A Creative Journey
Back in September of 2020, I took a hike to one of my favorite alpine lakes in Colorado. We'll call it "anonymous lake" because the summer of 2020 made that place into an absolute zoo, full of tourists, and I don't want to make it any worse. I filmed the whole way up to anonymous lake, because deep inside, I had a desire to make beautiful videos and put them on the internet.
I never let myself put all that footage together, though, because I didn't see any purpose behind it. I had a youtube channel at the time (I've had this channel for the last 7 years), but I was doing some silly thing that I thought I had to do to make money, and so I continued with my silly little thing and shoved my dream of making beautiful videos deep down inside me.
I never made any money with that silly channel idea - in fact, I've had 4 different versions of this youtube channel over the last 7 years, and I've made not a single penny from any of them. Obviously this is not a success story. Hahahahah
This story is more of a "f*ck it, if it's not working anyway, I'm just gonna do what I want" story.
So that's what I started doing in January of 2021, just a few short months after collecting all of this footage, but this beautiful day was never fully shared, so I'm doing that today.
I recently started re-reading the book "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert, and one of the things that she said, really stood out to me, because I've seen it happening all over the internet.
She said "...over the years, I have watched so many other people murder their creativity by demanding that their art pay the bills."
And if you really start to look around on youtube, you'll see it. People pushing themselves to do and say things, just to get views. Artists who are obviously beyond the burn out stage, who just keep reproducing the same exact videos over and over again, because although they're bored to death, that's what the audience wants to see, and that's what will continue to bring more money their way.
Unless you're up at the top of the artistic food chain, most artists seem to be thinking only about what their audience wants to see, or what will capture their attention, and not about what the artists themselves want to create and how they want to create it.
I've gotta admit, that even just making beautiful nature videos all the time can get pretty boring, unless there's a specific story to tell, underneath all the beautiful footage.
Several months ago, I completely dropped my goal of ever monetizing my youtube channel, and that right there gave me a feeling of relief. I now feel free to create whatever types of videos I want, whenever I want, based solely on what I feel like making and putting out into the world. And I'm grateful for all of the sweet people who continue to follow along with my creative journey, because I really do enjoy sharing my creations.
Hi, I’m Kristen!
I envision a world where you and I rediscover what it is to be human, through connection with ourselves, each other and the natural world around us.