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Creativity & Critics

7 years ago2,679 words

I feel the drive to do something creative, and I've been playing around with ideas recently... But the fear of criticism really gets in the way of producing anything, especially since I want to use art as a way of coping with and communicating my psychological struggles, which has hardly been met with eager excitement in the past.

Most of the messages I get from people these days are about MARDEK. Their memories in particular, how they still remember it fondly and appreciate me for making it. I'm ambivalent about that. On the one hand, I'm glad that people got enough out of my creative work for it to stick with them after all these years, and I cling to comments like that to keep living... but it's sad that the comments I get are about something a decade old, sad that I haven't made anything else worthy of note since then. I really want to make something new, something worthwhile.

Speaking of ambivalence, I'd describe my relationship with creativity in general in similar terms... Until two or three years ago, I devoted my life to making things, games particularly, and it gave me a drive and pleasure like nothing else. I'd get into the flow state while creating, I'd stay up late to finish things, I'd jump out of bed after little sleep, mind buzzing with ideas I was eager and excited to give form. Life was sitting at a computer, drawing, composing, programming, and it actually felt satisfying, to a degree. I used to think I'd never grow into a bored old man because I'd always use my time making things.

But the years caught up to me, and I realised I'd wasted them in fictional worlds rather than the real one. Despair there. I tried to go out into that real world, to university, to make real connections. I made one good friend, whose company I enjoyed a lot (in a desperate rather than happy kind of way), and now the idea of making things alone pales in comparison to the satisfaction I get out of meaningful human contact. It feels frustrating and 'pointless' to think of pouring so much of myself into an activity that wouldn't include or lead to that.

But the first thing I did when I got back from Korea was switch on my computer and look through my art, listen to my musical compositions. I immersed myself in the things I'd made, and it was soothing, satisfying... though sad, because they're all old; I have little from the last two or three years. The Taming Dreams soundtrack was the last thing I composed. I draw every so often, but my output this year and last is tiny compared to the years before.

Part of this, I'm sure, is because I don't really have other creative people in my life. My friend isn't creative, and isn't really interested in seeing my creative work either. I've tried to show her my art, music and games before, but her apathy sort of killed my drive to continue with them. It's a shame that one person's feelings - or lack thereof - can make such an impact, and perhaps it's frustrating to those who would care, but I suppose that's how hearts work. Or mine, at least. There's a desire to impress those you care about, and when it's clear that a certain path won't lead to that result, it hardly seems worth following it. The personal pleasure derived from it wouldn't really be worth it. Or something.

I also spend a lot of time wondering what I should make... It feels like I have to do something 'worthwhile' - that is, personally satisfying and meaningful to me - but which won't take so much time and effort that it'll only end up unfinished, like my past projects. Indecision gets in the way.

I made MARDEK as a relatively carefree teenager. I wasn't depressed or as lonely back then. I went to school, my life had structure. I even had a girlfriend. I was free to indulge in silliness, to spend years building some parody of a thing for the fun of it. I don't remember having any strong desire to really express myself or anything. I just did what I did because I... enjoyed it? It's strange thinking back and realising how empty my motivations were compared to how I'd approach a creative project these days. I suppose it was more like the reason a child draws a unicorn or a dinosaur than the reason a poet writes a poem.

As time went on, however, things got to me. The loneliness, the stress of running my site and managing a difficult community that reflected my own difficulty. The criticism.

Everyone who's ever made anything and got mixed feedback knows that it's easy to shrug off and doubt the praise, but the barbs dig in and stay with you. People who wish to improve and do well are inherently self-critical, and when external voices agree with what the demons inside are already saying, it's increasingly difficult to see anything but the faults and problems in what you make.

I wanted to use creativity to channel what I was going through, because creativity is essentially a form of expression, one which can be quite cathartic. Artists have always used their media of choice to express themselves. None of us live in the same world, not really, because our personal universes are so strongly shaped by nature and nurture. Art allows artists to give others a glimpse into the world as they see it. Art can also allow artists to develop a sort of control over whatever has seized their heart, be it their frustration at external issues like animal abuse, inner issues like their depression, or whatever else. That way, they can feel like they're doing something about it, even if it's not going to magically 'solve' the problem or anything. Better than doing nothing.

Some artists are of course better than others at turning their turmoil into creations that speak to others, and make a meaningful impact in their lives, without being off-puttingly self-indulgent...



I watched Bojack Horseman recently after being told that it was 'about depression', and was pleasantly surprised; it seems to me a good example of a show that deals with deeper issues while still being generally entertaining. There are many things that it addresses that I can't relate to personally (or would even normally dislike), like celebrity culture, the entertainment industry, substance abuse, etc. But it also delves deeply into the kind of honest introspection that speaks to me profoundly, exploring issues like the search for happiness, deep and self-destructive insecurities, and, of course, the numbness of depression.

I was also quite impressed by the surprising depth of its characters. I was expecting something surfacey and crude-for-the-sake-of-it, like these 'for adults' American cartoons often seem to be; lots of macho crassness for easy laughs. So when the character Mister Peanutbutter was introduced as an obnoxiously gregarious career and romance rival, I was expecting his to overall role to involve just barging in badgeringly and being the bearer of bother and the butt of barbs. I thought he'd hound Bojack semi-obliviously and be met with creator-cathartic scorn for it. Instead, he proved to be a genuinely loving and considerate partner, a good friend, and someone who deals with his own demons through enneatype 7 style keeping busy. I'd say more about other characters, but that's the one that stood out to me most, largely because I have a habit of making characters who represent things I find annoying and neglecting to give them other facets that actually make them sympathetic or intriguing, so this made me think about what I should do instead.

