out loud so that I can't put my head in the sand and pretend that I haven't: I am going to try. If I try and I fail, then so be it. I think I'll be less sad about that than I would about letting that wall get the better of me.