Overwhelm and creativity

The desperate need for space in a very full head and its role in the creative process

Most days, even when I know I’m more than up to the tasks at hand, I feel overwhelmed. The psychologists and psychotherapists speak of the stress jug overflowing, and a person becoming sensitised. That’s what happens to me. And before I know it, thousands of thoughts and concerns blast through my brain and activate my nervous system, my threat response called to arms.

It’s a symptom of our information age and a pillar of the mental health crisis.

So I’ve been making space.

It feels impossible, but it’s not.

When I slow down and take time to breathe, immediate guilt is upon me because I feel that my chances of earning what I need to earn are diminished. As a man with many responsibilities, there’s always something I could be doing to help the family, take the business forward, or keep myself occupied.

Yesterday I listened to a taoism podcast about overwhelm. I wondered if this was counterintuitive given my stretched mind, but it helped. It opened with a story about a potter asked by his apprentice about how he shaped the clay so beautifully. The potter smiled and explained that he was not shaping the clay, but creating the space inside.

It immediately hit home. If you head to the reading list, you’ll find the brilliant In Praise of Shadows on this very topic.

The human mind does not have the capacity to handle the amount of material we feed it in our times.

I recently made the silly mistake of clearing a few more tasks on my laptop on the train back from an intense coaching session I delivered in London. It cost me a full night of sleep because I couldn’t shut down the chatter in my head. The overspill of this is ongoing nervous exhaustion and overwhelm.

Since then, instead of using a free slot or evening for busy work, I try to consider the emptiness available. I don’t always need to watch TV, check my phone, read my book, or do anything at all. What if sitting still or looking out of the window is enough? I’ve been making conscious choices according to my energy, and how full my stress jug is.

My choice to expand my creativity into coaching, podcasting, and writing, while maintaining my career as an illustrator and artist, necessitates a certain amount of dedication and task elimination, but all too often, in the busy work headspace, I’ll veer into autopilot, continuing to do, when what would really help with inner calm and seeing clearly the best way forward, is space. Space to breathe, to simply be.

in The Creative Condition book, I wrote about the role of the unconscious, and its ability to hand us solutions we cannot crack with persistence and grind. The classic shower moment. We are conditioned to do more all of the time, and it keeps us trapped, disconnected from feeling the way forward. The inner compass.

I’m naturally disorganised. Or maybe lazy. Or both. So I have to work hard to stay organised in my day-to-day life. I don’t miss deadlines, but I’ll allow what could be a simple list of tasks ordered by urgency or importance to become a monstrous thought swarm that leaves me in this awful state of overwhelm. And the sleepless cycle begins again.

The podcast I mentioned also shares the story of a Zen master responding to a student’s thirst for knowledge and answers by continuing to pour his tea long after the cup is full.

And that applies here. For a long time, I’ve been pouring, and I’m up to my brain in it, struggling to breathe.

But now, I’ve pulled back, and I’m beginning to ladle out the tea until there’s some room, so I can calmly drink what’s inside.

A creativity and mental wellbeing checklist?

Why the tools to tackle anxiety double up as a list of creative health essentials

It was a Sunday afternoon, and I tracked back a few paces, the dog digging his heels into the pavement, resisting. I dropped his leash, and he relaxed, eyeing me quizically. This wasn't in the routine.

Some kids on the street had been drawing on the pavement and left two half pieces of chunky orange chalk behind, and I couldn't walk away. I'd tried, but I just couldn't.

I coloured in a solitary brick. I wasn't sure why, but as I walked away, I post-rationalised it. Maybe I just wanted to yank someone out of their thoughts. That was the vague idea I settled on.

During a trying run of anxiety, I wouldn't have done that. Anxious people tend to say no to things and hide away from the world, from their joy and curiosity.

On Sunday, I felt good. Sleep has been better, journaling is a wonderful tool, and perhaps, most importantly, I'm directing my attention to wonder and exploration again. Fewer psychology podcasts (which were vital in gaining an understanding of anxiety disorders), and more shows about creativity, sports, history, and the paranormal.

I return to my journal as a way of cementing my core beliefs about many things, and in it, I have a little list of the things that I need to maintain to be well. Much of this list is covered in sessions with my coaching clients. Creativity, being a core part of the human condition, not an arbitrary task for designers and artists, shares a lot with wellness.

Journaling, for example, is about self-awareness. Taking the time to reflect and introspect, so often out of reach in the creative industry, thanks to the frenzied pace of things, and the pressures in a changing economy, is essential if we're to be the authors of our own lives. Without this, we become passengers.

Talking about how I felt, what I wanted to feel, and how I could get there with trusted confidants and strangers alike helped massively. I believe creativity is a shared condition, contagious too, and the idolised individual is something of an illusion. Without input from others, no singular triumph or idea is possible. How those conversations take place must be determined according to the individual's personality and sensitivity, but happen they must.

Recognising the impermanence of things is veering into Buddhist territory, but it helped me to let go of some of my biggest fears around mortality (this anxiety was part of an actual mid-life crisis) and other tormentors beyond my control. Creativity never stands still.

Shining is how I came to define my purpose and a way of being that is natural to me. Not the Stephen King variety, but being mindful of how I carry myself in the world and how it impacts others around me. I've come to believe that something as simple as smiling at a person in the street instead of staring at a small screen can be transformative in ways we'll never know. Society is divided, and connections of all kinds are sorely needed. Who knows where a person is going, whom they will meet, what effect such a simple gesture might have on them, how they behave or feel? The ripple effect of all these things is unknowable, but to remind ourselves that possibilities are endless should be cause enough to act with presence and intention. It's easy to look at the big positive changes and feel we are irrelevant, but nobody is. This returned purpose and agency to my life, and reconnected me with my mission to elevate creativity. To do this, people must establish a baseline of optimism, and that starts with tiny steps.

Resting and slowing down is a hard habit to establish in today's world. It is fundamental to wellbeing and effective, conscious creativity. Yet it is a key challenge for every artist, designer, illustrator, writer, musician, and photographer I've coached. Since forcing myself to do so more, my stress cup has been less full.

Organisation can act as a sibling to rest and slow down. I'm not the best here, but the rudimentary steps I've taken to improve mine have paid off massively in terms of headspace and the quality of my thoughts and my work.

