I woke up with The Sads this morning. This is probably to have been expected: I was migrainey last week (though at least only the silent variety), and had more migraine taste in my mouth overnight; I’m overtired/overstimulated to the point where I developed an eye twitch on Sunday night, something I don’t remember having in AT LEAST a year now (though in peak burnout it was almost daily, from like mid 2021 to the end of 2022, ew); and I slept moderately well last night and quite well the night before: my mood often tanks either when the sleep deprivation gets back enough, or when I’m just coming back from the peak (depths?) of it.
So I’ve been lying in bed. Still am, as I type this out at 11:10am. It took nearly 20 mins of solidly self-talking at myself while playing wake-up games on my phone to sit up and take my meds mostly on time, and let’s be honest, in the end that was facilitated because I got a massive leg cramp that made me sit up :’D
But. I have the luxury of having nowhere to be and nothing to do, so I decided to open the laptop in bed and just, idk, browse things I know tend to help me feel better (i.e. NOT social media, lol). I wound up on my language creation (conlanging) discord server, full of the quirkiest and most delightful human beings I’ve ever, as a group, met, and realised I was yet to watch the introductory video posted by one of them on a musical language they are creating. Literally: the language is made out of music. Like, the notes are the sounds of the language, and you combine the sounds together to make words, and OMG JUST WATCH IT ALREADY.
Not only is this a seriously cool idea, and not only do I always enjoy watching talented people do talented things, and not only do I appreciate aesthetically the musical aspect of this language, and NOT ONLY is the video structured/edited/created to perfection (my teacher brain is like yes, peak resource creation, well done!), this little video – which superficially is kind of pointless in the world, as the entire concept of language creation/conlanging kind of is, as most art is on that superficial, not-necessary-to-survival level – totally transformed my morning. I’m happy again. In the span of 12 minutes, I went from ‘lightly depressed, not sure if I’ll get out of bed today’ to ‘omg there is JOY in the world and I can be part of it’.
Of course: flying flagrantly in the face of any superficiality, art is never pointless. Creation of any kind is never pointless. Creation is our highest purpose, our entire point, and you – yes, you specifically you – VASTLY underestimate the impact you are having on the world when you create something.
Even when it’s something kinda pointless. Even when it’s something kinda poor quality. Even when it’s something you think no one else will see, or care about, or engage with. The very act of making something – something pointless, something bad, something private – changes the balance of the world. And there is no possible way to understand the depth of that impact.
Creation is holy, creation is beautiful, and it is our ultimate act of defiance against the dark. Beauty will overcome fear every time in the end.
And sometimes, all it takes to remind me of that is a little YouTube video, performed simply and clearly, presenting something clever and beautiful to the world.
I’m going to get out of bed now, and go take care of breakfast. <3 <3
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