On being overwhelmed, creative burnout, and the limits of human attention in a world that asks too much
Originally published July 2022.
Too many projects, too little of us
I have too many projects on the go—far too many. I believe, God willing, I will do them all, at least those that have made the “shortlist.” We are at a critical societal juncture where many sleeves need rolling up and there is work to be done as we fight off a tide of destruction and seek to rebuild. We cannot be passive. Our love for a suffering world must take on a sacrificial and heroic character.
But I hold this in tension with my human ache for simplicity, and our reality of finitude.
We are small. We are not meant to hold the whole world in mind and heart. We are made for smaller worlds within the expanse, and quickly become frazzled and disjointed and ineffective when spread too thin.
This cyborg age, where machines glitter their promise of extending us into time and space seemingly forever, has given us illusions of terrible and sometimes comic grandeur. We forget that the best approximation to the eternal is in focused depths, and that our best work comes about when we accept a container or specific channel for our burgeoning inner substance that needs to share itself outward.
Back when my creative ideas for projects were still proportionate to my finitude, when they were something I could circumscribe and envision in one thoughtful sitting, I used to think that I would do it all, just in successive seasons, maybe setting up a studio and starting to paint when my hair had turned grey and the kids (which I have yet never had) left the nest. This was to be, of course, after I had successfully navigated the pre-dystopia songwriting world for decades and maybe published a book or two, among other things like learning how to make pasta from scratch.
But by now my plans and schemes have already long outpaced me, and no matter how much I attempt to make myself a machine of accomplishment, I can never win. I am in a process of surrendering in the battle of my bandwidth, energy, and abilities to the chaotic, relentless muse that towers over my littleness. I am yet still a child gushing about the perpetual expansion of possibility within my imaginary world, while my reasoned brain nods sympathetically and parentally and tells me it’s time for a snack.
None of this is bad. It is beautiful. Nothing great happens without it first being dreamt and expressed.
Our flooding ideas, especially in creative people, also match and point to our eternal reality. They are a sign of health—of a connection to joy, goodness, and endless love. We know, in the nucleus of every buzzing atom of our being, that our destinies reach far beyond the lakeshores of this life into an ocean of existence we can’t quite make out from our tiny perch.
The necessity of limits
But while remaining open to the accomplishment of much through sweat and faithfulness following on these inspirations of possibility, there is also a need for the reckoning and humility of reality. Things must be set aside, perhaps many things, perhaps forever. Here and now, we are small, small, small.
Much can still be accomplished within that little universe—and even more can be, counterintuitively, once we submit to borders, boundaries, and our finitude. It is the highly focused who end up most capable of using our modern technological tools for real expansion rather than finding themselves controlled by them.
What becomes precious
And we can, with a smile, take heart in our littleness, too, because in this life, what’s most precious is finite. The good we succeed in doing is more precious in light of what was set aside in its favour.
It turns out gold (and perhaps for the cyborg age, bitcoin) isn’t much to us if neverending. Infinite money printing means money becomes just the paper it is printed on or the expanse of digitally coded zeros it is attached to.
Human beings, too, here have a precious hard stop—an infinitely more precious one.
We build from an acceptance of finitude, and in this way we can stumble into a properly human greatness, tinged with eternity, that is our earthly glory.
And then?
Visceral joy, rather than the lethal mix of stress and defeat characteristic of our strange cyborg age, can take hold, giving real strength for the battle ahead.
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Art, music, and creativity is critical to giving us a sense of proportion and presence to deeper reality. It slows us down in an important way.
Inside the private archive, I have songs that many have said bring them to a deeper place of peace amidst our cultural noise and the burdens of life.
You’re welcome there as well. Access is complimentary and sent by email.
It includes my ongoing writing and occasional invitations to be more deeply involved—made possible by generous patrons.
KAY CLARITY ARCHIVE 