One of my unofficial goals for this year (that I had largely forgotten about until today) is to spend time making art; not big important ‘Art’, just forcing myself to do some kind of creative thing without worrying whether the end result is cool or not. But also very specifically not the usual ‘creative’ stuff that’s one step from a chore (“I turned pants into shorts, fun!”) I can’t draw or paint worth a cat’s ass so I rarely doodle, and a short experiment with watercolors was ridiculously humbling until I found that I liked painting faces on coconuts. Who knew. I guess the point is to just give myself time for unstructured creativity, with no prescribed project to finish and the ability to toss or burn whatever when I’m done.

Another part of it, though, is that ‘giving myself time for creative play’ (or however you want to new age it) while the world is an absolute shit basket of atrocities feels not so much luxurious as selfish; it’s hard to justify spending an hour practicing my favorite words in cursive for the sheer joy of how it rolls and looks and feels, when I know there are people getting their hands blown off. On a bad day it’s impossible. But on a good day I’m able to think of it as part of the rebellion; the world is brutal and life is short, taking precious time to make art for no one but yourself—essentially saying “this is important to me and me alone”—is one way of giving the finger to the established notion that capitalism rules the game, as well as saying that your life and time are important, not just as a cog in the wheel or a hero-in-training. Everyone should be allowed the luxury of a few hours’ time to do something that excites their brain in a different way; most people can’t, but right now I can and I’m not going to take that for granted.

Maybe that’s all just a long-winded way of saying today I started reading an old Nat Geo and wound up making a collage and for two hours I was really, really happy.