Simple joy is something I neglected in the worst times with heightened anxiety. The double-edged sword of my profession being part of my passion meant even the things I did enjoy were still filtered through some kind of work-related lens. Failing to seek unconditional pleasures, whatever they might look like for each of us, is damaging to creativity. Joy brings colour to our days and offsets the weight of adult life. In childhood it was a driver of pure creativity. We'll see the world with more colour and possibility this way, waking up and going to bed thinking the right kinds of thoughts.

This is by no means an extensive list, but I hope it gives you a sense of the inseparable nature of creativity and wellbeing.

The Daily Stoic

The need for accepting what we can control in our chaotic times

Creativity is a fundamental part of the human condition.

So, if we're routinely anxious, panicked, full of gloom, it's incredibly hard to access the wonder and joy that fires it.

This wonder is essential if we are to contribute our creativity to a better world.

Don't get me wrong, no emotions are wholly positive or negative, and those we lump in the negative sack are powerful, but harder to use effectively, especially when such prickly emotions are sustained.

But a baseline of optimism is crucial to making the work truest to who we are.

For this reason, when I coach clients, I ask them about their 'insurmountables.' The big 'orrible antagonists that are beyond our control, but blow raspberries at us from the rooftops as we try to enjoy the flight of birds.

I've helped clients tackle fears around misogyny, younger years misdemeanours, inescapable chores, and more, all in service of freeing them to make the magic only they can make.

Personally, through anxiety and at times despair over the ecological crisis, and in my worst times, my own mortality, I've felt empty, ruined by the kind of fear that makes me want to climb out of my own skin.

I've had to do deep internal reckoning to ease those, and easing they are. In part, this is thanks to the work of Ryan Holiday.

Ryan is a philosopher, and I stumbled across his important work while seeking to understand the ways of the brain. Stoicism's teachings have become a guiding light for me as I seek to maintain the many positives my high-sensitivity and curious brain have given me, while policing the overthinking downside. I also have Dan Kieran to thank for introducing me to 'Meditations' by Marcus Aurelius, which has also been incredibly helpful.

As I said, no emotions or even traits are wholly positive or negative.

I'll be adding 'The Daily Stoic' to The Creative Condition reading list.

Stoicism , at its core, is self-mastery, acknowledging what we can control in our lives and learning to manage the ills of what is beyond our direct influence.

It’s about making choices to enable us to contribute meaningfully to the world, with fulfilment and joy.

Say hello any time you wish at ben@bentallon.com or here in the DMs to just share ideas, tell me how you're feeling, or, if you're so inclined, we can talk about how my coaching might help.

And as ever, my weekly show, 'The Creative Condition podcast', is free for all. Hopefully, you'll find something that helps amongst the 300+ episodes.

Ryan is easily found - his podcast of the same title is brilliant for these times.

The first morning back

New year creativity reflections and the importance of self-awareness

An understated moment proved to be a big turning point last year. I'd done some live drawing at the DixonBaxi x Paradiso event in London and joined the teams for a drink after we'd wrapped up. Chat was fast and passionate. Despite a good relationship with Simon Dixon, this was the first post-work beer we'd shared, and we got into a lot. Somewhere in the chat, while explaining that I often found it challenging to effectively title myself professionally, he said, "You're not an illustrator, are you?" I looked him in the eye and nodded, knowing he'd hit upon something. Simon has been in the game much longer than I have, and our connection has been around something deeper than a mere skill or role. In all of our previous conversations, we'd explored themes, ideas, and truths that transcended limiting disciplines.

"You're a storyteller."

I just slurped my pint and stared back, before babbling something about this being on the money, but like all revelatory moments, it took time to disrobe itself, confronting me as something hard to look away from.

He wasn't talking about business card copy; this was about living as your inner artist. Every human has one. Some lead careers and lives with them, others sadly never access theirs. It was about essence. Since a very early age, I've adored storytelling in many forms, and now it has become my creativity compass. My passion and purpose, in fact. This is bigger than a profession for me.

2025 was the toughest mental health year I've had. A full-blown midlife crisis. Not sports cars or the likes, but a search for deeper meaning, rampant anxiety bursting pipes in every room of my inner sanctum as I tried to manage a hectic, expensive life as a parent, partner, and professional in a world that felt frenzied and maniacal.

I bent, but thanks to friends, family, and the belief that I could adapt, I didn't break and found the inner strength to do the required work.

I learned about the mind, about the nervous system, the thought habits I'd allowed myself to run me ragged, and recognised the need to slow down. The midlife crisis is incredibly common across a wide range of ages – from around 29 into the early 60s – I heard.

But from all of this, I've emerged with at least a finger on the wheel. I have tools now. And a plan that is sympathetic to my energy and mental capacity, and a plan that is built on storytelling, curiosity, and my desire to contribute to the elevation of creativity's role in our society.

I have Pit Stop coaching sessions lined up this January, which I am giddy about. In this session, I help people to work through their current position, their story to date, their fears and desires, and their opportunities and blocks before assessing all components of their creativity to ensure they get back to the place they need to be, to feel passionate, energised, and in control.

And now, I have a brand new coaching offer. Last year, I worked on two biographical stories for two prominent people in the creative industry. With both people I indulged in a magical 12+ hours of deep conversation, hearing all of their experiences, expertise, and points of view. Creative writing and book coaching came together to tell two brilliant stories.

Every human has one, though most don't believe it about themselves.

I found it unbelievably fulfilling, so I distilled a more accessible version for those who do not wish to write a full-on book, but could benefit from writing their story to serve as a compass for their creativity and purpose.

It's a 4-session story coaching programme that could benefit anyone who has become a passenger in their own life or career, as happens to so many of us in this breakneck-paced life. You can learn about both the book and the coaching offers here. I'd love to help you weave your narrative.

And of course, this will be my 19th year making commercial art. Telling visual stories across branding, advertising, editorial, sport, music, motion, and whatever else remains a core part of my work. I'd love to bring this to your projects.

I felt peace this morning that was lacking too often in 2025. The ominous first day back. It was frosty with a light dusting of snow here in Salisbury as the sun rose on the dog walk. A small ripple of anticipatory stress crept in, but, instead of last year's tendency to panic and attach all kinds of damaging meaning to it, I took a breath and accepted its inevitable presence, something that should pass by mid-morning if I remain organised.

