I want to create
I'm tired of just consuming.
As a kid I spent lots of time creating. Free play with Legos, ridiculous 5 minute films with my friends, literally just digging holes in the yard. School involved regular projects, essays, lab assignments that required at least a bit of creativity. I had someone holding me accountable for seeing the thing from start to finish.
My college thesis was in a geometry class, by far and still my least favorite sub-discipline of my math major. All semester I wished I was in the number theory class. The thesis itself covered a few geometric proofs using complex numbers. And when I finished it I was so proud. It felt nice to produce that self-contained exposition of a few math thingys that, before hand, I didn't particularly care about. I still sometimes find that paper on my backup drive and re-read it with pride.
But at some point all that creation seems like it stopped. And all I do now is consume. It's not necessarily low quality content either (although I do watch plenty of YT and scroll too much internet mind-rot). I read quite a bit, often classics, and listen to tons of educational podcasts. And yet I can't help but feel something is missing because simply absorbing more stuff isn't nearly the same as trying to pull something from my brain and manifest it in the world.
I don't think there's anything wrong with consumption, entertainment, absorbing info from other people. My RSS reader is full of great content that I think I'm better for regularly reading. That still can't fix the fact that my creative side has atrophied. If anything, seeing the cool work of others increases my own desire to create.
Every once in a while I do try to create something. There's a directory on my computer full of 60% complete coding projects that I once got pretty excited about over a cup of coffee. I even try to write occasionally and it also fizzles out as soon as I reach that Resistance phase where the real work starts and after which, I know, the rewards appear.
Reading, listening, watching are all so frictionless that without a bit of direction and focus I could just spend the rest of my life consuming, barely exercising my own creativity again. And even if I do conquer another couple works of Russian literature I still think doing that exclusively would be the less fulfilling, easy path. I've almost fallen into this pit, but I'm going to pull myself out. I want to create.
The last bits of creativity I've retained need practice. Specifically practice at completing things. The pride I still feel looking back at that geometric proof paper is really there because I actually finished the damn thing. Overcoming Resistance is the crux and it's the part where lately I've just checked out and checked my RSS feed.
I want to write stuff, develop cool (or at least fun and quirky) programs and websites, solve math puzzles, tinker with generative art... But all that resolve isn't worth shit if I don't start by finishing at least this one thing.