creative endeavors

It recently occurred to me that all of my life can be broken up in moments of consumption, moments of creation, and moments of doing just plain nothing. I think that usually people create and produce for work and consume and relax for fun.

What's special about me is that I need to create to really feel alive, that I have a small limit of how much I can consume. I shop only for necessities; I don't watch TV, rarely read novels and watch only hand-picked movies. Most of my information-consumption is studying specific subjects (favorite reading source: Wikipedia). This often inspires my own creations. Well, mostly it rather inspires ideas, most of which I'll never execute.

It's really hard to relax without consuming anything. Sometimes (especially at night) I eat although I'm not very hungry; just for relaxing. Sometimes I read stuff (especially links on Facebook) that I won't even remember a second later, that's more relaxation than consumption. Doing sports or taking a walk seem to be the least consumtive ways to relax. Cooking can be a good creative/productive way to relax, but it requires that I am not too exhausted in the first place. Talking to a close friend is also a great way to relax and to clear my mind of a lot of things going around in there.

Here are some ways in which I could be creative for my own pleasure:

• programming stuff
• making music
• drawing (architecture and inventions)
• inventing stuff
• building bicycles
• 3D modeling stuff (again, architecture and inventions)
• writing movie scripts
• writing religious books
• writing technical books 
• doing stuff with languages

Last year, I took a basic class in hand drumming (Djembe playing) and that was fun (I also met great people there), but I didn't find it creative enuf. I thought that after having a basic sense of rhythm, I could experiment with tunes. A very kind person gave me a guitar, but I soon found that the level of practice required before any creativity can take place is way more that I'm willing to invest. In any case I feel that I now have made up for the lack of "trying out music" in my childhood and can move on to other topics now.

Since the first anniversary of me being in Berlin which coincided with my first paid vacation since graduating from UofT I have been thinking what I want to do with the next year of my life. But since all my vacation was filled with busy trips, I didn't really have time to think about it. At least I took note of the past year's highlights and lowlights and then came this week: spontaneous vacation without a planned trip! In the first days I did some remaining home improvements following my move (also this summer after just a little more than a year in my first place in Berlin). But then I quickly started looking for long-term projects in which to put my precious vacation time.

The result of my deliberations is that I want to start both drawing by hand and 3D modeling with SketchUp (see previous post). I have also decided that the realm of Architecture shall stay a topic of consumption, while my first drawings and 3D models shall be related to the planetary gear adventures. I would also really like to finish a first (or rather zeroth) version of my planetary gear calculator program, but since I find programming so hard, I am shying away from any further work until I find myself with a really large block of uninterrupted-by-work time to concentrate on this.

In the language department, I have decided to learn Dutch, just because it is so easy. In the consumption and inspiration department, I am planning a trip to Asia next fall, but I am uncertain, if I will use the chance to study more of the Chinese language. Practice a bit, certainly yes, but learning new words, it's oh-so-hard...