We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Viswajith Kumar a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Viswajith, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
Any creative endeavor rarely finds itself to be a smooth sailing journey. While the passion and love for our creative mediums of choice fuel our efforts, we inevitably contend with the drag of resistance and roadblocks along the way. As a music producer and filmmaker for half a decade, my creativity was initially sparked out of a pure fascination with the art forms. Reality, however, soon hit me. Writer’s block, motivation swings, emotional distress, my creative joys were blindsided by the inevitable hardships every creative must endure in the golden pursuit of excellence. I still regularly run into these hardships, but after years and years of work, I have developed the mentality and skills necessary to successfully hurdle these hardships and keep my creative flames luminous. In explaining the different facets that help me stay creative, I hope to provide you an additional set of arsenal to effectively and decisively win your own creative battles.
If creativity for you feels like performing a chore at times, you are not alone. When I began producing my own music, I was absolutely elated during the initial compositional stage of the process. Starting off with a blank slate and no defined destination, I was able to just let my imagination run wild, adhering to no rules and laws but the volitions of my own creativity. As I ventured further down the process, I had to move beyond just creating simple little melodies to crafting matching drum patterns, rewriting and editing instrument parts over and over again, spending hours coming up with one line for a lyric, etc. Safe to say, the creative in me felt a little stifled by all this.
I’d often run into these ruts that led me to believe my creative fire had all but extinguished itself. Worse off, no one warned me of these potholes I’d have to traverse on my creative path. How could something I’m so fascinated by bring me such anguish?
Once I put this question into context, the answer became clear to me. You ask any mother who has given birth and they’ll tell you those nine months beforehand were some of their most testing moments in life. Periods of immense stress both physically and emotionally, self-doubt, and fear are a few of the many hardships that parallel the life of a creative. On the flip side, these hardships endured resulted in perhaps the crowning life moment for most if not all mothers and the ultimate form of creation: a new life.
There’s a reason new ideas are called brainchild. Creation mirrors itself in all facets. Just like a mother undergoing the process of creating a child, creativity of all sorts incorporates the incubation and careful development of an idea into a life of its own. This process, whether it being creating a new song, movie, piece of art, or clothing, never comes easy, but the reward at the end of the road powers us past any hardship. Creativity invokes the person engaging in the act to adopt a sense of duty to remain resilient when faced with hardships in pursuit of their craft. The passion one has for their creative medium should never be distorted by the barriers of resistance they may encounter. I run into creative blocks and ruts all the time, but with the recognition that 1. this is both normal and inevitable and 2. the passion still burns white hot underneath, I just need to endure these momentary struggles, my creativity remains alive and well.
“Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.” – Roger Crawford
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I have two main projects of focus. I am a music producer with my own artist project that I am revving up starting in 2024. I also have a documentary youtube channel started earlier this year.
With my music project, I am extremely excited to get started on it this new year. I’ve been working as a music producer on various other projects since moving out to LA and now I finally have the ability to start one on my own. I will be releasing music around once every six weeks with an accompanying short film for each piece of music I put out. I think what’s most special about this for me is I’m completely free to create in any manner I choose with this project. I also am really curious to see people’s reaction to the short films as they will unveil the journey that every musician goes on in crafting their music which is a process I don’t think many people are too aware of. Everyone listens to music, but not many know just how wild the journey behind that creation of that music really is. I intend on making a big splash in the world of animation some time soon as well with this project, but for now, I’m looking forward to the films and music.
With my documentary channel, we explore social critiques and modern day culture through the backdrop of film. I’m extremely interested in how film provides us a mirror to see our own world played out in front of our eyes and seek to employ this in creating 20 minute documentaries. We’ve gotten a good set of videos made this past year and went through our beginning stages smoothly. Now we really have our groove going for us and have a great set of videos lined up for this next year. We emphasize a strong visual editing style in our videos to really draw the viewer in and viscerally experience the information displayed. Some video topics coming soon are 1. Will AI destroy human love? 2. Modern Life Has Become A Reality Show? 3. Greed: America’s Largest Political Party
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
My number one quality that I couldn’t do without is my ability to figure things out on my own. I’ve taught myself numerous instruments, all different aspects of filmmaking, and scriptwriting just off youtube tutorials. There’s an importance in just flinging yourself into doing rather than waiting for everything to be perfect before you get started. You’ll usually figure it out on your own on a long enough time frame. Another quality that has paid dividends is a willingness to get the job done. This may sound as a really basic quality, but it struck me by surprise how people often struggle to meet deadlines, keep promises on work commitments, etc. I’m very headstrong in that if I say I will finish a task and/or agree to an arrangement, I’ll keep my promise no questions asked. Lastly, I’m very much an ideas guy. I struggle with the execution of ideas at times, but I’m always generating new ideas for the projects I work on. This really helps instill a confidence in the project as there’s never a dead end we run into on where to take the next step.
For individuals early on in their career, I couldn’t stress enough the importance of not over-complicating the journey. Show up everyday, work hard, and don’t stay too attached to the outcome. These three elements I think are the key to not just the early part of the journey, but all throughout it. Often we get in our own way by comparing ourselves to others, judging our own progress, etc. None of that is helpful at all. The simple three steps outlined above is a great growth mindset that will inevitably take you far down the path you are headed if you just stay consistent with it.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
Self-awareness. 100% this has completely changed up my life. The past twelve months have been an oddity for me because I hit a point that felt like the end of the road. I just turned 25 and up till now, the emphasis has always been for me to find a nice stable career path that keeps my future secure. All throughout schooling up till now, this has been the singular goal pushed on me by my parents and figures I was surrounded by growing up. Well, this past year, I reached that destination point and it left me oddly stuck for the past twelve months figuring out where I go from here.
I’ve always thought of one day turning my hobbies into my living. What I’ve learned in these past twelve years though is that music and filmmaking aren’t hobbies for me, it’s what I do to find fulfillment in my life. I’ve learned that the true satisfaction I get out of life is through participating in the creative process day-in and day-out with all the free time I have outside of work. I’ve garnered a sense over the past twelve months of what I was put on this Earth to do and what truly matters to me. One day, I do plan on turning my creative endeavors into a living, but now I can sleep comfortably at night knowing that no matter what, I’ll always be creating not because it’s fun or cool or anything like that. It’s one of the only things that gives me a sense of excitement and fulfillment day after day.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fermimusic/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/viswajith-kumar/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX0rUqBM46Cy0CH9YoYKR3w
