Facilitating discipline as an artist
With great freedom comes great responsibility
In the last two years of not having a job, not having a manager to report to and not having any colleagues, I have had the fortune and privilege of experience complete professional freedom.
However, my experience over the past 2 years has made me come to terms with the fact that a life of freedom requires much more commitment, discipline and responsibility than otherwise.
By no means do I wish to compare the merits of one over the other, my intention is just to draw comparisons between the two kinds of life I have lived over the last 7 years of professional life. So all views are personal, subjective and contextual.
When I was working with various organisations, life was well laid down for me. I was occupied 5-6 days of the week for fixed working hours. My work was decided by the tasks dictated by my manager and team. The time and days that I was not working were scheduled for travelling, meeting people, spending time at home, resting and reading. There was barely anytime that I had in hand for which I had to specifically plan.
In June of 2022, when I left my last job, I found myself in abundance of time. It was refreshing, freeing and beautiful in the beginning. I could do whatever I wanted. I had the whole day to myself.
This feeling lasted for 3 days.
Later, I realised that I had to plan my days more efficiently and with discipline to be able to pursue what I set out to do after leaving my job. It was a powerful feeling but also scary and demanding.
I had my ups and downs in the last 2 years with this realisation and today after 2 years, I have come to fully completely accept that freedom is beautiful when accompanied with discipline and responsibility.
The white board is out yet again and I am setting out intentions for the next couple of weeks. I like to plan in weeks rather than months or years. These are too far a timelines to plan for.
Here is the plan that I intend to stick to. The names of the platform denote my frequency of posting on them. Posting on social media helps me to engage with an audience, reach out to more people while helping me nurture a regular writing routine.
The Creative Writing Laboratory on Sunday’s will help me to foster an nourish a community of like minded creatives and writers. I also hope to make a lot of engaging reels that narrate events from my life and my experiences via visual storytelling format. I am nervous but I am also excited to experiment with it.
I am putting this out here with a lot of courage with the hope that this will enable me to stick to this discipline. In essence, you all are my accountability partners! :)
Thank you for sticking through my observations around discipline and routine as an artist. I would love to know how this looks like in your respective field. If you have any tips or tricks, please do share!
Last Sunday, I hosted a writing space in which 9 people registered and 7 showed up! (Yayy!) It was a lot of fun to wear the facilitator hat again after so many weeks.
Thanks to everyone who joined and participated.
I am hosting another space this Sunday. Join if you can! It will be fun :)
As a feature of all my newsletters, I share one song, one book, one plant-based meal, one film/video that inspired me, and some photographic updates from my life.
I have been listening to Call Me by Natasha Noorani and Annural Khalid. Natasha and Annural and brilliant, beautiful and super talented musicians from Pakistan. The music video is quite nice too.
Reading has taken a back seat in the past few weeks. I have some amazing books with myself that I will pick up this week and read. Will post about them in the next newsletter.
Last week, my partner visited me so we went cafe hopping. Here, she caught me having a slice of hummus toast and cheese - free pizza. (We’re both vegan)
Like I shared in the last newsletter, I am obsessed with Coke Studio Pakistan. Their new song “Blockbuster” is truly a blockbuster hit. I saw their BTS and the storytelling even in the BTS is so rich and detailed. I love how Coke Studio is single handedly bringing the people of Pakistan and India together for their common love of music, culture and dance. May peace prevail on all.
Lastly, here are some photographs from the past few days. Hope you enjoy them :)
Thank you everyone for reading and sharing my work. It means a lot to me. Like always, have a brilliant week ahead and my love and hugs to everyone!