Autonomy is magic
I'm sure I'm not the only one who, from time to time, finds themselves doing some life or values questionnaire. Sometimes these come mandated from my job (as a form of weird personality profiling I've yet to see lead to any use whatsoever), sometimes through reading a book and sometimes just as part of my own introspection.
One of the activities these things ask of us is to try and work out what's most important. Is it ambition? Is it relationships? Is it kindness? There are lots of positive values in the world, and the hardest thing is trying not to do it all (because we can't). When I engage in these activities, one of the values I often come back to 'freedom'.
I don't mean freedom in a libertarian or American way, where there's some social imperative to rant about personal rights or shoot someone or whatever else people do with that logic. I mean freedom in terms of a form of autonomy - to do what I want, when I want, how I want. Mostly, what I want is the ability to go for a walk without feeling like I should check in with work, or drive to see a superbloom because it's amazing, or visit a desert in flood, or lie in a hammock for half the day. No social imperatives here, just a unique way of spending time.
In some ways, how we live our life is the ultimately creative act. We get one shot (I think, at least) and no redos or backups. I'll never have another 13th of December, 2022 and isn't that a call to spend our time the way we want to? Really want to?
But, like most of us, that's a level of freedom that's unattainable, for me at least, or for now maybe.
So instead I'm often searching for something a bit closer to autonomy: control over HOW I do what I do. If my boss assigns me a project, I'd like to be able to drive it myself. If I make art, one of the best things about it is that I can do it all myself.
Something I really didn't appreciate about being a teacher was how much autonomy I had. I could, within some clear constraints, teach what and how I wanted. As long as the students were learning and were happy I'm off the hook and left alone. That was great. That type of autonomy leads to some amazing creativity - that space and opportunity just is a motivating place for me. I wonder - can we really be creative under a micromanager or in environments like that?
It's amazing to me how much my own autonomy is tied to my satisfaction and wellbeing. Never am I less happy about something than when I'm constrained in HOW I do it. If someone at work insists I do something their way then I'm frustrated and unhappy. If I have to write about my art work a certain way I almost don't want to try at all. Hell, even image sizing requirements for submissions make me want to throw the towel in. Maybe this is because I'm bad at playing other people's games, maybe this is because I'm an arrogant person or something. I don't know why, but I do know what: if I can't control the enough of the process then I'm unhappy and would prefer not to.
Ironically, I'm not always certain that I've set up my life for this. I work a job where I don't get much autonomy (though that's, thankfully, shifting). I have to pay my mortgage, and I can't turn and move on a dime. Freedom is in competition with other things I value, like connection, closeness, financial stability and rest. But that's not new: we are all living with compromise.
I think one of the reasons I work so much on art, and always am making new things (be they artworks, a publishing business, new events, whatever), is because there's so much openness. How can that not be interesting? I'm the sort of person where if you left me in a room with a pencil I'd probably make something. Or if you give me a day off I'm inevitably texting Morganna with ideas for what Tall Poppy could do, or firing off an email to someone to collaborate, or heading into the bush to take pictures.
I think it's tricky sometimes to find the line between the motivation that autonomy/freedom provides and a more complex restlessness and difficultly staying still. I think what I realise at this point in my life is that it's the same engine driving these things: what allows me to work quickly and decisively prevents me from being professionally calm. What allows me to meet any deadline no matter what is also what means I'd rather walk away then stick with it. What allows me to be vulnerable and honest in a venue like this also means I routinely get in trouble due to being a bit too rash or blunt in the office.
I crave just being completely under my own steam, but maybe I haven't enabled myself to live that way yet. Maybe I never can. In the meantime, it's nice to enjoy the times I find my way to autonomy.