This isn't an apology

Creativity, consumption, and sacred stillness

In 2024, I hit publish on three (3) newsletters, all of which happened in the first few weeks of the new year, and then I published… zero things in the (hundreds of?) months between then and where we are now, in autumn of 2024. I published about one, maybe two podcast episodes in that same time. The reasons for going quiet are many, and mostly accidental, and though I am not particularly fond of the long tradition of people making public online apologies for not posting, like they owe anything to anyone, like an atonement is due, like some line has been crossed, like some transgression has occurred, like we must sincerely explain or defend or pardon ourselves for this horrific act of neglect, I have done it many times, and will sort of do it again here — but hopefully, with a greater purpose and lesson to share, if you stay with me.

In the first half of this year, we worked to get ourselves from South America to the Chesapeake Bay, by sailboat, against the ticking clock of an impending (historically aggressive) hurricane season, which meant covering a huge amount of miles in a short amount of time, which turns out, sucks up huge amounts of energy and focus. We were underway, moving, sailing, and handling the litany of ancillary tasks that are required to get a vessel safely from one port to another more days than we weren’t between March and July. And then, once safely docked in Virginia, the packing, moving, driving, and adjusting to the massive cultural and lifestyle shifts of life on land and life in America after four years away, became the next entirely consuming, somewhat daunting focus. I explained some of this here, in my first post ‘back’. It wasn’t just boat stuff that had me consumed — I was also intently focused on other (important) parts of life, like community and relationships, in the all-in way that I’m wont to do, and of course, many other things.

I wanted to create, but I couldn’t. I felt creatively impotent, frustrated with myself that I couldn’t seem to find a single interesting thing to say or share. But — not only was I not creating work in this time, I was also not consuming anybody else’s. In that span of roughly nine months, I can count on one hand the total amount of podcasts, newsletters, blog posts, videos, or social posts I consumed. Zero books. Aside from reading the news and occasionally opening Pinterest when the scrolling urge hit, I shut it all down. Nothing was going in or out. (Ok, I was still publishing vlogs to YouTube multiple times a month, but those felt like just compiling clips — not inventing something from scratch, and even with these, I hit a wall and fully stopped for three months in the spring, which is in part why they are terribly behind right now, but I digress).

The energetic place from which I usually take on creative work was unavailable, the doors were shut — and something about reading other people’s words and listening to their conversations and ideas made it worse, rubbed it in, reminded me that everyone else’s bodies of work and creative brains were still growing and expanding, while mine felt dwindling, fading, receding into irrelevancy with each passing week.

But it wasn’t just that. I couldn’t consume anything because it also felt like I just didn’t have space for it, for any of it — there was simply nowhere for any of this content to go. It wouldn’t be properly distilled, processed, or reflected on, it would just be hastily chewed up and spit out in a momentary hit of distraction, not absorbed or appreciated in the way it surely ought to be. I had lists of things that crossed my digital path that I wanted to read or enjoy — but they felt inaccessible at the time and got saved for some future moment when they actually stood the chance of touching down somewhere within me, instead of being skimmed and then immediately forgotten.

This year has been a full one, by measure of our travels and transitions alone. After all, by distance, we did in three months going north what took us three years to do going south. And did I mention what a mindfuck it’s been returning to life on land after living full time at sea in a swaying, bobbing forty foot sailboat for four years? But here’s the truth: it wasn’t only this year that I've felt this bizarre juxtaposition of feeling creatively vacant and maxed out simultaneously— most of my time living aboard felt this way.

Now, plenty of people live this lifestyle, or similarly nomadic ones, and manage to create things all the time, and plenty of people work and run businesses while on the move. But for me, for an amalgam of reasons, with a few exceptions (like our lengthy four month stay in San Blas Panama, the place where I wrote my only three newsletters this year and rebranded, the only time when we weren’t moving constantly and creativity bloomed again), I struggled immensely to do both. And it felt strangely terrible, to be living the dream in some of the world’s most beautiful places, while not being able to tap into the very thing that makes me feel most alive. I felt the hit that this creative chokehold took on my health — mentally, emotionally, spiritually — and in the four months that I’ve been back on land, I have watched with awe as this dormant piece of myself has slowly awakened, growing bigger and healthier by the day, and the total effect of all of this has left me utterly rapt with fascination.

