To find your voice, look for the intrinsic. Easier said than done.
I’ve been struggling to “discover my voice” lately. There are certainly many things I’m passionate about. Change that I want to make in this world. I’ve interviewed my friends and confidantes and asked them what my strengths are. In short, I’ve done all the things that all the self-help books tell you to do. I’ve Ikigai‘d my way through it all to discover the center of many concentric circles.
None of that has helped me (well, only a little). Because I keep trying to fit a certain mold about how I ought to be from all this input.
I create to serve an external outcome.
I think the reason as kids we are so free, so creative, so wildly energetic and bursting with potential is because we are driven solely by our inner drive to learn, explore, invent, play, touch, push, invent, imagine, and create.
There is little at that age that’s about whether what they will create will be liked by their peers. Whether it fits a certain mold of a million other creators online. The comparison is more playful. The creation more genuine.
I’m starting to think that the loss of childhood happens when we become intensely outwards focused and lose our sense of personal interest.
I think that’s one of the reasons why LLMs have taken off so much. They give shadow artists a chance to create art when they were denied it. The extrinsic minded people use their AI slop and self-aggrandizing “content” to build their brand.
But their brands will never fill the void of human existence. Because that can only happen when you let the inner soul flourish. When your deep inner curiosity, creativity, and courage shine through.
Thus begins the work of re-discovering your intrinsic motivations to create art. And then creating just for that reason.