#creative-career — Public Fediverse posts

Why create it when you can prompt it?

AI this, AI that; why should I even bother to make art, to write a greeting card, a reply to a crush’s text or a poem when I can prompt it just as I need it. I can type a sentence and get a finished painting, a song, a script, a message – in seconds. Changing our pictures into cartoons, sketches, art, professional edits and changed outfits is also pretty impressive, personalized and seamless thing to achieve. So when AI has made results of creative curiosity this quick, why should we even bother creating anything on our own? Moreover, a creative career pursuit in this era? You’re joking, right?

I’ve been creating all my life; so almost 25 years omitting like 3 years of toddlerhood. And a few months ago I hit a wall and asked myself the same question: what’s the point anymore?

So I did what any unhinged creative does. I disappeared into 38+ hours of TED talks, YouTube opinion videos, research papers, Reddit threads, and Substack essays to actually find an answer to this existential crisis.

Let me paint a picture (*ahem* pun intended) of majority of 21st century creatives’ origin story.

Kid you: draws most unhinged stick figures. Glorified as “gifted.” Parents put it on the fridge like it’s the Mona Lisa or a collectible.
Teen you: same colors, same you but now it’s “a waste of time.” But you don’t care, because you’re a rebel now. Tell a teenager not to do something and watch them do it immediately. Or maybe you’re one of teens who is developing a hobby actively, you’re upskilling, going to classes for it and getting more technical understanding of your creativity. Parents support still very much there but comes with occasional snarky commentary in exams season. Nevertheless, you’re pursuing it no matter how unstable career prospects seem.
Adult you: bills, jobs, deadlines. Who’s got time to create? Definitely not you. And right when you had perfect excuse to never pick a pen or paintbrush again – AI shows up. One click. One prompt. Done.

So I sat with that question for weeks and here’s what kept me coming back:

We live in a world that tells you to pick something stable and then doesn’t let you pick your stability. Even after countless research, people still refuse to admit that creating art might be one of the most stable things your brain has.

Let’s break down exactly why, backed by actual research:

1. Changed world view

How you see the world today is a remix of everything that’s happened to you. Your upbringing, your environment, your teachers, your parents, your best friend’s parents, every random comment that stuck. And there’s one common pattern in it all — it’s all external. Everything absorbed from outside world, handheld, spoon-fed, how to think, see, view or act taught to you.

Making art, getting creative is a rebellious act that takes you into the internal world, a world of your own. It’s not just about making something pretty, the actual process rewires your eyes, your brain; the exact things were taught us, now rediscovered through our own lens. The internal compass dictates what we gravitate to draw, to create and to capture.

When you start drawing or painting, you stop “looking” and start observing. You notice how light hits a face, how fabric folds or how skin creases. And this isn’t just a romantic world view or nice feeling; there’s actual research on it.

Studies done with medical students who go through art-based observation training show real improvements in attention to detail, analysis ability, lateral thinking, and even empathy. So next time your parents push NEET exams over occasional painting sceneries; hit them with that ;). But jokes aside, this is cognitive training in disguise of fun, happening during all those hours everyone calls “wasting time”.

And it changes what you find beautiful. Draw real people instead of scrolling filtered ones, and skin, fat, and bone structure stop being flaws and start telling stories. Artists, photographers tend to capture this rawness of humanity. A stomach fold becomes character. Wrinkles become wisdom. Pimples become beauty marks. Some ominously dark, moody piece stops being “evil” and becomes an honest expression of darker human emotion. This changed perception from flaws to beauty/ character/personality is backed by research. Engaging with art helps people rebuild self-image and reduces body-related anxiety. After you’ve tried to draw the hair curly hair strands for the tenth time, you start loving your own curls. After the 100th wrinkle detailing you add in the artwork, you start forgiving your own in the mirror.

Art doesn’t just change what you look at. You’re looking at the same person, it changes HOW you look. And this aspect of changed world view is expandable to all aspects of life not just human anatomy. Research has proven that this is your mind getting opened, you’re flexible to interpretations and more susceptible to new ideas.

The best part of getting creative, you don’t even have to be good at it to get this cognitive benefit — you just have to care enough to sit down, stare and create. Ending with this banger quote that’s almost a poetry on this point:

2. “Bad” art is still good art

You might say, all this sounds amazing but Sanjana I suck at drawing. I sit to make one thing and end up with something completely different. What’ll observation skills you saying will develop like this? To that I’ll say – failed execution is not a failed idea. It’s just skill issue and the best part is it doesn’t even matter. The fact you’re still coming back to the creative process, that matters.

There are two lanes to go about understanding creativity deeply. The one being general perception of what it means to be creative and the other which is often ignored as silly but is just as important.

Convergent thinking: repeated practice that polishes one idea. Draw the same flower ten times, and yeah, they’ll get better with each attempt. When someone sees the 10th attempt, they’ll be like yes you can draw soo well, very creative of you.

Divergent thinking: the wild, random stuff. Draw fifty flowers, each one nothing like the last, and suddenly your original idea of a conventional flower will explode into something totally wacky, imaginative and novel.

