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Making art when you don’t really feel like a person is hard. Making art when you can’t even recognize the art within yourself feels almost impossible.

I’ve been moving through my own creative drought lately — not because I lost creativity, but because I’ve been drowning in it. Too many ideas, too much pressure to curate, to shape them into something “worthy.” And when I couldn’t juggle them all, I just… stopped.

Slowly, I’ve been pulling myself out of that stuck place. Not with masterpieces or perfect projects, but with small, messy things. Journaling more. Reading more. Listening to other creators and podcasts that make me feel less alone. Noticing the art in everyday life — the way sunlight lands on the floor, or the sound of a voice note from a friend. Writing shitty poems. Drawing terrible sketches. Having bad ideas and letting them come into existence anyway.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, I came back to myself. Back to the human underneath all the pressure to produce.

The prompt I want to give you today is the one that grounded me:

What would I make if no one could see it?

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When I asked myself that question — what would I make if no one could see it? — the answers surprised me. They weren’t grand or polished. They looked like scribbled journal pages with words that didn’t always make sense. They looked like half–finished doodles in the margins. They looked like dancing in my kitchen to the same three songs on repeat, just because it made me feel alive for five minutes.

When I stopped forcing inspiration, I realized it had been sitting quietly beside me the whole time. Inspiration isn’t always fireworks. Sometimes it’s a whisper. Sometimes it’s a long exhale. Sometimes it’s the tiniest flicker of joy that you almost ignore until you finally slow down enough to notice it.

That’s when I began to understand: creating isn’t about perfection, it’s about presence. It’s about noticing the art in the way your coffee tastes in the morning, or the way a sentence falls out of your mouth that makes you want to write it down. It’s about letting the ugly drafts and the bad sketches live, because even those hold a piece of you.

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So with that, I invite you to join me. Try the same prompts I’ve been sitting with:

• What would I make if no one could see it?

• What does inspiration look like when I stop forcing it?

Let them lead you somewhere soft. Somewhere honest.

I want to remind you of something I’ve had to remind myself over and over again: creativity always returns. Even when it feels silent, even when you think it’s gone for good — the spark always comes back. Sometimes brighter. Sometimes in an entirely new form.

You are never a lost soul. You are an artist — even in the quiet, even in the waiting. And the masterpiece you’re searching for? Don’t forget, it’s you.