Latest / Still Standing: Stories of Resilience, Survival & Strength / The Courage to Create Just for You: Private Joy | Still Standing
Transcript
- What would you make if no one ever saw it? Not a post, not a portfolio piece, just something made with your own two hands for the quiet thrill of having made it. Take a breath with me. Let’s just sit in that question for a second. Because I know how loud the world is right now. I know how many of us are walking around with our internal cameras always rolling, always wondering if this thought is shareable, if this outfit is on-brand, if this meal looks appetizing enough to warrant the light. We have become so accustomed to performing our lives that we’ve forgotten what it feels like to simply inhabit them. And nowhere is this more true than in our creative impulses. Think about the last time you wanted to create something. A drawing, a poem, a garden bed, a meal. Did the first thing that popped into your head involve an audience? Did you immediately think about who would see it, who would like it, who would comment? If you’re anything like I was ten years ago, the answer is probably yes. Back when I was climbing the corporate ladder, every project I touched had to be optimized, measured, and presented. Even my hobbies felt like resume builders. I started knitting because I read that it improved fine motor skills for executives. I joined a book club because it sounded intellectual on LinkedIn. It wasn’t joy; it was inventory. And I’m telling you this because I see that same hunger in so many of you. You want to create, but you’re terrified that if it isn’t ‘good,’ it doesn’t count. Or worse, if it is good, you’ll be expected to do it again. So you freeze. You put the brush down. You close the notebook. You tell yourself you don’t have time. But I suspect you do have time. You just don’t have permission. Let’s talk about permission. Real permission. Not the kind you give yourself after you’ve posted it and gotten three likes, but the kind that exists before a single word is written or a single line is drawn. The courage to start a creative project purely for private joy is actually one of the hardest things you will ever do. Why? Because it requires you to step out of the economy of validation. In our culture, we are taught that value is determined by visibility. If it isn’t seen, it didn’t happen. But that is a lie. A profound, exhausting lie. When you create for private joy, you are reclaiming your humanity from the machine. You are saying, 'My experience matters, even if no one else has access to it.' I remember a winter a few years ago, back when I was still trying to figure out who I was outside of my job title. I bought a terrible, cheap watercolor set. I sat at my kitchen table with a cup of tea that had gone cold, and I painted a bowl of fruit. It looked nothing like real fruit. The shadows were wrong, the colors were muddy, and the perspective was all off. But here is the secret: I loved it. I stared at that ugly bowl of apples for twenty minutes and felt a sense of peace so deep it almost brought tears to my eyes. No one knew I had painted it. My partner didn’t see it until I accidentally left it on the counter the next morning, and he just smiled and said, 'Nice apples.' He didn’t critique it. He didn’t ask if I was going to sell it. He just acknowledged that I had made something. That small moment of privacy was a lifeline. It reminded me that I existed for myself, not as content for others. What did that cost you? This is a question I ask often, and today I’m asking you to consider what it costs you to keep your creativity public. Every time we share our art, our writing, our baking, our gardening, we open ourselves up to judgment. And not just judgment from strangers, but from our own inner critic, which grows louder whenever there is an audience. When you create for private joy, you remove the stakes. You take away the fear of failure because failure only exists when there is an expectation of success. If no one is watching, there is no scoreboard. There is only the act itself. And the act itself is where the magic lives. It’s in the feeling of the charcoal against the paper. It’s in the smell of yeast rising in the dough. It’s in the rhythm of typing words that make no sense yet but feel right in your chest. These sensations are lost when we are too busy curating the outcome. I used to think that resilience meant bouncing back strong, showing the world I could handle it. But I’ve learned that true resilience is often quiet. It’s the decision to paint badly in your living room because you need to feel something other than stress. It’s the choice to write a poem that no one will ever read because you need to process a grief you can’t speak aloud. This is unsung heroism. It’s the heroism of showing up for your own soul when the rest of the world is demanding your performance. It’s brave to be invisible in your creativity. It takes a certain kind of strength to say, 'This is mine. It belongs to me. It does not belong to the algorithm.' And I know that sounds radical. Maybe even selfish. But I promise you, it is the most generous thing you can do for yourself. We talked recently about being bad at something, and how brave it is to be a beginner again. But there’s another layer to this. Sometimes, we aren’t beginners. Sometimes we are experts who have forgotten how to play. We have mastered the craft, but we’ve lost the joy. For these people, creating for private joy is a return to innocence. It’s a way to reconnect with the part of you that doesn’t care about technique. It’s messy. It’s inefficient. It’s gloriously unproductive. And that is exactly why it heals. I want you to think about a project you’ve abandoned because it wasn’t 'working' in the traditional sense. Maybe you stopped running because you weren’t getting faster. Maybe you stopped cooking elaborate meals because they took too long. What if you gave yourself permission to be mediocre? To create things that are intentionally flawed? I tried this last month. I decided to write a story, but I set a rule: I could not edit it. I could not fix typos. I could not change the plot if it got boring. I just had to let it flow, however clunky it was. The result was garbage. Truly, truly garbage. But writing it felt like exhaling. It felt like letting go of the tight grip I had on my own perfectionism. And that release? That is what we are after. We are after the relief of being human. Of being allowed to be unfinished. When you create for private joy, you are practicing self-compassion in action. You are treating yourself with the kindness you would offer a friend who is struggling. You are saying, 'It’s okay if this isn’t perfect. It’s okay if it’s just yours.' And over time, that practice seeps into everything else. You become softer with yourself. You become less defensive. You become more present. Because you know that your worth is not tied to your output. It’s tied to your existence. So, how do we start? How do we bring this into our lives without turning it into another item on the to-do list? I suggest a small ritual. Pick one thing. Just one. It could be sketching in a notebook that stays hidden in a drawer. It could be planting herbs on a windowsill that you tend to only when you need a break. It could be humming songs in the car with the windows up. The key is that it must be secret. At least for now. Keep it between you and the universe. Do not document it. Do not caption it. Do not explain it. Just do it. Let it be small. Let it be silly. Let it be completely useless. I know your brain will try to argue with you. It will say, 'But this isn’t productive.' 'But I should be using this time to work.' 'But what if someone finds out?' Listen to those voices, but do not obey them. They are the voice of the old system, the system that told you to optimize your life until you burned out. This new system is simpler. It asks only that you show up. That you be present. That you trust that your joy is enough. You don’t need an audience to validate your happiness. You don’t need a mirror to prove you exist. Your hands are enough. Your heart is enough. Your imagination is enough. And if you stick with this, if you keep this space sacred and private, something wonderful might happen. You might find that you enjoy it so much that you eventually want to share it. And that’s okay. But let that desire come from a place of abundance, not scarcity. Let it come from a place of 'I have so much joy to give,' rather than 'I need to prove I have value.' When you create from that fullness, your art changes. It becomes lighter. It becomes truer. It becomes alive. And maybe, just maybe, someone else will see it and feel that same sense of permission. But that’s a bonus. The real prize is the peace you feel while making it. Thank you for sitting with me today. For listening. For remembering that you are allowed to be a mystery to the world, and a home to yourself. Take care of that private joy. It’s the most important work you’ll do. Until next time, I’m Marissa Davidson, and I’m rooting for you.