The Joy of Creation
“Hello World!” — Welcome to my first journal entry!
Firstly, there’s much stuff your brain can feast on (dopaminergically speaking) on the internet, so thank you genuinely for being here and reading this.
This post is about creativity and overcoming the obstacles that get in the way of the joy of creation.
Personal anecdotes on writing
I’ve been procrastinating pathologically to launch this journal for years despite the unwavering creative desire to do so lingering at the back of my mind— perturbing me like a small stone in your shoe during a long hike.
For all my life, writing has played a pivotal role.
The skill of literary expression facilitated my first relationship via the online chat rooms of the early 2000s.
At 17, I poured my heart out in a compelling letter to a university admissions tutor. I justified that I didn’t quite get the required admission grades to study law due to experiencing a turbulent teenage fatherhood situation. I wrote candidly that despite my academic shortcomings, I was wholeheartedly committed to giving my daughter the best quality of life if given the opportunity!
With hindsight, that was one of the most important letters I ever wrote. It got me admitted into the university and gave me a chance at a promising future. Later, developing my legal writing and drafting skills allowed me to qualify as a lawyer and earn a decent living.
“All I need is a sheet of paper and something to write with, and then I can turn the world upside down.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
The wonders of developing a daily journaling habit
In 2012, I discovered the healing therapeutic power of journaling. I have been pouring my heart and soul daily into my journal pages ever since.
Here is a list of the benefits of journaling daily:
Emotional expression: Journaling allows you to express your thoughts, feelings, and emotions safely and privately. It serves as an outlet for processing and understanding your experiences, helping you gain clarity and insight into your mind.
Stress reduction: Writing down your thoughts and worries can help alleviate stress. Journaling provides a means to unload your concerns onto paper, reducing their intensity and giving you a sense of relief. It can also help you identify patterns, triggers, and potential solutions to stressors.
Self-reflection and personal growth: Regular journaling encourages self-reflection, self-awareness, and personal growth. By exploring your thoughts and experiences, you gain a deeper understanding of yourself, your values, and your aspirations. This self-discovery can lead to personal insights and the ability to make positive changes in your life.
Goal setting and achievement: Journaling enables you to set goals and track your progress. By writing down your goals, breaking them into actionable steps, and reviewing them regularly, you increase your chances of achieving them. Journaling helps you stay focused, motivated, and accountable for your goals.
Creativity and problem-solving: Writing freely in a journal stimulates creativity and enhances problem-solving skills. It allows you to explore new ideas, brainstorm solutions, and think critically about challenges you may be facing. Journaling can also be a repository for creative sparks, inspiring future projects and ideas. (For more on this topic, please read The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron)
Memory enhancement: Documenting your experiences and daily events in a journal enhances your memory. Writing about your day helps you retain details and recall them more easily later on. It also preserves memories that you can revisit and cherish in the future.
Resistance & Creativity
Ok, so journaling is fantastic, do it. However, it’s one thing to write for the privacy of your own eyes than to do so publicly on the internet— with the legions of keyboard warriors with a relentless passion for trolling, abusing and cancelling you.
The resistance to publishing my writing on the internet has been real!
Resistance is a universal natural force that appears whenever you set out to do anything of value for yourself or others (for more on Resistance and overcoming it, I highly recommend the book “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield).
Overcoming Resistance is not easy, but it is totally worth it! I had the extraordinary privilege of being mentored by one of the most creative souls I have ever known— the world-renowned contemporary artist Christian Hook.
Christian Hook and I at his Art Exhibition in Mayfair, London.
Christian taught me many things about being an artist and creativity. For starters, all human beings are creative beings.
The notion that creativity and artistic skill are limited to a single art form, such as painting, is a misconception. How many times have you heard people say, “Oh no! I’m not creative; I cannot draw for my life!” This limiting belief sadly prevents many of us from ever exploring the joy of creation.
Creativity is the profound human capacity to conceive and manifest unprecedented ideas, visions, and artefacts with inherent originality, relevance, and transformative power. It emerges from integrating diverse knowledge, experiences, and insights fueled by curiosity, intuition, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. It transcends disciplinary boundaries, inspiring innovation, fostering cultural evolution, and shaping the destiny of individuals, societies, and the world.
Christian, whose paintings sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds in galleries across the UK, taught me that the joy of creation comes from the process itself and not from the outcome, praise or reward.
Once you create something and put it into the world — how it is received is out of your control. It is no longer yours as it takes a life of its own.
As a highly sensitive and creative soul, I struggled for many years by virtue of denying myself a means of creative expression. It was only when the bottled anguish was greater than my fears and perfectionism that I overcame myself and created this platform for authentic creative expression.
The act of creating is a sacred compulsion inherent in all human beings. Denying oneself any form of creative expression risks starving the soul.
I learned this lesson the hard way. And so, the purpose of these words is to call you into creative action and expression.
Write your story, publish your poems, record your song, and share your art, be it a portrait, an NFT, fashion designs, or cooking recipes! The world needs your magic; you never know who you will inspire!
My Sister Gina Cerise with family at her art exhibition in Sotogrande, Spain.
On the topic of inspiration, over the past year, I have been inspired deeply by my sister, Gina. She is the mother of five beautiful kids (having given birth to twins twice!). Self-taught and with a fearless creative disposition, she painted an entire art collection and ran a big household simultaneously. Her works are now proudly displayed in an exhibition in Sotogrande, Spain.
A reminder from the universe: there is always time to pursue your creative dreams.
Open your heart and create for the simple joy of doing so—deprive your soul no longer of the rivers joy that awaits through your unique creative manifestations.
The only tragedy is that you leave this world with your song unsung…
Sharing is Caring 💚
