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October 5, 2008 by Tien Chiu

Creative slump

I suppose it was inevitable that the last two weeks of manic energy would catch up to me, which it did a few days ago.  I felt burned-out, unmotivated, uninterested, and actually BORED (which virtually never happens) for a day or two.  I actually spent a good couple of hours playing computer games, which I generally consider a waste of time, but which proved a good way to move the dawdling hours along.  I hate that sense of aimlessness, and of passing time – not because it is unproductive per se, but because it is so much less enjoyable than diving headfirst into the universe.  I am extremely blessed in having a boundless sense of enthusiasm for the world – I know most people don’t have that much energy and I am grateful that I do.  That is the upside of being bipolar, I think – my native personality is very “up”, very energetic (read: “hypomanic”).  Equally fortunately, the “Hyde” part of being bipolar – the depressive side – surfaces very rarely, and is pretty well controlled at this point.

But I do have my creative slumps.  Hence, nothing interesting happening, the past few days.

But today is a new day, and thankfully I’ve recovered my usual sense of energy and enthusiasm.  Mike and I did two thirty-mile rides yesterday and today – one easy and one very tough, with lots of steep hills – which proved both mentally and physically energizing.  So…no more creative slump.  Forward ho!

Meanwhile, I have not been exactly idle through my slump.  I am about halfway through threading the loom, with only one threading error I’ve seen so far.  (It was in the first few threads, and I’m not about to redo 441 threads to solve an error at thread #5, so I’m just going to throw a repair warp end through a string heddle and call it a day.)  I am hopeful of getting the loom fully threaded by next weekend, though I’m not sure – there are some Major Household Projects going on (mostly, rearranging the garage to give me some office space) that will eat up a lot of time.  But I do hope to get the loom threaded and weave some samples before the end of next weekend.

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Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving

Previous post: Of chocolate and cashmere
Next post: Weavolution fundraising (in other words, "chocolates!")

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