THE REDLIST [ ISSUE 001 ]
- Mitchy
- Jun 30
- 4 min read
In This Issue:
- Article on "Unfulfilled Creation" - Creative Agency List w/ over 1000+ Links [Subscribers Only] .- Animation/VFX/Game Industry Job Postings List w/ over 2000+ Links [Subscribers Only] - Free C4D Project File [Subscribers Only] - Poll to gather community suggestions [Subscribers Only]
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ARTICLE The Sorrow of Unfulfilled Creation. I think we all start out with a certain vision on how we would like our creative careers to evolve, where we would like to take them, and what type of creative we ultimately would like to become. When beginning my music career out of high school, I didn’t hope, I knew I’d get signed. I’d tour, I’d touch something that made it all worth it. And I did, for a time. The luck I experienced in my music career fueled my confidence when transitioning into a visual artist. I was high on life and high on myself. I felt special, I felt complete, and untouchable. Whatever came my way, I knew I would easily overcome, because that’s exactly what I’ve always been able to do. Call it youthful ignorance, call it ego, call it whatever you like, but fuck it worked. Somehow, unwavering confidence is the secret sauce of life. The hard part is maintaining that mindset throughout the long term. Life is so much more of a marathon than I ever expected, and I was sprinting with all the internal energy I could summon for those short-term gains to keep my ego afloat. Burnout was well on its way. What begins in fire ultimately turns to ash unless you can keep stoking those embers. You do not see the erosion of your soul at first. It quietly drains you. You’re working and creating, but something’s gone quiet inside. Something vital. There is a kind of sorrow that comes from unfulfilled creation. From carving yourself into form and watching no one look. We tell ourselves that the work is enough. That meaning lives in the doing. But there are days you would give anything to be seen. Not praised, not adored. Just witnessed and understood for who and what you are as a creative being. In a world flooded with noise, invisibility is not just absence; it’s an internal violence. Creation for me has always been about my audience, and now that the audience has been stupefied by brainrot, the purpose I once relied on has become an empty chasm to throw my dreams into. Attention is a currency, and we have all become bankrupt. You start to wonder if the work matters at all. You scroll past the ones who rose to the top. Who were universally chosen, or at least appeared to be. They’re shaping the zeitgeist, and you’re scraping at the walls for a sign of meaning. You ask yourself what they have that you don’t. What mistakes have led me to irrelevance? Have I been led astray by my own ignorance since the very beginning? These questions are acid that eats away at the soul. Then you realize you’re not wrong for feeling this. You're just human.
There’s nothing shameful in wanting to be seen and in wanting the work to matter beyond you. That’s not the ego talking; that's your longing for connection. We create because we want to belong; recognition is one of the only ways this world knows how to say that you do. So here’s my answer to this existential problem. Or at least what I’ve been able to come up with so far. If recognition is your fuel, then create in the pursuit of being seen, but first, you must see yourself as the bearer of true power, not the audience. Your audience is only the bearer of freewill, which is fickle, easily distracted, and can even lack loyalty towards the value of what is given to them. If you refuse to bring yourself to a place of inner fidelity, it all starts to look like proof that you’re not enough and that you never were. That’s a dangerous place to create from. It makes you a beggar at the gates of relevance. If you can see yourself first, really understand that you are one with all creation in the universe, that your purpose is to bring forth magnificent color to an otherwise dull world, without the filter of comparison or the hunger for validation, then the work becomes yours again. It becomes less about being accepted and more about being honest. It becomes an act of self-recognition and an act of dissent against the weight of it all. It’s not necessarily about being satisfied with where you are or giving up your ambition. It just means knowing that your worth isn’t up for a vote. Recognition can validate your work. But it should never be the thing that defines it, or defines you. So, start from the inside. Everything good comes from there. - Mitch
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