045 - Brief Encounters with Independence
Disjointed notes on creative freedom
I am Maneesh, this is Bombay Daak, a seasonal series of ... we are yet to figure it out. Some of you are new here, joining this corner of the web despite the absence of issues (what does it say about them then? ).
Nevertheless, welcome to you, and everyone who have been around longer to this third season of letters.
Thanks for reading this.
And wish you a Happy Independence Day tomorrow if you are from this part of world! Cherish it, and make it your own!
Creative Freedoms
These days are timid days.
The mind and body finds itself in a creative stupor. Most nights I promise myself, as I shut my eyes, tomorrow I will start something new. But these shackled rust laden hands are struggling for their independence.
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There was a time when the web was filled with tiny, independent projects. Surprisingly it was easier to find them then. There was also different, independent set of connections you cultivated online around your weird interests.
Now it is the same circle everywhere, online and off. Social media has made the anonymous person the villain on the web. And with that were killed the obscure and odd projects finding a world beyond their world.
And then there is the constant need to churn things, as opposed to when you had something to say. I mean, even Kottke is on a break now.
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Every Frame a Painting was one of my favourite YouTube channels1. Last month I realised I haven't seen their work in a while. Turned out they stopped back in 2016, and instead of a goodbye video, they blogged their script for the farewell instead.
It's a brilliant lesson for fellow creators on what it takes to run a passion project of quality. It was wild to learn that their unique edit and style was a result of working within the constraints to avoid YouTube's copyright slams. How crazy is that!
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Meanwhile Nerdwriter, owner of the most exquisite narrative voice on the web, is still around, and in fact has come out with a collection of essays called Escape Into Meaning. It’s funny how you start something with one motive, and in the process discover a whole new inspiration and path in the process.
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I believe I might have written more of these letters had I not known you were reading them. Is there a name to this paradox?2
You are anonymous to me, unless you are friends and family, still the possibility of making this worth your time is a persistent concern. I don't know or remember the source of the idea, but playing for an audience of one is always helpful to shed this heavy weight.
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This summer I developed an intimate knowledge of Camille Pissarro. Picture a young Jewish boy, barred from drawing by religion and culture, sketching away unseen under the Carribean sky.
The impressionists changed art with just 12 exhibitions. Pissarro was the only one who was part of all 12. He had led the path to it before Monet, Renoir, Cezzane and others discovered this freedom. What if Pissaro had learned his chops under the gaze of a teacher indoors?
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A decade ago, a friend advised me to take a day off every week from work besides the weekend. I chose Thursdays and stopped going to office for around 3 months (I ran my own ship with my friends so this was easy). I had the most creative run at work the following year after this exercise. There is no science and evidence to present, but I believe it wasn't the break from work that helped, but exercising my freedom to be elsewhere when others couldn't. To roam the city with no other agenda but to be not at my work desk. I mostly spent the time shuttling on buses. I had to have the claws of everyday work gnawing to truly feel free on those days.
(Perhaps why I am always seeking some way to projects and essays on cities)
Every Freedom Needs a Well to Draw From
Whenever I think of new creative work, I am always drawn first to mountains. The solitude of the hills, the cold nights, the burning legs, everything becomes evident in a visceral manner, but most vivid is the the freedom at the top of a peak, the whole world below you. And you remember that everything starts there; the snow becomes ice, ice water, words trickle bit by bit into a river.3
I didn’t realise it when I watched it, but the team behind Every Frame also helped helm Netflix’s Voir. Such a pleasant surprise.
Not related but I recently came to know about the Matthew Effect
This post found its inspiration from this painting by Dennis Perrin