Remember when you were a child, proudly showcasing a drawing or any other skill to your family? Now, if I ask you to do the same thing, would you do it comfortably? This simple question highlights the change that we go through as we grow older.
I wanted to be a creative person, badly! I wanted to think differently about every single thing in this world. All I thought about being creative was offering out of the box ideas that have a 100% success rate and make people think “how did he come up with this?” But recently, I stumbled upon a question, “what is it meant to be creative?” and I did not have a clear answer to that. I consumed books and videos, trying to force myself to think outside the box. However, I realized my perception was wrong and the forced creativity felt unauthentic and unexciting. True creativity is based on our own experiences and characteristics. Upon some self reflection, I started thinking about the person I used to be, during my childhood.
Childhood is often seen as the most precious time of life because it allows us to explore new things without fear of judgment. This freedom provides invaluable experiences, whether in sports, arts, or other skills. As a child, I freely explored creativity without self-judgment. In fact, I didn’t even know a word called ‘creativity’ existed. I was just trying to do something. Whether it was drawing, composing music, or building with toys, I never cared about perfection but rather enjoying the process.
Recently I noticed that the harshest critic that I could come across in life, was none other than myself. When I decided to pick up drawing again, a hobby I cherished as a child, I found myself despising my work. I compared my work to that of expert artists and questioned why I couldn’t achieve similar results. This self-criticism led to incomplete drawings, diminishing enthusiasm and a harsh realization on how judgemental I had become about my work and life in general. This is just one example but the mindset applies to every single thing that I do.
Thinking about my times as a child, I remembered how curious I was and had little to no fear in trying new things. I miss that personality of mine but I take that as a learning to keep creating something. I now understand why some videographers and filmmakers are not always impressed with their initial works. It’s because they wanted to try something and they came forward with a curious mind, just like a child. They found themselves enjoying the process and kept learning on the go. This served as a strong foundation to the expertise they currently hold and the knowledge they possess.
As I grew older, I often limited myself by drawing boundaries around what I should or shouldn’t do, viewing childlike behavior as immature. In my quest for maturity, I forgot the most important part of life, which is having fun. Learning new skills became harder because I set high expectations for myself and struggled to reach the bare minimum. Though against it, I unconsciously aimed for perfection, forgetting that the process is where joy and growth happen.
Being childish and or having a childlike mentality can be subjective at places but in order to have a clear frame of mind, act without judgment and stay excited, this is crucial. If we can get some things done without any barriers, it is worth it.
Till recently, I can’t explain how I hated my childhood self due to the amount of immature acts I had done. I had a completely wrong perception of maturity until I came across a hard fact. I was much happier as a child regardless of my maturity, while my current self always has thoughts running thus, not committing to anything. I opened this blog as a platform to express my thoughts in writing and deciding what to write became a daunting task. Now, I have not completely changed or reformed, but this realization put me a bit at ease.