Creating Anyway

Foto Engin Akyurt

Sometimes I think the scariest thing in the world is a blank canvas.

Not just because it’s empty, but because it isn’t. It’s full of every voice that ever told you not to bother. Every teacher who frowned, every neighbour who said, “That’s nice, do you make any money with it?”Full of your father’s disbelief about your wasted life (and his!), your own hesitation, the memory of the last thing you made that no one ever saw, all the drawings you traced, the poetry you wrenched out of your gut, all those attempts to make meaning—put aside, unacknowledged, unappreciated.

Still, we long, we create. Or we try. A little bit.

Some of us take safe jobs. Sell fake books online. Work in offices with cold light. Drive their children to their next activity. At home we are too tired to do anything but scroll or go out and drink. Women often put their family first happy to have found a valuable excuse. Others produce work that sells—neat, clever, lifeless things—and pretend it’s enough. We try every trick in the book: crystals, creative workshops, a lot of Netflix, a lot of shopping. Still, something’s missing.

I’ve known that feeling. Of making things that feel like blowing hot air into the scorching sun. Of pretending I don’t care, it does not matter to be seen. Of hiding behind big words, or behind helping others, or behind a constant buzz of busyness so I don’t have to hear how quiet it gets when the creative drive stops.

Even the ones who make it—whatever “making it” means—aren’t immune. I’ve seen them. Well-lit, well-praised, well-paid. Still empty. Still lost in the churn of content instead of the flow of creation.

But what if it doesn’t have to be this way?

What if the fear never really leaves—but we stop letting it do the drive?

I’ve spent years stumbling through this jungle. Chasing the thing I loved, hiding from it, getting close enough to touch and then backing away. And then, finally, I found a way. Not a hack. Not a hustle. A practice. A path. One that doesn’t bypass the pain but actually goes there. One that listens to the child who still thinks she’ll be punished for coloring outside the lines. One that holds space for the part of you that wants to be great—and the part that just wants to be free.

This work isn’t about fame. It’s not even about success. It’s about reclaiming the part of you that still believes in beauty. It’s about being whole. And true. And alive.

I offer it now for:

The artists who ache with longing but have forgotten how to begin.
The ones who traded their voices for safety and want them back.
The ones who keep showing up, even when it hurts, even when it’s lonely.
The ones who create anyway.

This work reaches into the basement, where the old beliefs are boxed up and hidden. It speaks to the younger ones inside us—the quiet ones, the scared ones, the ones who stopped trying because it was just too much. It gives them something they never had: a say. A safe place. A chance to grow up without losing their magic.

It’s not neat. It’s not always pretty.

But it’s real. And it works.