It's not the consuming, it's the content
There's a lot of advice about consuming less, creating more. And that's great, if that's what people need advice or encouragement about, that's great. I've been thinking about an angle on it, for me, personally.
Let me start by saying, I dislike when people blunder into specific advice and say "but this doesn't fit my exact situation." I'm trying to think of an example. Say, an article on the cool new trending curtain colours. And people say "but I like the curtains I have" or "but I don't have curtains" or "but I just got new curtains last month, now you are telling me I have to change them again". I find this infuriating. Like, okay? So why are you looking at an article about new curtains, if you in fact don't need new curtains? And, more to the point, why are you bothering complaining? Critiques about this kind of article absolutely exist. These are not them.
(Fully unrelated, at this point, but there's a quote I love so much I have it prominently displayed where I organise my writing: "If you don't like it, I didn't make it for you." T-Pain, in the Netflix This Is Pop documentary. I love it. I should write about it.)
So let's be clear, I am not complaining about these articles or anything like them. What I am doing is being thoughtfully provoked by them and thinking specifically how I can apply the idea to my life. My feeling is this is a lot about social media, which I do not do.
There's often a corollary about creating. That one should be creating more than consuming. For me, if I only create I'm doing it in a vacuum and the well runs dry, the battery depletes. Consuming is what fills it. I've learnt this about myself.
The key, it would seem, is consuming what. I'm interested in what the word 'content' has come to mean and how some people have really visceral reactions against it. So if I say 'content' I mean that pretty broadly. Possibly we could all do with thinking a little more deeply about what consumption helps us and what does not.
I'm not saying that looking at a Caravaggio is definitely a better use of everyone's time than watching tiktok. But it would be worth us all checking it out, just to see if it is. This is very much in my style of 'you've got to figure out what works for you.'
For example! Some things that would be classed as 'consumption' but that I find extremely good and helpful for my creativity:
- Reading books I've already read that I think are stunningly good in their style or substance, for a quick injection of creativity.
- Reading generally, anything, to keep creativity ticking over.
- Going to the museum to find weird and new things.
- Listening to music I know and like, or that I don't know and strongly suspect I will like. But just listening to the music, not doing anything else at the same time, as opposed to music as backing track to life.
- Watching a documentary, often about or heavily featuring nature or travel. The world.
Interestingly, what is not good for recharging my creative batteries are fictional films and tv, even stuff I love. I just had to test that out, time and time again.
And I know without a doubt all the consumption that is bad not only for my creativity but me generally, which is why I don't do it.
My approach to figuring this out is, I suppose, a bit like allergy testing. Patch tests or cutting stuff out and reintroducing slowly and seeing what happens. A bit scientific, pretty methodical, very reflective.
Eating isn't bad for you, even though some stuff you eat is certainly bad for you.