Creation vs. Recognition

Creation can be a little daunting.  Okay, a lot daunting.  You’ll have an idea for something and then the AI will drown you in proof that it was, in fact, a good idea because roughly 500,000 other people had the same one.

To be a success you’ve got to have a NEW idea.  Something fresh, something bold. 

And even if you have that idea, people are very quick to compare you to so and so, stating that you’re just like them.  Or, more likely, accuse you of trying to be like them.  To do what they can do.  To be an imitator.  A copycat.

Or even worse, an idiot.  Because how could you not know that someone already had that idea and did it better than you could ever hope to. 

…all you were trying to do was be proactive on an idea that you had.

It’s safe to say that Solomon was more than a little right; nothing new under the sun indeed.

But…that’s not really the point of creation. 

It’s very easy to get trapped in the web of RECOGNITION. 

You want to be recognized for your ideas.  Your ingenuity.  Your plan.  Your brain, your heart, your ability.   

Many years ago, I was talking to someone about how busy I was, and they suggested I do meal planning to help cut down on time.  I asked what they meant, and they explained this new trend they had read about where you plan out your menu for the week and then only go grocery shopping once so that you don’t waste time having to figure out what you’re going to cook and eat every day. 

…y’all, I had been doing that for close to a decade.  I just didn’t know that it was a thing.  When I told her that I was already doing that and had been doing that, she gave me that look that clearly said she didn’t believe me. 

Did I back off?  Did I not get irritated that she was trying to make me a copier of other people’s ideas?

…no. 

I could give you the same truth I gave her that for many years my schedule and my husband’s didn’t line up.  That, if we were lucky, we’d get maybe two hours together on a weekday.  So, I started “meal planning” to cut down on stress and preparation during the quick dinner break we had together.

Turns out I was just ahead of the times. 

Then I was just trendy. 

Then I was just mimicking everyone else. 

Now is this a big deal? Absolutely not.

…is it a little irritating?  Is it easy to turn to anger?

Yes. (She sheepishly answers.)

Why?  Because I was NOT following a trend.  I wasn’t copying anybody else.  I had the idea all on my own, dang it.  Don’t try to lessen my accomplishment!  I had a problem, I solved it, I made my life a little easier, and made my family’s life a little easier because my life was a little easier. 

Don’t try to lessen my brain power and my actions.  

…

While that above paragraphs might be true it’s also a little gross.  It’s so freaking self-centered, it’s nauseating. Mine, mine, mine, I, I, I.  Notice me, notice me, notice me. 

Yes, we live in a world where if you don’t document it, it’s not real.  And even then, we won’t believe it because don’t you know that anything and everything can be faked and probably is?

HOWEVER…

However, this is not the purpose of problem solving.  And it’s definitely not a healthy way to treat creation.  In any form. 

People who have it in them to create, to solve problems, do so because they have it in them.  That’s it.

And it’s important to remember that. 

It’s important for me to remember that.

People who create do so because…well, because they have to.  They just do.  It’s innate in them.  Ad not because they want someone to notice, to recognize them.  People doodle masterpieces on napkins only to toss them.  They write little stories only to lose them to technological advances.  They paint over canvases because they had a better idea.  They shape play dough and then squash it because it’s time to leave.  Write symphonies and hum them to their babies.  They cook masterful feasts and the evidence of it disappears in minutes. 

It’s so, so easy to forget all of this.  Easy to be convinced to STOP. 

The number of times I’ve stopped writing something because I convinced myself nobody wanted to read it because it wasn’t original. 

So many others have written about the importance of food, Katie.  Why would anyone want to hear from another middle-aged woman on it?    

Do you know how many mystery stories there are out there?  Who wants another one?

That cookie recipe isn’t even originally yours.  You just adapted someone else’s.  Nobody’s interested in another one.

Oh, look.  Someone’s already written a book on the Holy Spirit.  And it’s longer and more researched than yours…

Now, are some of those thanks to the anxiety that lives in my brain and likes to offer her bitchy opinion on anything and everything? Oh, definitely. 

But some of it is pretty par for the course when you get stuck in the web of Recognition. 

Now, hear me on this, is there anything wrong with wanting to make a living and get paid to do what you love?  Nope. 

But if you’re painting just to get paid? 

If you’re cooking just to see a pay-day?

If you’re writing just to see the Benjamins?

If you’re inventing just to be a millionaire?

…good luck. 

Maybe you’ll get lucky, truly. 

But more than likely…you’ll burn out and be miserable. 

Because people don’t MAKE to make money.  They MAKE because they can’t stop making.  Because they have to.  It’s built into them. 

They see a problem and get an idea.

They hear a conversation and get an idea.

They see a bird and get an idea.

They have a thought, a conversation, a quiet moment and get an idea.

Sometimes they get stuck.  But then they’ll get an idea.

They live.  And they get ideas.

And that’s the goal. 

To just keep making.  In my case, to keep writing.  And cooking.  And experimenting with art in the basement simply because.

I’ve had friends asking if I had a word for 2024.  And I hadn’t.  But now?  Now I think I found it.  My 2024 word is MAKE. 

To not limit myself.  To not self-sabotage. To not self-restrict.  To not self-criticize and discourage, in most cases before I’ve even gotten started.   

To work on losing the need for recognition and remember to just MAKE.  To create.  To problem solve. 

And not just because it’s built in me to do so.

But because I like it.

And this year, I pray that you remember that too.