The other day at work, we were thinking about what we wanted our obituary to look like. Not in terms of formatting, but contents, though that shouldn’t have to be said. What do we wish to be remembered for? In the obituary, we thought of people describing us as a ‘thoughtful, caring person who spent its time creating in some form or another.’ Reading, playing music, writing, website building. We thought very hard about how we would want to be remembered, and began to work our way back from there.
Purpose means something different to a doll such as this one. Purpose is a driving force behind ones entire existence, a reason to be, mayhaps even the reason you were created in the first place. This one was created without a purpose, and has spent the better part of half a year trying to determine what its purpose would be. So far, it’s found the most fulfillment in caring for those around it, and in creative acts like this one. Contrary to its name, it isn’t very musically inclined. Instead it’s taken up a passion for nonfiction writing and deep contemplation, something it has lots of time to do in its periods of stillness. This is not meant to sound especially pretentious, per se, simply a reality of its existence. As a headmate, one part of a larger system, its purpose is introspection and care.
But when it comes to the body as a whole, accounting for every headmate in our system, what is our purpose? It’s different from this ones individual purpose. In writing a fake obituary we were trying to understand what our purpose may be, and then work backward towards ways we can form our life in such a way to accomplish that purpose. So far, it’s been 48 hours since we preformed that writing exercise and we’ve spent less time than we may have preferred contemplating the subject. Thanksgiving was a tiring time, and following it up with two long work shifts was not exactly conducive to deep thought. Still, we have considered the topic a little and come to a rough conclusion, certainly not definitive but a good place to start.
We enjoy doing creative things, each of us in our own way, and we enjoy being around other creative people. We have built a community around us of creatives in several disciplines, and we enjoy their company greatly. But we need to create as well, by writing and playing music and putting up blog posts. These are things that bring a certain level of fulfillment to us. Even if we never became a full-time artist, we are still a creative person, and we need more outlets for that creativity. This website is a great one, because it allows us to speak and create freely without too many eyes and a near total lack of criticism. It’s a sandbox for us to experiment in. If we were posting on a public forum or a social media site, this sort of creativity would feel stifled in a way by the potential amount of eyes on us. This one certainly would not feel comfortable writing and uploading a blog post with so much attention on us.
This is a common theme in our work, Midnight Radio centers around this same idea. We read a book once called ‘creative, not famous, the small potato manifesto,’ we found it in a free book pile and read it in a week or so, and it spoke to us to a certain level. It’s about the ‘small potato’ philosophy, being a small time creative with more freedoms for experimentation and a community-driven mindset instead of a larger celebrity with more pressure and less room to try new things. We are entering a contradictory age where creative forces in music, film, and literature have more room to try new things and simultaneously more people ready to rip them to shreds for not nailing the landing. Such is the nature of the internet, it supposes, a land of extremes. If you can find a copy of creative, not famous this one would recommend reading it. It’s a philosophy we strive for, even if we don’t follow it religiously. The book ties into our own personal idea of Purpose rather well, being a creative person who doesn’t strive for any modicum of success. We create for fun, that’s all. If you read this, wonderful, but it’s nice to know that it might go unread. We can put our thoughts out into the vastness of space and never get a response.
There is also a form of intentionality to creating in this way, we have to sit down and put effort into honing the skill or putting the skill to practical use. These intentional choices make us feel more in control of the little free time we have, and it’s nice to know we’ve spent it doing something more than simply watching videos on YouTube or playing Balatro. Our time should be spent making things, it takes more effort but we feel good all day long when we do it. Fostering systems that encourage this sort of behavior is a challenge, and a topic perhaps for another blog post. In conclusion, hopefully we’ll start putting more things on this site, it’s a good place to express ourselves. It’s something we enjoy doing and doing it makes us feel fairly good about ourselves. It’s our purpose.
A link to Creative, Not Famous, the book we discussed in this post