I’m sure in the past week or so you’ve heard the fun fact that Shakespeare wrote not only King
Lear but also Macbeth while under quarantine from the black plague. The tidbit my dad keeps
using is that Sir Isaac Newton was sent home from school to be quarantined from the same
plague and conceived of the idea of universal gravitation, along with other great works. His
time under quarantine is known as his “marvelous years.”
Something about unexpected free time completely freezes my productivity. I sometimes flash
back to this series of therapy sessions I had years ago when I was an illustration major at a
design school in New York. My therapist was this really lovely woman covered in tattoos and
had the softest most calming voice in the world. I remember telling her how much anxiety I had
when I would miss class for being sick with a cold or something but not get anything done for
my thesis in my new found free time.
“So, you can’t get to class because you’re taking care of yourself by resting, but you feel guilty that you now have free time that you’re not being productive with?”
Yeah that’s about it.
The curse of always feeling productive is instilled in a lot of millennials my age, but I feel it
pulsing through my veins every godamn day of my life. If I just go to my full time job and come
home and don’t, i don’t know, knit or do laundry or mend or cook a big ass dinner or sew in my
studio or start a new hobby or do anything on top of what I’ve already accomplished that day
I’ve failed so horribly I might as well turn myself in to the police. Just going to my day job to
support myself and my family is not good enough, I must also be using my free time for more
artistic pursuits or else I’m just... not doing enough.
Quarantine for Covid 19 is obviously a bit different than a couple of sick days. There’s nowhere
to go, no errands to run or home projects to distract from the simple fact that I’m supposed to
be creating my great work. This is literally the perfect time to create a magnum opus. Start oil
painting again. Work on one of the graphic novels I’ve been thinking about. Even just drawing a
little bit.
The pressure to create a great masterpiece has absolutely paralyzed me. I can’t even decide if it’s safe to walk to my artist studio and clean which has kept me from being “productive” in any traditional way. So far on days I haven’t been working my day job this quarantine I’ve just watched a lot of tv in bed and consumed a lot of alcoholic seltzer. But I think (outside the drinking) that it’s ok not to be productive in times of horror and struggle, even if it results in free time. It’s the idea of an artist that they fill all free time with creative expression but that idea is just a stereotype. I’m not exactly the kind of artist who is constantly overflowing with rainbows of creativity every minute. Being creative takes time and effort for me and involves taking a check in with myself about whether or not I have the time and energy to fulfill my artistic pursuits. Some of my crafts, like sewing or knitting, are less difficult to work on. But drawing and painting is an emotional experience that sometimes I just don’t have the mental energy to do.
So it’s ok not to be “productive” during the epidemic. For right now I’m doing a lot of laundry
and mending some clothes that need it. It’s ok not to create a masterpiece. It’s ok just to survive.