Stress is a part of all our lives, but the role it plays in any one of our stories, and our creativity, is more in our hands than we realise. It's about becoming the author.

Rest and creativity

A reminder: Why rest is essential for optimal creativity and mental health

When it dawned on me that I’d done 18 years without a day off to rest, I could have punched myself in the face.

This time it wasn’t a day off with the flu, it was three days off to avoid what increasingly felt like it might lead to a fucking breakdown.

Anxiety, as any regular reader or listener of The Creative Condition will know by now, has been acute this year. Sleepless nights in double figures, and all kinds of jumping through hoops in a mental landscape resembling the upside down of Stranger Things on too many bad days with a racing heart.

Only when I felt like I couldn’t work thanks to the paralysing fear did I acknowledge that I could be burned out.

That’s when it dawned on me that any time off I’d taken in my freelance career – and I’d been generous enough – was to do something, go somewhere, or care for someone. Never just to stare at a wall and drink a hot beverage. Or to get in bed and watch wrestling. To play a game, go for a stroll, or visit the cinema.

The classic irony is, I give my creativity coaching clients tools and structures, reasons to do this, because I know what happens when you don’t rest. But practising what you preach is a fine art.

When I did it, it was a revelation. I could almost see my teenage self saunter in, flop on the bed, and pick up a video game remote. I watched the wrestling, napped, and called some friends whom I’d been meaning to catch up with.

It wasn’t an immediate fix, but it was no coincidence that I felt a renewed optimism and inner peace come the third day, and now, I’m trying to make every Friday a slower, more ponderous day, challenging myself to stay organised so I can fit my work into 4 focused days rather than stretching it over 5 semi-efficient ones. On Fridays I can go for a longer dog walk. Start later, finish early, make some art just for me, write a story, or, if I’m really brave, do absolutely nothing and stare at the ceiling, knowing that this is just as critical a part of creativity’s diet as making or idea generation. You can’t do either of those things well if you’re exhausted and anxious. That much I’ve learned in a challenging year, and I’m incredibly thankful I did.

The joy of making art

What kind of creativity is best for you, and are you doing it enough?

I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m talking about zero-hours nights, screaming levels of panic in the small hours when my heart races and my thoughts are infinite, loud, and terrifying. Anxiety brings it on, and my mind just takes the baton and runs with it.

I’m doing the work, learning about the mind, talking to the right people for catharsis, but also to learn and grow my way out of a chronic loop of anxious thoughts brought on by overthinking. Progress has been made, and last week, thanks to the unlikely source that was my mother-in-law, I took an important step forward.

She’s heard from my wife that the night had once again wiped the floor with me, and she was a little worried, this being the 4th shocker in two weeks – an undeniable escalation.

“What are we going to do with you? I think your head is too full. Do you still make that big, bright art of yours? I might be talking rubbish, but I know with all your coaching and writing, that you’ve had your hands full.”

Initially, in a state of sleepless delirium, I replied and assured her I was going to be fine, and I acknowledged the validity of her question about my art, but I didn’t have the computing power to think any deeper about the matter. Things improved a little, and despite lingering anxiety, I found a moment to consider her question. My weeks are packed. I never take the time to rest unless we’re going away or I have parental duties. As joyous as these two things are, they are also demanding and full-throttle. To take a day off to rest, unless ill, has been a luxury beyond my grasp, and that’s foolish. I coach my clients about this and provide tools and structures to help them do it! So, after a chat with close friend and collaborator Dirty Freud, who suggested I mirror his model of one day a month off just to rest or play, I decided to go one better and attempt to protect Fridays for emotional creativity.

Emotional creativity is the act of creating for the sake of creating, because you want to.

I work well under pressure, and with too much time, I can fall into procrastination traps. So, my thinking is that if I organise my week well enough and apply enough pressure on myself to have to truly focus, I’ll get five days of less organised activity into four days, leaving one day where it’s not about tasks, but about being creative in the purest sense. Emotional creativity.

So Friday came. In the morning, with brass balls, I dared to roam into town with my wife, drink a fucking brew, and do a spot of Christmas shopping. My anxiety was low, and dissipated as we talked about non-work things and the things we’re excited about. At lunch, we returned home, and in the afternoon, after a dog walk, I made time to begin creating an artwork from the things I’d found beautiful in Lisbon. I put on some new music after asking for recommendations from friends, instead of algorithms, set up my art desk, and let rip. It felt amazing and reminded me I just haven’t done this.

Intellectual creativity tends to be client work, specific and focused acts of making, building, designing, and the like, but working to a brief set externally. This alone does not allow our inner artist to play unconditionally, and is what tends to lead too many artists and creators to frustration because of the lack of balance with emotional creativity.

The mother-in-law had hit upon something crucial with her simple but profound question. She cut through some of my crap as a great coach, mentor, or therapist can.

I drew with an abandon I hadn’t accessed of my own volition for too long, and as the ink dried on these drawings, inspired by the music, I didn’t go to make another brew, but switched on my mic, wrote down some swirling thoughts, and recorded them as spoken word and sent them to Dirty Freud for a long-discussed, but long neglected experimental collaboration using alter-egos we created over a decade ago.

Much other work has been done on the roots of my overthinking, but my sleep has improved, as has my mental health, and I am incredibly happy that I was reminded that no matter how much intellectual creativity I carry out in my job, it is essential for me to make like the artist we all have within us. Our sanity depends on it in this world.

The Wisdom Curfew

I left Manchester after my 2nd stretch of living in the city in 2021. When I left for London after my first five-year stint, the only building that touched the clouds was the Hilton hotel on Deansgate. After loading my car outside M One, a studio space I rented in a former cotton mill on Lower Ormond Street, I set off on a last melancholy stroll up Oxford Road to book-end this chapter; I was leaving for family reasons, with excitement, but also a heavy heart. I’d had nine of the best years of my life here, including the birth of my children and my brother living in the same city.

I’d anticipated something of a reflective walk, but instead, I found myself gawping up at what had once been sky above the old BBC HQ. No sky was visible, only the glass and metal of expensive new accommodation to house a new wave of city centre inhabitants. It was all documented in Manctopia, a BBC documentary about the billion pound property boom.