When handled well, topics such as depression can indeed become the fabric out of which 'art' worth talking about - such as entertainment like Bojack Horseman - can be formed. By contrast, my own attempts to address and express my demons were... heavy-handed, and probably off-putting.



I don't know how much of my work people who read this are familiar with, but this is a comic thing that I made, literally titled Catharsis, since that's what it was meant as. I cringe hard looking back on it. It's the sort of thing born of desperation and pain; of floundering around in a desperate desire for apparently insensitive or frustrating people to understand where I was coming from so then they might stop hurting me.



Which is naive! I used to get criticised a lot, though, and would react by trying to explain where I was coming from... which came across as whining, attracting further criticism. Having an audience of anonymous young males - who aren't socialised to be emotionally supportive - surely contributed to that, though I can't blame external things entirely. I was bad enough with people and sheltered enough as it was, so being thrust into the spotlight and being exposed to thousands of people I'd never otherwise have encountered was just something I was wholly unprepared for and didn't handle well.

I always hoped that if people understood, they'd stop; I assumed that deep down, nobody would want to hurt anyone else. That they'd see hurting others as aversive as I always have. My deep desire to not be a bother to others is extreme though, and it took me a while to fully realise that some people are proponents of tough love, and that things like this come across more as 'telling them what to do' and incite conflict. And of course many people will respond sourly if their approach is portrayed as stupid, annoying, or even villainous. It's always easier to insist you're right, to attack, than to change. Few people really want to change, I think, even if they say they do. It's just not how people work. I'm the sort of person who'd love to change... but the whole point of all this is that this is how I reacted when my attitudes were challenged in some way. Self-defence. It was ridiculous to expect other people to change for me while I insisted that I wouldn't for them. Hmm.

I tried making other games, like Alora Fane: Creation, and used those as a medium of expression in much the same way. It was meant as a tool for people to make their own 'quests' - short stories told using a simple turn-based RPG engine - but I never finished or officially released that because I wanted to have several quests by me to accompany it, to show what the tool could do and to provide content for those who didn't want to make their own quests, but I didn't finish any that were appropriate. I certainly tried to, and did finish a few, but reactions to those attempts were... not the kind of encouraging I'd hoped for. Though it was surprising to me at the time and I didn't understand why, or what I'd done 'wrong', it's plainly obvious to me now, and again I cringe hard at what I thought were good ideas back then.

Take for example this quest, which I don't know if anyone else ever even saw. Here's the intro, setting the scene:



The blue dragon was of course a subtlety-free stand-in for me, while the goblins she lived with voiced the sorts of frustrating attitudes I'd heard from other people on my website(s) or in the real world. Here are some animated gifs of some awkward conversations with NPCs!



Some people were fans of my work, but not of my venting blog posts. That's... fair enough, but rather than just choosing not to read them, they 'suggested' that I stopped writing things like that at all. This... bothered me. Because I am a sensitive little sausage.



This one's more a general frustration about the mask-wearing necessary to cope in society, as well as the frustration of being without soothing support.



This one makes me laugh... darkly, with embarrassment. It's essentially based on lovely conversations I'd had with people who loved the idea of arguing, who felt that arguing and debates were necessary for growth, especially one in particular where the person was arguing with me for not liking arguing, insisting that I should like arguing and that "because it upsets me" was not a 'valid argument' for why he should stop arguing with me. Good times. How I don't miss them.

Overall, it's embarrassing looking back on old work like that... My writing is far from sophisticated, even further from subtlety, and, well, all I can imagine is critics tearing it apart. My desperate attempts to lick my wounds and give some brighter form to the demons only breeding more demons. Lots of demons. I feel I overuse that as a metaphor, but it fits.

The other quests I made for that game were all as self-indulgent and met with reactions varying from lukewarm to outright discomfort. Some comments, from people I trusted, stuck with me not in their exact words, but their essence. I can still feel how it was to learn that a story I'd slaved over for more than a month came across as poorly-written and generally off-putting. Creepy. Something like that.

I think I started seriously considering suicide not long after that. I already felt I was in a pit, and my attempts to climb out of it only reminded me of how damaged my mind was. Mixed metaphors. I don't know.

When I felt I'd fallen further than I ever had before, I had a spiritual experience, an inner awakening, and for a while I felt free, like I'd finally discovered the key to be happy. Or at least to lock away those often-mentioned demons and be at peace.

I felt like I had to express that creatively instead of despair, so I worked on Taming Dreams... and for a while, I got really into that! Enjoyed designing for it, composing for it, spending my days working madly on it just to get things out.

But it was really convoluted, and took forever to make... I also made poor decisions with it - making it in Flash, publishing on mobiles - and overall I felt crushed under the weight of the thing. It finally met its end when I went to university, and found friendship, which met my inner needs more than working on the game seemed to.

Since then, I've played around with various ideas, but nothing's really worked out. I've lacked that kind of strong inspiration, I suppose. There's been the desire to make something, but it's always been so nebulous.

But I've recently been working on an idea I think might work. Originally I talked about it in this post, but it was so immensely long that I thought I'd split it in two instead, so I'll post about that in a few days, probably.

I know that writing a post like this won't magically stop whatever I release from getting criticised... Criticism is an unavoidable part of releasing creative work out into the world. But it helps to express it, I suppose, in much the same way that making creative work to express things also helps. I feel I've talked about much of this many times before (actually it's sort of embarrassing looking through my posts on this blog and seeing how often I repeat myself), but, well, I suppose that's because certain thoughts stick like snarls in my mind and have to be released in some way, in order for me to move past them, or something .

But yes, I'll post about my recent ideas in a few days, for my own satisfaction even if nobody's actually interested!