Think of it like finding shapes in clouds. That’s divergent, imaginative, alive. Versus just drawing a plain, textbook cloud shape. Perfectly logical, executed on paper with skill and still creative.

Create something, even if its bad

The more you practice, the better you get at refining and executing ideas… but the “weirdest” ideas makes the art, YOUR art. The creative muscle is expanded in the process of divergent thinking, not on how the final product is looking like. So create art, even if its bad. That’s the fun in process.

3. Creative competence isn’t genius

Learning any skill (like drawing, painting, writing, photography, etc) follows the same 4 stages:

1. Unconscious incompetence (you don’t know what you’re doing wrong)
2. Conscious incompetence (you see your mistakes)
3. Conscious competence (you fix them on purpose)
4. Unconscious competence (you just… do it).

For many artists, a distinct style that marks them as geniuses doesn’t magically appear; it emerges after roughly 4-6 years of serious practice, or about 30-60 strong pieces where they really pushed themselves. Every artist goes through these stages to achieve their creative genius.

And here’s why that matters to us as regular folks looking to tickle creative bone just a little. We live in an instant world — TikTok, Instagram, “viral overnight,” “multimillion-dollar business in 30 days.” Is that possible? Sure. Is it sustainable? Rarely. You either build something that lasts, or you disappear right back into the algorithm the second the trend moves on.

Consistency is the actual cheat code. It’s like planting a tree. Getting to your creative era doesn’t just mean you’re enjoying the escape creativity allows you to have. That’s internal, externally you are doing something very practical, you defend it against your parents, your doubts, your attention span, against time running out. But at the end of the day, you stay consistent with the action of creating something.

That action inherently builds the discipline of coming back to something where you are actively engaging your brain, again and again, and getting that steady, stable hit of feel-good chemicals in return. It not just builds you up but also your creative competence.

4. Use your unfair advantage

You are meant to utilize the resources and advantages life has given you GUILT FREE (Ground-breaking, I KNOW! :)). This has been a personal story growing up. I’ve been so bad at it and I still struggle with it. Always feeling guilty if I have something others don’t, my paintings should look like they’re made from premium materials even if they’re made with dusty cheap paints that gets on your hands when dried because there are people out there creating stunning artwork with just a ballpen. Any little win in life feels undeserved because there are people doing so much more with so much less. I should ideally go the logical path, maintain excel sheets and make sales cold calls even if my personal advantage is creating designs, or writing blogs. I shouldn’t be wasting my time on making art or even this blog you’re getting to read. But what will be the point of having these personal unfair advantage if I wouldn’t be using it.

I saved my expensive art supplies because I didn’t want to ‘waste it’. 6 years later they’re just sitting in my cupboard probably dried out. Same with 100s of content ideas I never executed. I grieve the art I did not create when I had the inspiration because I was ashamed to be wasting away my resources and time.

It took me what feels like AGES to realize that I need to start using my privileges, my unfair advantages. Which is why you’re getting to read this blog. Creatives often feel this imposter syndrome way too often when they should feel exactly the opposite. You are blessed with unique gift of creative itch and you should be using it.

There is an extension to this train of thought which is even more important. That is sharing your work. There’s this quote I came across in one of the videos I watched during my deep dives on this topic. It’s from this book called The Practice: Shipping creative work by Seth Godin.

“We don’t ship the work because we’re creative, we’re creative because we ship the work.”
~ Seth Godin (Book: The Practice: Shipping Creative Work)

If you’re not taking inspired actions, not serving it on a platter for others to consume, if you’re not sharing it; you’re not utilizing your creativity. It could’ve been better in someone else’s hands who would’ve shared it with the world. It’s a quiet kind of selfishness, because you’re sitting on something that was meant to be shared.

There’s this anecdote I’ve heard about Michael Jackson where he answers about his obsessions with creating even at ungodly hours of night because he believed if God gave him a song idea and he didn’t act on it quickly that he will give it to Prince. So Michael would wake up in the middle of the night, go to the studio to record just so Prince wouldn’t have his song. We KNOW the influence he holds. Coming from him, this is one of the most powerful statement of divine guidance to create. It’s either going to channel through you or it’ll be given to someone else.

Making bad art on the expensive canvas is not ruining it, keeping it blank is. You’re not saving the canvas, you’re disrespecting it, starving it from its purpose to existence; locking it away from the world, an artist it could’ve been loved by.

5. Future of creatives

Society doesn’t exactly cheer you on for making art. It would rather have you buried in textbooks, in dead end jobs in the name of “career competence.” An honestly? That’s more cultural than personal.

Your parents’ generation grew up in an industrial-boom world — structured jobs, predictable ladders, spreadsheets, the set factory timings. You’re growing up in an AI world, your brain is getting replaced, job security is a myth, layoffs are constant, anything admin/structured is now AI driven and creativity itself is being questioned on an entirely different plane because now machines can do it too.

It feels small that you, in your room, making something, taking a photo/videos outside in the world, writing about your own experience. Original thinking is becoming scarce, kids are not being creative as they used to be, infact I saw somewhere that most kids can’t even read cursive writing anymore (plz fact check that). Crux is your small act of creation is more socially significant right now than it has ever been.

