What Kratos taught me about Creativity
How I learned to enjoy the process.
Tentei, nao consegui, mas vou tentar de novo
Apanhador Só
I used to think video games were useless. I’d look down on people who played them, all the while thinking myself magnanimous for my bored abstinence. There was no greater waste of time in my mind than a round of Call of Duty, a fortnight battle, or a game of Rocket League. Don’t even get me started on Super Smash Bros. The way I saw it, hours and hours spent on these games yielded nothing but the elapsing of time. No skills are gained, no relationships are formed, no progress is made. I thought video games were worthless. And then quarantine happened.
March 15th, 2020: I ask my roommate David if he wants to go halfsies on a ps4. He says yeah. We talk about how if we’re going to buy one, we should do it soon, in case all the stores close. March 17th, 2020: David texts me “Found a $300 one at target. Got it + God of War.”
And so, it began.
For ten days straight, I was rapt. I spent work weeks playing as Kratos – the tormented son of Zeus who must now deliver the ashes of his late wife to the highest peak in all the realms with his son – all while carrying the guilt of patricide on his enormous tattooed shoulders. I battled dragons and dark elves, frost ancients and fire trolls. I left slain the sons of Oden and vanquished the progeny of Thor.
It was awesome. But it wasn’t easy. A lifetime of shunning video games has left me somewhat terrible at them. In a game that takes an average of twenty and a half hours to complete, I would spend six alone on a single boss battle – playing until I emerged victorious or my fingers were too sore to go on. I died over and over again. But that’s what made it worth it. The harder the challenge, the more effort and attention it required of me – the more satisfying it was to overcome it. The value of playing through God of War on medium difficulty didn’t come from the positive outcomes that I accrued for my efforts - it came from the process putting in effort in the first place.
Now, let’s contrast that with how I’ve thought about another process: The Creative One.
With creativity, I have often been myopically focused on what my creative efforts will give me when they are completed, failing to recognize the value of the process itself. For example: instead of enjoying the process of singing and playing guitar, I’d often be elsewhere, thinking about how if the song I write is good enough, it might get someone’s attention. I’d be thinking about how after an open mic someone might like it and tell me so. Or about how people will want to buy my songs if they’re good enough. And about how if that happens then maybe I won’t have to have a real job. Or about how, if the song is really good, it might get me a pretty girl’s attention, and then we’ll get married and have kids and I won’t have any loneliness left to write songs about. That’s where I’d be. Elsewhere – thinking about the outcomes and missing out on the experience.
This kind of outcome-based motivation has huge consequences. For one, it is often self-defeating: if I’m obsessed with the outcome of the creative process, I am more likely to judge my creative efforts prematurely for their lack of earth-shattering brilliance and abandon them entirely. What if the song I’m writing isn’t good enough to get a pretty girl’s attention? Is it even worth writing? Maybe not, I’ve often thought. This has lead to many a night spent watching TV and hating myself for not writing more songs.
Unlike video games – creativity does it fact have benefits that could plausibly be gained. But I’ve been overly focused on those outcomes, and it’s really hindered me creatively, and robbed me of a ton of time well-spent completely immersed in the process. With God of War – I learned how to actually enjoy the processing of trying, failing, and trying again. In video games, there are not external outcome to lust after. That’s not true with creativity. You can use it to get laid and make money – and that’s great. I just can’t forget to enjoy myself.