It felt alien to me, and I didn’t know how to feel about it, but what I feared, and on a deeper level knew, was that this mirrored the ugly side of gentrification I’d seen play out in Brixton a few years earlier. Many of those vibrant people buzzing around its lively streets, I’d been fascinated by in 2008 when I’d first brought my illustration portfolio to London had been driven out by the middle classes and regeneration. Personally, I’d preferred the pockets of degeneration because there were more stories to tell, and creativity could be smelled in the air along with the weed and the fried chicken.

Brixton had enough edge to thrill and a welcoming charm that made me return to the £ 11-a-night hostel many more times in my formative freelance years.

I found exactly the same crackle and warmth in Manchester when I moved there in 2009.

In 2025, it’s hard to ignore the rarity of this balance. It’s still fun, and it still feels safe, but the safety is now the dominant breed. The characters who made Manchester what it was have been pushed into stubborn strongholds that feel at risk of terminal refurbishment when leases end and money talks. The lush crops of independent musicians brimming with ambition that I immersed myself in when I co-founded Quenched Music with Dirty Freud in 2010 have been dredged like seagrass, replaced by a hip but orderly crowd. All of the new venues that have spread in every direction look wonderful, very eloquent and varnished with funky design, but I miss the fights, the funk, the fag bins, and the madheads who can teach you far more about the human condition and creativity than the more predictable crowd.

For that, you have to work harder and head out to the surrounding suburbs because you have to pay handsomely to play in central Manchester today, and while it’s still a great place to be, the chronic sameness of our generation has seeped in.

I catch the 84 bus on a Thursday afternoon. It goes to Oldham, and it’s worth keeping your head out of your smartphone for the duration.

The mix of people is absorbing.

I’m in a mindful moment, gazing out of the window, when a man of around 30 gets on the bus. I notice the electronic tag on his ankle, wrapped around smart trousers. This tag is the kind issued to those with a criminal conviction, and it comes with a court-ordered curfew that usually requires them to stay indoors outside of designated daytime hours. Legal vampires consigned to the shadows. I can’t help but think of how demeaning this is, an official grounding like a teenage wrongdoer. It would be far more interesting and effective to offer up a menu of compulsory dance, drama, sport, or art programmes in the way that the wonderful Dance United has proven to be an effective rehabilitation of marginalised people who have wandered from their better path.

He’s with his mother, and a minute or so later, is recognised by a friend who asks if he’s heard about ‘Skeggy’. Skeggy has been sent down, but I can’t quite hear what for, as I take a keen interest in this story. They discuss the electronic tags, how bored they get when they have them, before going on to discuss their video game crime sprees on Grand Theft Auto. I’m not fabricating this, and I have to catch my judgment before it takes fire at them. Characters like this are abundant in my hometown of Keighley, and I know that, despite the stereotypical characteristics of the chronically mischievous, like any pocket of humanity, there are layers.

Seconds pass in silence before the friend talks about not having his phone. Something has happened; it’s not a choice, but again, I don’t catch the reason. He then turns and starts to scan the bus before telling his tagged friend how liberating it has felt not to be scrolling on it all the time. They nod in unison, taking in the majority of passengers who have their necks craned, lost in the digital dystopia of our age, burning all that energy, losing all that lived experience. Missing the good stuff.

Finally, almost on a breath, he wraps up his realisation by saying that only since not having his phone has he realised how ‘locked in’ they have everyone.

One or two look up and meekly slide their devices away, but the rest present a disturbing illustration of this simple truth.

AI me?

I see this coach on LinkedIn. I can’t remember what they coach, but they keep going on about the need to have an AI version of yourself in this new world. The posts are riddled with that fear language, the do it or die by the side of the road type stuff.

The other day it really got to me. Bad day, vulnerable head, and I just quit the tab, put down my phone.

On reflection it was a slight overreaction, but my fury was real. I’d had a coaching call with one of my own clients. He came to me because he felt seen when we did a Pit Stop together. He knew I adored his story, recognised the traps he was falling into, and had a genuine desire to help.

During one of our calls, he told me about attending a big festival in the States, where too much was about sticking the collective tongue up the arse of AI, to the point where he felt unnerved by shoals of gawping designers and artists mindlessly prodding at the tech, getting it to ‘spit stuff out’. He called them out on it, asking what the point of all this would be if we fucked the planet by spunking all of its resources on this sort of vanity addled tech wanking. People just scoffed and shrugged and probably shoved it out of their minds. But I’m with him. I’ve used ChatGPT about eight times for questions around mental health and career direction, only when it felt reasonable enough to use such energy-intensive tools.

After calming down later that day, I reflected on the potential demise of my career. If it’s death by a thousand heads in the sand, then so be it. I never had a say about whether they should have opened Pandora’s box when they decided AI was going to be everywhere, harder to escape than access, and unpoliced, but I do have to look my kids in the eye when they’re old enough to want to cave my head in if the latest human frivolity is the straw that breaks the ecosystem’s back, and tell them my truth. And if things are that bad, and they do cave my head in when it all comes crashing down, at least that’ll be that, and they don’t have to deal with a virtual ghost haunting the wastelands.

Did I mess up?

It's hard to know where to spend your time when uncertainty is heightened.

I spent 2.5 years writing The Creative Condition around my illustration projects, but this came at a cost of marketing my illustration.

Depending on which day you ask me, I look back on this and question my wisdom, or celebrate the bravery. The truth is, it's impossible to know.

What drove me to write it was a sense of purpose I can't quite explain with logic. Serendipity, the need to evolve as a creative pro, and concern about a shifting illustration market were all a part of my psychology.

Beyond the launch, the book provided a foundational framework for my creativity coaching work, which wasn't in my mind while writing, and I suppose that's the point here. Things are always unfolding, so it's vital, if rarely easy, to move forward with passion, intentionality, and self-belief.

And like any coach, therapist, or mentor, I'm never fully sure when it comes to my time, but helping others to understand and lead with their story comes naturally to me.

Who can see their wood for their trees, after all?

