Recently, I was driving into the sunrise on a deserted road. It was 7:30 in the morning and already warm enough to leave the jacket at home. The landscape looked breath-taking as it was touched by the first sunrays and the mountains had long shadows from the sun still being very deep. I was driving towards the sea, already had a nice breakfast, there were no traffic lights and not many cars on the road at all.
One of those incredible moments and still, I didn't feel it. It had become normal to me. Nothing new anymore. Just a routine. A nice routine, but still a routine. I struggled, because I really wanted to re-live this amazing inner feeling that I had when I experienced this for the first time a couple of years ago. There were butterflies in my stomach and I probably sang to the radio in the car and would have stated that I currently am the happiest man on earth.
But even though I was satisfied with what lay before me, this time, the feeling was different. And I realised:
There is something magical about first times.
A first time is something that you can never repeat. No matter what. Things you experience for the first time force you to investigate, you are automatically focused, they get full attention from your brain. And they create memories. The memories of a first time. Even if you deny it, the first time will always be something special.
And this counts for everything in life. But especially for the art of creating. It happened to me a few times that I worked in the same location for a second time. And the magic was gone. There were no surprises anymore. I already knew what to expect. Basically I had lost the curiosity and ingenuity of a first timer.
Curiosity is one of the keys to creativity, I believe. They tell you to stay curious, but it's just a saying. You can't always stay curious. Once you get into a routine, curiosity is a word from the past. It's gone. So, I believe, you need to change your routine. This is difficult to do, but probably the only way to make sure you can stay both curious and creative.
While these thoughts can easily make you feel depressed, I hope, they also have a positive aspect. See it as a bucket list and as a list full of things you've never experienced. It will be a lot of fun to discover all those first times that lay ahead of you.