I’ve been fascinated by creativity and the role it plays in human expression, fulfillment, and wonder. I’m fascinated by the ways in which making silly art no one sees, playing, can ironically be a gateway to a substantially more meaningful life. I’m fascinated how creativity instantly brings us into a state of connection, into contact with parts of ourselves that we have long forgotten about. I’m fascinated by the reasons we enter into these states, the reasons we can’t seem to get into them even if we want to, and why we sometimes tend to just avoid them altogether. And mostly, I have been struck by how deeply important all of this seems for us, how much we need art, play, and creative expression, individually and collectively, right now.

I’m fascinated by the countless ways artistic expression is inherently spiritual, the way it overlaps with story, myth, imagination, awe, perspective, surrender, intuition, trust, flow, and feeling — and how it’s blocked by so many aspects of our modern maladies, like productivity, efficiency, screens, performance, distraction, haste, monetization, our need for certainty, our fear of failing or being bad at something, and more.

I’m also fascinated by what seems to be the necessary precursor to creative states, the thing that was out of reach for me while traveling full time, and the thing that is equally absent in so many people’s lives today for a variety of reasons: stillness. And not just physical stillness, which is obviously a hard thing to find while constantly on the move and is therefore often a part of this, too — but what I mean here is an interior stillness, a spiritual stillness, an internal clearing, a spacious sanctuary away from all the noise, and demands, a place within ourselves where we can sit down on the safe and solid ground of our being for five minutes and breathe, let our bodies and minds rest, and look around, and look up, and watch the clouds of endless to-do lists and rumination part, where we can watch the stars emerge and begin to arrange themselves into constellations, connecting into various shapes and forms until we understand a piece of ourselves, a piece of this world, just a little bit differently, perhaps a little bit more clearly. A place where not only new ideas and perspectives are born, but where it’s quiet and roomy enough to be able to turn and toy with them until we ultimately, miraculously, transform these nebulous notions and ideas into a tangible thing. And how desperately we all need this stillness, this space, and its myriad downstream effects on our spirit, now more than ever.

Because this inner clearing, as I experienced first hand, isn’t just for creating and imagining new ideas — it’s not just generation and invention. It’s also the space in which reflection, distillation, and thoughtful contemplation of all ideas we come into contact with in our days and weeks come to land. And when we do not have access to stillness, for whatever reason, sometimes consuming more content in the hopes of becoming inspired (or distracted, or entertained), does more harm than good.

If we think abut artistic expression as the release of emotive, energetic, spiritual or intellectual tension, it might then be that if we’re not engaged in some sort of creative outlet, however small or silly, that the system can become clogged and maxed out (how I felt for … a long time) — and to then pile more input, content, opinions, and information into a system that does not have a healthy outflow, we risk an energetic imbalance that can feel like fatigue, frustration, overwhelm, agitation, stress, or stagnation. This isn’t to say that if you’re not creating you shouldn’t be consuming, not at all. It is just a recognition that we all consume a lot these days, and I don’t believe it’s doing any of us any good if we can’t simply be with a piece of content or art — if we can’t let its dust settle, let it bounce through the halls of our beliefs and thoughts, process and examine it, let it impact us here and raise questions there — if we’re instead just gobbling it down in a hurry and moving onto the next one, day after day after day. For inspiration to really land, for it to move into our bloodstream and saturate our bones, for us to be able to access the healing and enriching cathedrals of art, original thought, and creativity, we need stillness.

I’m intimately familiar with the ways creativity naturally ebbs and flows — but after being in a drought for so long, this doesn’t feel like just a flow, it feels like a renaissance. And because of its extended absence in my being, I’ve come to regard inspiration as magic, creativity as vital, and art as sacred. Expect more on all of this soon.

For now, not only do I feel I once again have the capacity to create, but the capacity to consume has returned too. Yes, sometimes in the mindless doom-scrolling way, but mostly, in the joyous, can’t-get-enough, invigorated, fired up, YES what a great point and WOW I love this take, and every long form, thoughtful piece I read becomes a tiny little star somewhere in the sky of my mind that’s beginning to once again, occasionally but spectacularly, come together into constellations of ideas that have me fervently eager to explore and expand on and share and it all feels, well, pretty damn good.

xo, Taylor

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Coming soon for paid subscribers: a roundup of the many things that are inspiring me right now, from music and playlists to essays and poetry, my new just for fun hobbies, the books I’m reading, and some thoughtful reflections and reminders regarding the value of play and creative states and how (and why) to nurture them.