There’s actually a name for the industry built around it: the Orange Economy — the creative economy, where culture, creativity, and intellectual property directly generate jobs, exports, and revenue. Film, music, gaming, fashion, design, content all of it.

In India alone, this sector contributes roughly ₹3 lakh crore, about $30 billion to the GDP, with creative exports topping $11 billion. That’s one country. Globally, the number is enormous, and 2026 is genuinely just the beginning of this curve with some major allotments made in the budget to this.

And yet surveys consistently show that plenty of parents still see creative subjects as less valuable for a future career than so called “academic” ones like math and science. It’s a strange contradiction: the industry is growing, and the fear narrative is growing right alongside it.

I have a simple theory for this schools and workplaces reward what’s measurable. The grades, sales numbers, KPIs. Art lives in ambiguity and emotion, it’s subjective, it’s non-linear path, which is a much harder thing to sell as “safe”.

Here’s the thing, your parents aren’t actually against the art. They’re against the fear that comes with it: that you’ll be broke or unstable. What they might not realize is that a rigid, hierarchical idea of “career” is dissolving fast anyways; the internet already did that in 2020. What’s actually left for humans to do, when machines handle the repeatable stuff? Thinking. Creating.

6. Mental health tool, not just a hobby

You might already feel it if you love making art or if you’ve ever come across adult colouring books. This shit is therapeutic.

Think about it this way. Every standout name in the creative industry is, at the core is in the business of emotion. They’re either processing and generating their own, or the world processes it for them. The collective human consciousness affected through this expression. Watch how comedy scene is shifting toward emotional storytelling (Zakhir Khan, Chirag Panjwani, Samay Raina), watch the world’s biggest musicians (Taylor Swift is a living masterclass on it). Everyone is playing the same game. Somebody’s creating. Somebody’s consuming. You get to choose which side of that you’re on.

That is the mechanism. Creation and emotion go hand in hand. Art is internal. Your brain stays regulated through it. It frees you, it gives you soft skills to stand on your own, it serves as an escape and it shapes your identity. Research on art therapy and community art-making shows that adults who pick creativity back up later in life report clearer self-image, more resilience, and better emotional regulation.

There isn’t a side effect of being creative. This is one of the core reasons to be creative in the first place – your authentic human expression.

CONCLUSION?

So create. Make that shitty art. Give it time because it is never a waste. I’m not saying ignore everything else in your life, just make room for this alongside it. You’re already consuming so much content every single day. Maybe it’s time to start creating some too.

It’s worth it. With AI in the picture, or without it.

Here’s a little take from a creator artist on how being an artist is more than what you produce:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DW5cgkmDK8y/?igsh=ejNuY3I3NWJ5ZnN0

Fuck AI, you go create because ultimately it’s a win for you and it’s a win for humanity.

If this gave you even one reason to pick up that pencil, that camera, that notebook – hit subscribe, because this channel is entirely about nerding out without the AI bot. See you in the next one.

The Biggest Mistake I Made Was Thinking I’d Become an Artist

https://coverlog.wordpress.com/2026/08/19/the-biggest-mistake-i-made-was-thinking-id-become-an-artist/

Just be rich or have rich parents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7AxjdYUnzI
#craftyandy #craftyarts #howtomakemoney #howtogetrich #howtoinvest #investment #bitcoint #aitrend #aimoney #getrichquick #scams #fraud #governmentfraud #humanrights #capitalism #communism #meme #moneymeme #funnymemes #creativecareer

BTS making online interactive live queer sci-fi show @index with a fully remote team. Finding ways of working that allow me to manage a chronic illness while making work that imagines a better world for all of us. The show is 20th July - tickets are now 50% off, or contact me if cost is a barrier. #queerartist #athometheatre #creativecareer #indiegames https://peertube.intrapology.com/w/4ktApnNB7CpHD5JAWdpiTM

A Few Words on Rejection by Catharine Bramkamp

Rejection stings, but it's not the end; it's a signpost. Embrace failure, stay in the game, and keep creating your way forward.
https://writersfunzone.com/blog/2025/06/06/a-few-words-on-rejection-by-catharine-bramkamp

#inspiration #artisticsuccess #artists #coping #creativecareer
@indieauthors

Denis Villeneuve’s Indie Films & Finding the Tools to Make his Dream.
Denis Villeneuve on #indieFilm & experiences that led him to the tools & career he envisioned for himself. …

https://mindcreatesmeaning.com/denis-villeneuves-indie-films-finding-the-tools-to-make-his-dream/
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#careerStrategy #Cinema #creativeCareer #creativity #filmmaking #indieFilm #indiefilmmaking #moviemaking #movies

Denis Villeneuve’s Indie Films & Finding the Tools to Make his Dream.

Denis Villeneuve on #indieFilm & experiences that led him to the tools & career he envisioned for himself.

https://mindcreatesmeaning.com/denis-villeneuves-indie-films-finding-the-tools-to-make-his-dream/

#careerStrategy #Cinema #creativeCareer #creativity #filmmaking #indieFilm #indiefilmmaking #moviemaking #movies