I did it. My theme for 2025 was "bringing back the creativity in life" and I think I finally brought back the creative flow and cured my brain rot.

For months there was this exhaustion. This void. I was consuming so much, articles, documentaries that make me think differently, poems, visual art I'd screenshot and save. I loved finding things that shifted my worldview. But I wasn't making anything myself. I started feeling like I'd forgotten how to make things. Like I'd lost the muscle for it. I kept telling myself I was researching, getting inspired, preparing. But I was never prepared enough to actually start.

The distraction was constant.

The avoidance became comfortable.

And the void kept growing.

So I started going on solo artist dates, wrote poems, watched people, drew more and more. Filled two journals without trying, made ugly, messy things. I started remembering how to create again.

Getting here meant unlearning how I was using the internet.

If you have 247 saved articles and screenshots, and a lingering feeling that you're supposed to be making something, I think I’ve got some thoughts to share.

Research as leisure activity

I love falling down rabbit holes. There's something generous about giving yourself permission to just... explore. No agenda, no end goal, just following curiosity wherever it wants to go and treating research as leisure activity. It feels good, like my brain is tingling, ideas connecting, concepts clicking together. It starts with an intellectual inquiry, a question, and then I love being 15 tabs deep into something completely different.

Curating curiosities

I document everything.

Images that captivate, cracks on the sidewalk.

Pieces of trash you find in the cities across the world.

Art gallery visits, shapes of clouds, textures in markets.

Plants growing through cement. Patterns in tiles, fabrics, shadows.

My own passing moods.

I love long-form content. I live on the soft internet, Are. na, Sublime, small personal blogs, Internet Archive, Psyche, Aeon, It’s nice that, Cosmos, the corners that aren't algorithmically curated. I am a sucker for knowledge management tools, and I love making digital gardens. Private spaces where I collect thoughts without worrying about who's watching. Not a blog, not for any audience, just my ideas linking to each other, growing wild.

It’s how you build meaning into the everyday. You don’t even need to know why you like something. Whatever draws your eyes is never random, it is your subconscious mind making inquiries and connections between those things. Over time, familiar themes emerge, each of us is a walking curatorial board.

A folder of my favourite words. Image courtesy of @garimakatiya.

Where we get stuck

Curation feels productive, like you're doing something. Researching. Learning. Building this beautiful organized system of knowledge. We save articles, take screenshots, listen to podcasts, and take notes, only to never return. It’s designed this way.

The attention economy thrives on making us restless. The platforms scatter our curiosities, and that is why it’s more important than ever to honour creation.

There's this trend now about "conscious media consumption." People post screenshots of Substack essays they read this week, organize reading lists beautifully, and make these aesthetic archives. Everyone is a curator, they say. I love it. I do it too.

But consumption isn't the goal. What you do with it is.

The fear of being seen

I get stuck in doomscrolling and avoid creating even when I feel the urge.

Do you do that too?

Curation is safe. Nobody judges your bookmark folder. Nobody sees your half-finished thoughts. You're engaging with other people's ideas which means you don't have to put your own out there.

Deep down, I don't want to look like a failure in front of others. There's this fear of being seen vulnerable, of trying things and falling short. We believe that if anyone sees how bad we really are, we will be hurt, shamed, or the worst—abandoned. As long as I stayed in "curation mode" I could maintain this fantasy that I was capable of great things. Just hadn't gotten around to showing it yet.

Then the narrative kicks in: Who cares what I think? I don't want to post on the internet. I am not a content creator. What if I'm cringe?

As if art was always meant to be posted. As if calling it 'content' isn't already disrespecting the art itself. Most of the time we don't create because we're scared we might fail ourselves. We protect this fragile image we keep of ourselves, and the one we want others to keep for us.

Moving to creation

The truth is the fear never really goes away. The urge to create and the urge to hide will always exist together. But the only way out is to show up. When we create, we're doing a service to the world by choosing authenticity.

Add your own thoughts to everything

When you watch something, read something, listen to something, pause. Write what you think about it, not a summary, your reaction, your questions, your disagreement. “What do I think about it?”

Quick thought I wrote in the middle of reading an essay. Image courtesy of @garimakatiya.

Your thoughts are the curation. Not the link. Not the screenshot. You.

Sometimes I throw these half-formed ideas at Claude, "Here's what I think, criticise this, tear this apart." Claude asks questions I hadn't considered but that's useful.

Make things just for yourself

I started making digital gardens without any imagined audience. Things that clicked for me, things I noticed, read, and learned that mattered to me.

Filled two journals this year, not aesthetic, not organized, just thoughts spilling out. Some days one sentence, some days pages. Terrible sketches that look like a kid drew them. Didn't matter, nobody was going to see it.

Then something strange happened. Because I was making things in private, I started noticing more in real life. I'd be walking and see light hit a tree weirdly and think "I want to draw that." I'd be in a conversation and someone would say something that shifted my perspective and I'd think "I need to process this."

Creation started bleeding into everything else, or maybe the reverse.

Maybe because I was actually living… experiencing things instead of scrolling through other people's experiences, I had more to create about.

Ugly is better than perfect

Bad is better than nothing. Effort is the new sexy.

This isn't about posting online. It isn't even about sharing. It's about respecting the urge when it comes.

Find things you don't like

Part of good consumption is coming across stuff that doesn't align with your taste and digging into why. What is this doing that I wouldn't do? Why doesn't this work for me?

Build your creative compass. Your taste becomes a tool.

Maybe to some the word taste doesn’t resonate. I get that. It can sound intimidating or even a little pretentious. But underneath that word, I think this is really about discernment, self-trust, and creative identity.

Hang out with people who make things

See their process. See how messy it is for everyone. When you feel jealous of what someone made, use that energy. Make something yourself.

I am grateful to have a creative community and friends who show up to their art every day, who let me witness their struggles and breakthroughs. Being around them is a reminder that envy points toward what you're hungry for. And I am hungry to make things.

Patience is the key

Don't look for immediate answers. The need for validation, the fear of failure, they don't just disappear. But you'll slowly start moving.

Creation is a healing process, wait to see what it does to you. You're tired, you're unrested. Don't bypass the inconvenience of it. It's worth it.

Create so you have evidence that you respect yourself. That you have a deep sense of accountability to yourself. That you show up for yourself.

Choose your internet

The internet can be used for creation but it requires intention, choosing how you engage with it instead of letting it choose for you.

You need both. The intake and the output. The saving and the making. You have to actually make the thing instead of saving another article about making the thing.

I still doom scroll. Still save things I'll never read. Still get scared before I make something. But now I also make things. Ugly things. Messy things. Things that exist outside my head. Things that might be bad but at least they're mine.

That's the shift.

I'm not gonna tell you to delete your apps or fix your screen time.

Just: next time you're about to save something, pause. Write one sentence about what you actually think.

That's it. Start there.

The rest of it figures itself out.

Banner image courtesy of @garimakatiya

auster

auster

If you have 247 saved articles and a lingering feeling that you're supposed to be making something, I think I’ve got some thoughts to share.