Nobody can go back and fix things, and there are no guaranteed tomorrows, so how do you feel today? How far are you from the times you felt the most magic, and how did you get here? Maybe you needed the detour. You’re here, after all, so how can we make an interesting challenge of it and take the next steps?

On any given days, my head buzzes with these kinds of thoughts. It’s better that I put the outcomes to good use by helping someone!

Muppet Change of Key

We’re in services somewhere near Oxford on the Sunday after a knife attack on a passenger train. The big screens roll the constant news coverage and there’s a tangible gloom hanging in the air. People are short with their children and eye contact is scarce, wary when it does happen.

The kids are reasonably unaware, though I do believe in their perceptive skills if they’re exposed to fear too often.

I’m feeling it, being the emotional sponge that I am.

I lose myself in the moment and chew down on my spring rolls when a piece of music starts up.

I know it, though I can’t place it.

It’s a teenage girl on the communal piano. People turn to source the jolly interlude.

Then it comes to me.

The Muppets! It’s the theme from The Muppet Show.

We can’t stay miserable. We just can’t. My wife clocks it too. My son, a keen piano player takes a few steps towards her, and my daughter, a natural dancer, begins to kick her feet and sway.

And just like that, the mood is tipped upside down. Art, music, and the soul. This is it. Even in a dark moment, when we have work to do in our society, we can find islands of happiness like this.

Time Tension

There was a scene at the very end of Final Fantasy VII, a game that made a deep emotional mark on my soul back in 1998. After the parasitic powers of that Japanese RPG world had fallen, thanks to our party of rebel heroes, it set the fictional world on a new and better course. Then, before we transitioned to the end credits, this scene played out in its moreish ‘cut scene’ cinematic style. Red XIII, a fire-dog type character, is now old and follows his two cubs up some rocky terrain. As they reach the summit, the camera reveals their view, which is expansive, with rich forests and lakes as far as the eye can see.

Final Fantasy VII was a futuristic, almost dystopian departure from the game series’ more fantasy-based, slightly steampunk art style, and we spent most of the game’s story in industrial settings. It was cool, new, and helped to accentuate the glee this end scene brought about.

And strangely, recently, thanks to the way this formative experience tends to stay with us, that scene came to mind while trying to battle a bout of eco-anxiety. I tried to project my mind beyond my lifetime, to give me direction in my life here and now. What is it that I want to do with the remaining years of my life? This kind of thought process has been occurring more and more since turning 40 and entering twin-parenthood at 36. It’s no longer enough to strive for momentary wins in my career.

Often, I watch my kids as they do kid things, playing with an innocence that moves me, but also unnerves me on a bad day. My imagination will run with climate crisis stories and weave apocalyptic doom tapestries that paralyse me in my seat. It’s been a problem for a few years, something I’ve documented here as part of an ongoing effort to gain greater agency over my thoughts. Because whatever happens, we are mortal. Even without the news bombardment and damaging hyper-awareness, I’d find some threat to inflate. My nervous system is a defence mechanism designed to do that for my protection.

Intergenerational equity is a term I came across a few years ago, the idea that a society makes decisions with equal care for those who will live on after us, as we do for ourselves here and now. And that’s what I felt when I thought about this game scene. This idea that no matter what becomes of humanity, nature will find a way. After all, we belong to nature, and must play a better collective part than we have managed these last couple of hundred years.

As I allowed my mind to wander back to this scene, denying the urge to immediately take out my phone to see it, I felt a warm, hopeful something stir inside, and it helped to calm me down. This is at the core of things like the idea of ‘gratitude’ and meditation. Tools to direct our mind somewhere better than the rabble of subconscious chatter beneath the surface on a daily basis.

A friend of mine called a few days ago and asked if I’d noticed how troubled people appeared to be out in the towns and cities. I had. Being a keen observer, I had detected this social sickness, and having felt anxiety myself in recent years, I had sympathy and empathy towards their situation. When those thoughts take over, I imagine I look the same. Other observant friends notice and message me to check I’m OK.

But this scene is a reminder, both in the grandest sense depicted and in the smallest sense, that all storms will pass, and we must hold the rudders and think long-term, think big, and allow ourselves to dream of something that will benefit us all, especially those who must stay here longer than we will. It isn’t easy, and in this rabid, biting version of capitalism, there’s time tension because we all want meaning, purpose, and a role that contributes to a future we’d like to leave the next lot. So we must think short-term to pay the bills. I suppose the question is: how do we get by in this society while still leaving our minds and actions enough freedom to run up that rockface so we can peek at a lush scene on the horizon? That really is the challenge.

The Impermanence Highway

We're in Keighley railway station with eight minutes to kill before the train arrives. There's an exhibition set up spanning four stationary carriages on platform 3, celebrating 200 years of rail travel. After our day trip, the kids, my parents, my wife and I put time aside to go and see it.

Just lately I've been reflecting on impermanence. Cycles of life, death, and renewal.

There are many reasons for this, landing somewhere between midlife crisis and external assaults on my inner peace; news cycles, fatherhood as a highly sensitive person, and the search for meaning. At 42 in an ever-turbulent world, impermanence helps gain perspective, recognising what I can and cannot control.

In his 'Meditations', Marcus Aurelius urges himself (the books were private diaries, journals, and trains of thought not intended for any kind of publication) to consider the expanse of time before him and the endless stretch that will unfold after he's gone, when seeking to remain balanced and present in life.

With this suggestion in mind, my sense of time has been distorted. 200 years used to feel ancient to me, but standing on the railway bridge, looking at the contemporary exhibition identity and the original train station signage, it suddenly feels difficult to comprehend that we've only had trains for that long. And how much longer we’ll have them if we don't get a handle on the biodiversity and climate crises, and our global economies, is a question worthy of deep consideration. In fact, it's these kinds of thoughts that tend to drag me into pits of despair and anxiety, thoughts that Aurelius' and Buddhist teachings have recently helped me to manage enough not to derail days at a time.

As we're standing there, my dad tells me how the advent of rail travel ultimately ended the reign of highwaymen. The rich, as ever, were early beneficiaries of this new transport system, which took them and their loot off the bumpy old roads they’d been forced to travel in horse-drawn carts, rendering them sitting ducks for road-robbers. It also probably saved them from future hemorrhoid unrest and a lot of time in the process.

