Find your Creativity
Last weekend my girlfriend and I took a kids-free trip to Colorado, for the
stated purpose of just getting away and doing something out of the ordinary. I
have to say that we were wildly successful in this endeavor -we tried skiing for
the first time (loved it), we snowmobiled for the first time (loooooved it), saw
amazing sights, and visited some of our great national parks (Garden of the Gods
-OMG). We also went tubing on a steep and fast slope with two other couples, we
ate good food, and had good fellowship. It was exhausting and relaxing, and had
the side benefit of making me a more relaxed and creative team member when I got
back on the job. And speaking of creative...
One unexpected outcome of the trip was a rekindled desire to harness my creative energies. In hindsight, this should not have been surprising, because I met a friend of mine for dinner one night in Denver, and I should have known he would rub off on me in some way (he always has).
I met Alan Brooks on 12/31/1990, at a New Year's Eve house party in Atlanta, GA. Alan was a member of a Christian rap group called Hosanna Hype, and I was producing hip hop beats and dabbling into rap myself, which many young men were doing at the time. This proved to be a fortuitous meeting. We needed each other. Hosanna Hype had no producer, and so they would rap over instrumentals of other artists, which I think limits you from developing your own identity. I had been making beats on the Roland TR-505 drum machine my father had gotten me for my 15th birthday for years, and recently had starting laying simple melodies and bass lines down with a Yamaha PSR-500 keyboard I bought in my freshman year of college. I liked to rap, too -used to write rhymes in high school and college. I have fond memories of me and my best friend from college, Troy, rapping in the Down Under to enthusiastic crowds of slackers avoiding getting to their classes. But I hated the sound of my voice. If anyone recorded me, when I heard myself on playback, I'd be mortified. So I was starting to want to write music for others and leave the microphone alone. Turns out, they liked my music, and I liked their rapping. I joined Hosanna Hype.
We recorded several songs together, performed live and became friends. Then life intervened. I became a father and husband, joined the Navy. He went of the school, started doing his thing. We went our separate ways but stayed in touch. Over the years he has continued to record and perform, and has also branched out into writing and hosting a podcast. He actually started his own comic book, called The Burning Metronome. I'm proud of him and amazed at his continued nurturing of his gifts. This is in stark contrast to me, as I will go through spurts of creativity, but often months and months of it being dormant. So when we all sat down to dinner, and caught up, and he regaled my girlfriend of stories of us when we were much younger, the seeds were being planted in me to dust myself off, see what jewels I had inside of me, and the oh so important last step: bring them forth and share them with the world!
Since I've been back, I've actually made an effort to practice my instruments, to write a little more, and to even inject more creativity into the code I write at work. It's liberating, it is refreshing, it makes me happy. Sometimes it makes other people happy. But we should express ourselves creatively even if no one likes our art but us. Creating things helps us feel more alive, but life often forces us to but those gifts away to do more practical things. Bills must be paid, and kids must be clothed and fed, but surely there is time to plant a garden, or to learn (or re-learn) that instrument, or to draw or doodle or paint, or to craft. Surely there is space for that. And if not, let us carve out such a space. Your soul will be blessed.
I thank my friend for unapologetically living a creative life, and inspiring me to do a little more of that myself. May that inspiration pass to you as well, and may you pass it on to others.
One unexpected outcome of the trip was a rekindled desire to harness my creative energies. In hindsight, this should not have been surprising, because I met a friend of mine for dinner one night in Denver, and I should have known he would rub off on me in some way (he always has).
I met Alan Brooks on 12/31/1990, at a New Year's Eve house party in Atlanta, GA. Alan was a member of a Christian rap group called Hosanna Hype, and I was producing hip hop beats and dabbling into rap myself, which many young men were doing at the time. This proved to be a fortuitous meeting. We needed each other. Hosanna Hype had no producer, and so they would rap over instrumentals of other artists, which I think limits you from developing your own identity. I had been making beats on the Roland TR-505 drum machine my father had gotten me for my 15th birthday for years, and recently had starting laying simple melodies and bass lines down with a Yamaha PSR-500 keyboard I bought in my freshman year of college. I liked to rap, too -used to write rhymes in high school and college. I have fond memories of me and my best friend from college, Troy, rapping in the Down Under to enthusiastic crowds of slackers avoiding getting to their classes. But I hated the sound of my voice. If anyone recorded me, when I heard myself on playback, I'd be mortified. So I was starting to want to write music for others and leave the microphone alone. Turns out, they liked my music, and I liked their rapping. I joined Hosanna Hype.
We recorded several songs together, performed live and became friends. Then life intervened. I became a father and husband, joined the Navy. He went of the school, started doing his thing. We went our separate ways but stayed in touch. Over the years he has continued to record and perform, and has also branched out into writing and hosting a podcast. He actually started his own comic book, called The Burning Metronome. I'm proud of him and amazed at his continued nurturing of his gifts. This is in stark contrast to me, as I will go through spurts of creativity, but often months and months of it being dormant. So when we all sat down to dinner, and caught up, and he regaled my girlfriend of stories of us when we were much younger, the seeds were being planted in me to dust myself off, see what jewels I had inside of me, and the oh so important last step: bring them forth and share them with the world!
Since I've been back, I've actually made an effort to practice my instruments, to write a little more, and to even inject more creativity into the code I write at work. It's liberating, it is refreshing, it makes me happy. Sometimes it makes other people happy. But we should express ourselves creatively even if no one likes our art but us. Creating things helps us feel more alive, but life often forces us to but those gifts away to do more practical things. Bills must be paid, and kids must be clothed and fed, but surely there is time to plant a garden, or to learn (or re-learn) that instrument, or to draw or doodle or paint, or to craft. Surely there is space for that. And if not, let us carve out such a space. Your soul will be blessed.
I thank my friend for unapologetically living a creative life, and inspiring me to do a little more of that myself. May that inspiration pass to you as well, and may you pass it on to others.
posted by Jahan at 7:00 AM
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