This post is going to be a bit different than most of my others. I’ll go back to my “normal” content after this. I’ll go back to writing about scary stories, horror movies, and ghost hunting. I’ll go back to the monsters, vampires, and magick. I’ll go back to turning every holiday (and any average day) into Halloween. The supernatural will be here, waiting for you, as it’s meant to be.
But I’ve seen a disturbing trend on the internet (I know…shocking, right?), and I feel it needs to be addressed.
If you’re reading this years from now— or maybe just months, given our attention span these days—the world is currently in the middle of a pandemic. But unlike during other natural disasters, we still have the internet. There was no hurricane to take out the power, no tornados to knock out phone service. And while the disease is causing tragedy, pain, and fear for far too many people, it’s simply magical for the internet. More specifically, it has brought out an immense creative drive in people who would otherwise be spending their time at work, bars, sporting events, and all the other places we’re not allowed to go right now.
It’s not the creative content that scares me, of course. I love that. I’m grateful for it every day. And I know for so many others, whose situations are far worse than mine, there are some days these moments of creativity may be the only thing that brings a smile to their faces. This content is everything the internet should be on any given day, regardless of the plague status.
The frightening thing is that this creative renaissance is very likely temporary. And that sucks. That’s not how it should be. I’ve even seen comments (sometimes directed at my own creative endeavors, but more often directed at others) saying things like, “you’ve definitely got too much time on your hands,” or “looks like quarantine has finally broken you.”
Is this the world we’re living in? Are we living in a time when creativity and fun, beauty and humor, art and entertainment, are things to be avoided unless we’ve been driven crazy by the temporary lifestyle caused by a killer virus? Do we only create content that makes other people happy if we’re so bored we can’t find one single other thing to do?
Please tell me that’s not the case.
Please tell me that when everything calms down and we all go back to our normal lives, the new-found creativity so many of you have discovered won’t die.
Please keep it going when the world goes back outside.
Because if you don’t; if creativity is something we only use as a last resort…
Well, then maybe we really are living in a horror movie after all.
Veronica Leigh 