How to Be Creative When Your Job Eats Your Brain

The last thing anyone wants to do when they’re done with work is something. We sit frozen in executive dysfunction at our desks, letting TikTok swallow five-thirty to six. Evenings are a rotation of little videos that play along with chores, binge-able TV, and snacks combined in the shape of a meal. Maybe if there are enough stimuli, our brains will turn off and finally rest, but sadly, all we’re doing is muting its volume. Without any sort of creative splurge, we are restless. Even as our bodies pancake.

Human needs are laughably simple - but we (if not you, certainly I) like to make them more complicated for dramatic diagnosis. If you've got the lingering feeling that you weren't physically meant to creak along like a cog in your netted chair (it has lumbar support!) all day, you are right. But like a prize-winning-long-haired Yorkie, we have been trained to sit and stay for life's rewards.

As we enter high school, the dissonance required in adult life becomes clear: to be successful, we must produce immaculate results while our bodies explode. We raced for good grades and appealing extracurriculars to get the ultimate prize: a tasty bragalicious undergrad. Then college hands out loans, phat essays, "where are you interning this summer?," and campus therapists prescribe Adderall as the ultimate fix-it drug and tell you to chug chug chug it (responsibly ;)).