Closing out an enlightening year
2025 was interesting.
It was hard, awful, and presented us with a lot of information. Too much information, actually.
A lot of useless and distracting information.
Simultaneously, it revealed a lot of truth. Uncomfortable truths. Truths that we are now having to reckon with and can’t ignore any longer.
For me, this had to do with my self-doubt, and the belief that I have to value what I bring to the table before anyone else does. Writing and creating art hasn’t been enough, at least, that’s what I used to think.
That is what I think a lot of creative people have been told for a long time; this year, the voices that repeated that message were louder than ever before.
“AI can do that faster, cheaper, and better.”
“Have you try asking ChatGPT to write that for you?”
“Human labor is too expensive. Artificial intelligence is the future.”
We all feel the disdain. And if it isn’t about the creative practice or output, it’s about what general value one brings to the table. Nurses, teachers, social workers, and physical therapists are all now being considered unprofessional. Neurodiverse people are having to deal with a renewed onslaught of misinformation about their brains and living conditions.
Are you valuable anymore? Where you ever valuable? Should we even care about being valuable?
But living in that frame of mind is a trap. At least for me it is. I can’t keep thinking of myself and what I bring to the table (in all its forms) as being a part of a sliding scale of value. Yes, I want to be valuable, I want to help, I want to be needed. And at the same time, I am a person who just wants to be myself without having to perform.
This is why content creation and I don’t go hand in hand, no matter how much I’ve tried over the years.
So, why has this year been one of the hardest and most enlightening years for my creative life? Because it doesn’t make a difference anymore. I have to create from a place of safety, joy, and self love. Not for an algorithm, not an audience, and not because “I’m not a real writer unless I’m writing such and such and publishing in such and such a manner.”
Yeah, AI could come for my job, could do it better and faster than me, and people may not want to pay for my work. But I can’t live at the whims of that thought anymore.
It’s the hardest part of my life to believe that my meager writing efforts and output are not only enough, they are precious and essential to where I’m going. AI could never live my life for me, and could never get it.
2025 showed me what my future looks like when I give into the thoughts that people who never cared or valued artists and writers think and say every day. 2025 was the year I decided that the haters don’t get to dictate how I move anymore.
In 2026, I likely will still feel pressured to perform, to make things I don’t like, or just feel down on myself for not “keeping up.” But I don’t regret making the shifts I needed to make in 2025 to realize that I write the way and in the time frame and in the manner I like because that’s who I am. No one else gets to do it like me. No one else has to live my creative life but me.
And if you’re making something, or just want to make something, that goes for you too.
You are valuable because you are who you are and you do what you love. No one gets to tell you different.
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