The exhibition is splendid, displaying the first known drawing of a train by a child who watched the first passenger and freight steam traction train service set off on the Stockton & Darlington Railway. This is a surreal, magical experience as I stare at glee that shines out of this pencil sketch, spilling the boy’s wonder onto a page next to gorgeous, old-fashioned handwriting. But stepping out of the historic Keighley station on the iconic Worth Valley Railway depicted in The Railway Children, into a litter-addled street is sobering. I love my hometown. Its heritage, its people, its soul, but walking up a street on which I spent a good portion of my childhood calls upon the perspective of impermanence once more. Here, just a few decades ago, I spent many happy hours here, enjoying a gigantic toy shop, two dedicated art supplies stores, two video libraries, and an array of other assorted, independent boutiques. Today, like a tragic number of high streets in the UK, vape shops, takeaways, nail bars, and cash converters tell a story of an economic, political, and cultural robbery. There is not one bookstore in the town centre, unless we count The Works, or the corners of charity shops.

These newer businesses have every right to be here, and it’s preferred to derelict or empty units, but their intense consumerist purpose, casting their neon backlit brands into the mucky puddles on the pavement below, paints a stark picture in which the distinction between the highwaymen and the rich has disappeared completely. The town, like so many others without the spoils of middle-class money or authority investment, is infected with a tangible social sickness. Put simply, people don’t come here the way they used to. The hidden gems that can be found around the town – Grind and Groove Records, The Kindred Bizarre, and the tranquil, welcoming World Peace Café – are harmed indirectly as a succession of national chain stores close their Keighley branches, giving people less and less reasons to knock around town any longer than they have to. My mum reports these closures, lamenting the resultant loss of community. The lifeblood of small towns like these is in their people, their presence, and connection, face to face, as news is shared in person. But if towns are reduced to supermarkets and synthetic smoking appliances, that connection ceases, and the chatter seeps into insidious social media arenas where it grows thorns and points the finger of blame at others.

My creativity could never have taken the shape it did were it not for Keighley. Everything it gave and lacked. We all ran it down in conversations over beers in pubs, but if anyone else disparaged it, we kicked off and defended it because we loved it unconditionally. We adored its oddities and gritty ways. Those railways took me to places further afield where I began to see what else was possible, what could be, how other places did things, and yet every time we juddered back into the station, I felt a warm welcome home. But that spirit is desaturated in this moment. So, I think of impermanence. I think of the shifts over time, of generations long before mine who suffered in their own way, in their own version of scarcity, only for the sun to rise against the odds. It will rise again.

And as ever, as I stem the sadness brought on by the fear and uncertainty in the air, I conjure an image of what might yet come to pass, employing my imagination to restore balance to my thoughts. High streets nationwide are in crisis. The internet has shafted retail prospects from all angles, the economy is struggling to draw breath, division is the order of the day, while our elite claim ever-bigger dollops of cream from all of us. Nobody yet knows what comes next, or how to find out. But we’ve seen, time and again, how great ideas and art emerge when backs are against the wall, so I calm my racing mind and remember the cyclical nature of such beleaguered towns.

Days after the visit to Keighley, I begin drawing parallels with the creative industry. We’re weathering our own retail crisis, the same spiritual reckoning seen in troubled town centres across the country. Freelancers and agencies alike sigh and pace their metaphorical shop floors, peering into the street, hoping for something. Confidence is down, and when the door beeps, when people do come in, most leave again without so much as a courteous ‘thank you’ on the way out. So, fear and cynicism again. Become the most irresistible boutique, the swaggering corporate behemoth, or fuck off. OK, maybe not quite, but it’s bloody difficult for many as the squeeze tightens.

But… impermanence. Marcus Aurelius ruled Rome at a time when plagues and many wars could have rendered his life a waking nightmare. And yet he found it within himself to recognise the passing nature of all things. A little digging into the happenings of 1825, when the boy, full of wonder, drew that first train, teaches me that seventy banks in England failed in what has come to be known as ‘the financial panic’. And here we are, writing another chapter, a robotic revolution happening right here around us, in our fucking pockets without any kind of consent. All those big tech parasites feeding off us lot down here, in Keighley, in the creative industry, draining our rivers and our high streets and calling it progress. And what can we do about it? Until I can report back on that, I’ll just continue to create about it, and use the perspective of impermenance.

Optimism, my old friend

The difference this time is, I know anxiety will return, but I also know it will just be passing through. Two weeks into a couple of CBT workbooks and online programs, I can start to feel a little agency over my own thoughts again.

Sitting down at my desk yesterday, I felt something that’s been absent for too long: unfiltered optimism. I felt excited about my art and the possibilities it brings to my life. I felt cautiously confident in the growth of my coaching practice. I even bought a ‘personal life’ notebook to get myself better organised.

Getting organised, having failed to find a system for the last 17 years, has been a turning point. CBT has essentially been like employing a wardrobe-sized security professional, complete with earpiece, in whichever part of my brain the local riff raff come to party with no rules and cheap drink and drugs. The riff raff of course, are inflamed thoughts, the doorman, is the tools CBT give you to bring some sort of order to the party. This enables me to observe the thoughts, and crack down on the troublemakers before they even make it into a cubicle carrying a little plastic baggy with an alien face on it.

And while it’s a fragile rebuild, which will invariably throw up bad days and backwards steps, I’m at the wheel and it feels good.

So with that return of zest, I leaned in. A small commission fell into my inbox. A regular of mine. I did the job, but I also asked the client who I might contact to pitch a written column idea I’ve had, and feel would fit. I said hello to some friends/peers, approached a couple of founders about my coaching program, and remembered that it is this, the assertion of will, the expression of my desire to help people who I enjoy working for, and to whom know I can provide value. The hustle, if you will. In it to win it, in with a chance, taking the shot. Whatever your choice of description for this essential aspect of freelancing and growing as a creative professional, it must be done, and the knowledge it really, really could happen cannot just be a distant idea, but something pure, and deep within.

Where did all the good websites go?

"Where did all the good websites go?" That question was put to me.

After working with a long-term coaching client for over a year, we had a massive breakthrough last night.

Our groundwork to date has been about mindset, about overcoming some challenging personal trials, and getting him facing the right way with his values and passions at the heart of his practice. This takes time, but now, with the foundations set, he's taken a huge step forward in telling his story.

