Hi my love,
It’s been a while, and I want to talk about why.
Several months ago, I came across a speech by Lauryn Hill about winning an award for her album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. It made me even more magnetized by her radiance, but beyond that, I felt her realness.
She said something that I haven’t been able to forget:
“I can’t create and not live.”
She was speaking about the pressure to continuously create, even when there was nothing new within her to pull from. She realized that when she tried to make art without allowing herself to actually live, experience, learn and change, the work began to lose its substance.
That made me think about other creative women who have fascinated me for the same reason.
Alexa Demie, who became so captivating to the world through her role as Maddy, and then stepped further away from the screen and into a more private life.
Yasmeen Ghauri, who could have continued building a career as one of fashion’s most recognizable faces, but eventually left modelling behind and turned toward a private life filled with family and the things that existed beyond the gaze of the public.
From the outside, it can seem almost incomprehensible.
Why would someone who is so captivating, who could potentially make millions, simply step away?
Why would you leave when the world is asking for more?
But I think there is something we often misunderstand about people who create.
Sometimes, you make the art you were meant to make, and then you need to go live.
You need to become a person again outside of the thing people know you for.
You need experiences that aren’t being turned into content. Conversations that aren’t being documented. Days that don’t need to become a story. Parts of yourself that belong only to you.
I started feeling this way with my own work.
For a while, I thought mass production must be the way forward. More videos. More consistency. More output. More everything.
But I learned very quickly how untrue that was for me.
And maybe you have felt this too, even if you aren’t a creator.
Maybe you’ve felt pressure to take on another shift because you want to earn more.
To say yes to something because it looks good on your resume.
To stay in a relationship because leaving would mean starting over.
To constantly improve yourself because you have convinced yourself that who you are right now isn’t enough.
To keep pushing because slowing down feels like falling behind.
There are so many ways we can slowly trade pieces of ourselves for something we think will make our lives better.
And sometimes, from the outside, it even looks like we’re winning.
But what happens when you get everything you were working toward and realize you’ve become disconnected from the person who wanted it in the first place?
I remember why I started creating in the first place.
It made me feel three-dimensionally alive.
It gave me somewhere to put the things I was thinking about, feeling, learning and becoming. It allowed me to turn the invisible parts of my life into something tangible.
And when something that was born from your soul becomes something you feel obligated to continuously produce, it can start to feel flat.
Meaningless, even.
The very thing that once gave you joy can slowly become the thing that triggers your anxiety.
And that’s when I realized that art has to be protected.
Not just for the sake of the art, but for the sake of the person making it.
I don’t want to create simply because I am supposed to be creating.
I want to create because I have something to say.
Because I have lived enough to have something worth saying.
Because there is something inside of me that wants to come out.
So I took a step back.
I lived.
I read. I thought. I spent time with people I love. I let myself be a person without constantly asking myself what I could turn the experience into.
And somewhere along the way, I started feeling that aliveness again.
I’m coming back from my hiatus with more to share than ever before. Not because I forced myself to produce more, but because I gave myself enough space to go deeper.
And maybe that’s the paradox of creativity.
Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your art is stop making it for a little while.
Sometimes you have to go live.
And then you come back with something real to say.
With Love,
Rishani <3