It feels better than any of my own successes.

As he revealed a beautiful first draft, I struggled to contain myself. It was alive, it had a set of bollocks, and it screamed everything I've come to love about him through our work together. Unapologetic in its arrangement, its daring scale and shattering of template style open goals.

As I gushed all this onto him. He laughed and began wondering where all the good websites were, which triggered a chat about early internet creativity. Those Flash sites that welcomed you in blew your mind a little bit. The bad ones and the good ones were curated by humans, and no matter how flawed, insane, or playful, the curiosity flooded out of them like a thousand pop-ups.

Of course, clarity, UX, and all that stuff matter. As visual communicators, we know this. But surely we have to push it to some limits, break some rules somewhere, to inject some attitude, some personal experience, and point of view? Things have become so instant and so guided, which helps in some ways, but it removes the jeopardy, boxes us into replicable layouts, and achingly dull, clean websites.

Don't get me wrong, I used Squarespace for The Creative Condition's official site. I'm no developer, and my budget didn't stretch to full blank canvas customisation with my web developer. But it didn't stop me from telling the story in every corner of the site, with my own hand-rendered textures, and an unapologetic tone of voice, which permeates everything I make.

Because it's mine.

What's yours?

Anyway, my client was right. It seems odd that the ambition and imagination that characterised those early websites have not risen with the capabilities of the latest tech.

That makes me slightly sad.

But all is not lost. He's taken everything we've worked on in his life this past year, his self-discovery journey, and found a way to choose the right tech to serve his ideas, his soul, and you all have a real treat coming soon.

Trends or the unknown?

My work creating illustrations for E4's 'Skins' TV show animated trailer was my first step into the world of motion, my first outside of editorial illustration, in fact.

My hand was very much held by the patient and brilliant Mike Moloney, for which I remain grateful.

And a story I often tell students and coaching clients about the need for humour, play, and unconditional experimentation is that the ridiculous 'Tyson v Thatcher' poster won me that job.

Tyson v Thatcher was a ludicrous climax to a personal project making a series of old fashioned boxing posters promoting various speculative and, frankly ridiculous pay-per-view scraps. It was edgy, silly, and comical.

The director came to a group show for which I'd made some art, and in conversation, he broke down laughing, asking me what it was all about. It had tickled him and his partner, who then invited me to dinner, where they couldn't let it go.

In the end, the essence of the line work, and the smash-mouth approach landed with the edgy tone of Skins.

This is exactly why we should all be making bold, brazen work in a way that reflects who we are, and what we've seen and felt in this world.

There's no making that poster with that opportunity in mind. Engineering of that kind doesn't happen that way when it comes to joining dots.

So, which way do you go? Run for the trends, or do it with full-blast glee and share it to see what the universe has for you?

The Business

There's a local group who run pubs, hotels and restaurants. Their brand is different. You can be more than, less than, or different from, and different is my sort of positioning.

Their tone of voice is warm, their visual identity eclectic and rich, but characterised by the humans who run it enough for it to make sense in an endearing way. They're a small group o people at its core who aren't afraid to try things, be playful, welcoming and humble, yet strong in their vision, and it makes a refreshing change to the sameness of bigger chains. So in the shadow of those nationwide high street names who are more than, they are not less than, but different from. And so they grow. It's welcome in this city which, like most in this economic climate, is in a fight for its soul as the wealth gap widens.

Walking back past one venue this afternoon, I thought about the daily affairs of the people running this group, and recognised something valuable about running a business with multiple manifestations. I imagined them moving from outpost to the next, ensuring things were good on the ground, then retreating to some base, taking care of another aspect, be it work on the website, contractor affairs, branding, overall long-term steer of the company, and so on.

That's when I realised that my houses are not in order. I've spread my focus too thin, and instead of taking care of each 'venue', I've been too hasty in opening new one after new one. Illustration, for example, would have been my first venue. That was the profession I studied. I became an illustrator and the place thrived with regulars and occassional clientele. Then when that frustrated me in quiet spells beyond my control, I began to write about the experience. And on the side I ran a music 'agency' for want of a better term for the creative vehicle through which I put on club nights and supported bands alongside Dirty Freud. So, a little less time went into illustration upkeep because by now I had a competent agent at my back. As these exploits grew – podcast, books, lecturing, fiction collections, art direction on films – I ran after the next thing, and the next thing. Not with total abandon, but with enough gusto that I failed to employ a manager for any of the new venues. I didn't go back often enough to make new signs or websites, to carry out the upkeep required to achieve the consistency I see in this local group's endeavours. And so dust settled and most people moved on, or walked past. Customers amble by and make impulsive purchases here and there, but no marketing strategy brings more to form a stream. People remember that you do that thing, but it's not a part of the world they inhabit with any regularly.

And so, only some of the venues serve the bigger beast. But here, in this new moment of clarity after a period of overwhelm, I'm carrying out an audit on my many practices, taking small steps to design a puzzle in which the pieces fit. Where one activity informs the next, and overall, when people see those manifestations of a bigger idea, they know it's mine, and it might just make them feel enough to go and tell a friend. I care about all of my artistic practices, but alone, I am unable to maximise the potential of them in isolation. It becomes a hollistic challenge to unify and make each a part of a tapestry I, and my audience, can understand.

Small steps, steady gains. 

Rose Tinters

This morning was gloomy when I set out on the dog walk. Light rain, carpets of yellow and brown leaves, hoods up all over the show, all lacquered with a coat of unrest. Well, at least the latter is what I detected.

Just lately, I’ve been spending time in my head with a friend I lost two years ago. Just in the sense that when I meditate, or turn to thoughts of gratitude, he comforts me. He was always the more bullish and pragmatic of the two of us.

At college, despite his path of GCSE exams direct to building site as a trainee bricklayer, we somehow ended up two sets of double doors away from each other. Keighley College’s art department was, at that time, a gigantic industrial site repurposed to house not just arts and design students, but also a smattering of trades in the neighbouring block. I loved it. It meant my friend was there, and I’ve always seen great value in a diverse range of people in close proximity. We’re severely lacking it in todays divided society.

Those two years were glorious, but it occurred to me on this Autumn morning that I have, in fact, been wearing the rose-tinted glasses as I seek solace in the past. That’s what we do, isn’t it? Our minds have a way of handing us a candy-floss wrapped version of our past when our present is laced with pain or discomfort. As I looked around the park, my dog shuffling along as if at gun point, I returned to these memories and in this version of it, 2001 was also murky, industrial, and a bit bleak.

In fact, just a month earlier sits a very clear memory owing to it’s sheer surreal qualities. My brother bursting in the front door in his secondary school uniform, going, “Quick, put the news on! Someone’s blown up The Empire State Building!” My mum and I thought he’d lost it, but he was a smart, level lad, so we did as he asked, and, tragically, while he’d heard the wrong building, none of us will struggle to recall how 9/11 made us feel. It felt like Armageddon. For some families it was. But the point is, there were tiny and giant fears and pain and discomfort and shitty weather and negative emotions back then. I had a date that night, a cinema trip to watch A Knight’s Tale. Then back in college the next day.

As I dwell in this memory, a clear recollection of how doomy it felt when harsh rain hit the skylight windows of the corrugated roof that hung over us, 50 or so feet high, especially when I stayed late and it was just me and the caretakers. Somehow though, we all made it through with smiles and gidd anticipation of various adventures to universities nationwide, and now, despite a challenging time of anxiety, I’m taking steps to manage these thoughts with CBT, newly reintroduced strenuous exercise, and more non-booze socialising. And one day, I know I’ll gaze back on this time with the rose-tinters on, and I want those memories to acknowledge this battle, while rejoicing because actually, it’s still pretty fucking good to be alive and able to create, to tell stories.

Beanstalks in General

There was a question, but I missed it because of the clinking crockery being palmed into the dishwasher. The answer was uncertain, my wife wondering in real time as she considered this.

‘Oh… I don’t… I dont know, actually… I wonder if all beanstalks go to the same giant’s castle.’

No more plates and bowls racket. Just silence as I pick up my cup and frown. You can’t drop things like that on a person at 6.50am! But she did, they did, and now the sky castles are multiplying, all those angry cloud stompers with all their stolen gold, fee-fi-foing around the heavens. It’s like an oversized 1980s first division football fan fight in a car park, little working class cow-salesmen bolting every which way as size 482 Adidas Sambas fly at their petrified little bodies.

In the end, I shake my head, laugh, and try to move on.

Brain Lube

Dan Kieran, a local friend and author among other things wrote this great piece about taking a moment before attempting to create, to loosen up the mind, to tap into a sense of wonder and inspiration.

The trouble with showing up with an unwieldy to-do list now, as we try to be many things just to survive, is that we have to firefight to not get overwhelmed. So, reflection, immersion, play, and opening up to possibilities become the disposable rituals we can shed to ensure we remain productive.

I’ve been trying to follow Dan’s lead. He spoke of picking up a book and reading a few pages to enter a different headspace, opening that little door to flow and forward motion. But like many times before, the kids serve up a pure lesson.

One is on the kitchen table drawing Paw Patrol’s Marshall, the other up at the kitchen island drawing Miles Morales’ Spider-Man. They are silent, deep in flow states as my wife and I buzz around carrying out hundreds of tiny tasks to get them ready, everyone fed, and all of us out of the door on time.

TV is not an option on weekday mornings. Some days the huff and puff and ask us what they should do and we point to the wealth of puzzles, games, pens, paper, books, and toys on the shelves and say, ‘I don’t know, whatever you want.’ Eventually after admitting defeat, they’ll choose something and commit.

I quietly watch with a smile on my face, whether it’s Lego, My First Engineer set, art, or a board game because that little door opens. Sometimes they play together, other times alone, but the difference in the way they show up at school, ready to absorb the sensory experience, is stark to the odd weekend day when they are allowed an episode or two of whatever TV show they’re into. On those days it takes a little longer to get them out of their sluggish groaning. That’s fine – they’re human and it’s the weekend – but I apply this to my own creative upkeep. If I arrive and lunge straight for a screen or a pen and paper, I’m undermining my brain’s need for immersion and attunement.

The days that start with a page or two of a book that inspires or a good, deep chat on the dog walk tend to be the ones on which I find flow, and make better decisions.

This is no revelation or profound piece of wisdom. It’s common sense and bloody obvious, but the screens have been woven into every aspect of our being, that we don’t question the nature of their presence enough. As far as the kids go, whatever your point of view, go read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.

Floundering, now

A friend of mine posted about AI agents. I heard Steven Bartlett talking about these. Fucking horrifying. I couldn’t tell you a great deal about them, other than the fact they’re another dollop of terrifyingly powerful technology that can do all kinds of things. He mentioned ‘cold outreach’, answering emails, all kinds of stuff.

Now, I’m an organisational shit show. I pay my tax, my bills, and I’ve never missed a deadline, but I could do with an assistant to crack the whip and handle some of the boring-but-all-important business stuff that helps keep things from caving in on our sensitive heads.

But to date – and I’m not saying I can’t learn – I’ve typed one thing into ChatGPT, about what other jobs there might be for my skillset and experiences, during an acute lean spell. Part laziness, part ignorance, part ideological opposition to the resource uses at a time we can ill-afford to push the climate any further. If it comes down to having a habitable planet or sorting my admin, then even I will happily get my act together and boot up a few new spreadsheets.

So, I thought about this on a short walk, and it occurred to me that while the future is now, and I’m still woefully trapped in a parallel dimension – the archaic present that is still here in front of my eyes in the physical world, but run increasingly by Minority Report technology – I’m also locked out of an important past I might soon have to lean into, a nomadic, survival-driven one.

I’m slowly but surely ‘prepping’ – buying Swiss Army knives, torches, and water-purification tablets, reading guides on making fires, eyeing up courses in the woods run by ex-army experts.

What a confusing time to be alive! I’m doing the prep stuff to help with my eco anxiety, which is far from unfounded, but needs addressing before it torches my creativity and peace of mind altogether.

Now that I think of it, is there even a future where I have a survival assistant? Where the present as we know it is spunked away in an astonishingly stubborn display of human greed, arrogance, and denial, but the bots stick around to… oh fuck this, I need a lie down.