The time between

Do you know the feeling when right after something has happened, you try to put the experience into words but nothing is coming out? What comes are the same lines you’ve told yourself again and sometimes again if the experience has been a long one. It’s those immediate bits and pieces you were living with, but when you try to look a bit deeper you find that there’s a layer missing. That’s the time between - it creates the deeper perspective, hones the meanings, and gives you time to make it into a story.

Quite often in my life, I have felt like I have done something amazing and after the immediate glow had gone, also the experience went with it. I wasn’t talking about it afterward, in some cases I even questioned if it truly was worth all that time. Documenting it with diary entries, pictures or videos does nothing if you never get back to it. Remembering these things we try, fail, and succeed at are important, they’re what make us… well us. Also this idea of “no filter” is kind of stupid, time will filter it and when the time moves on, the experience doesn’t change for no reason. You give it more meaning, you tell new stories about it on top of the first immediate version you made while it was happening. This is why I cringe at all the true-crime YouTubers who try to split their hair over someone saying something first and changing the story later. Once you tell your story, that version of it is gone.

First when I wanted to start a Youtube channel, blog and I did, but didn’t tell too many people about those things because I was ashamed of how long it took for me to create something. We value speed and hustle so much and the idea of well-spend time, the productive time equals full calendar… but because I always tend to ask why, dig deep and I didn’t want to publish things that felt hollow versions of what I wanted to say. In my skin, I felt also the claims “nobody reads long texts anymore, blogs are dead, you should do what algorithms want, not what you want - and whatever you do, you should do it consistently and at the moment the thing is happening, nobody wants to read old stuff”… and so forth. But you know what? I think latest when we hear what we’re supposed to be like and what we’re supposed to be able to do and like, we start to become that. Books are not dead, people still read. Emails are still core in marketing, so people do READ even if the different styles of media are providing more choices and possibilities. And there are incredibly successful youtube videos and podcasts that have hours-long episodes, so maybe the problem is the content…? Sure there are storytelling and copywriting ways to try and hook us up to find the beef, but really, those tricks get old. Clicking the clickbait headlines to laugh at stupid people doesn’t amuse me like it does some people.

But back to the subject…. Creating what I want demands the time in between. With my process and life where I fund my adventures myself and after the excursion I get back to the seasonal jobs that take my time 50-80h a week, it’s hard to find the time and to have enough energy to create something in the first place. When I started to create a documentary about moving into a van in 2021, I was totally lost with my creative process and found it impossible to solve the necessities in life and try to create something for fun. First shame washed over me: I had a great concept, it would be called inspirational like a friend of mine combined the words inspiration and documentary. I was motivated, and invested in it and I wanted to do it, but I didn’t get anything ready before I felt it was too late. I was also changing my life in such a rabbit phase that it was hard to keep up.

Somewhere there I decided that I wanted to try to hike the Arctic route to see if I like long-distance hiking and the next years became a journey towards that. Many times I felt defeated, and while documenting it, I didn’t really know what to make of it. Then I started the hike feeling again doubtful because I didn’t have any videos out and only a couple of blog posts from the intended ones. Then along the way, I also realised how hard it was to find time to even write the daily memos to keep notes and to post daily diaries on Instagram. I had imagined that I would have September and October to edit everything, but I ended up losing my momentum completely. I barely moved all the videos onto the external hard drive, and edited episode one ready… and I felt almost depressed. Time stopped existing, the days were mashed together and I tried to live, experience, and enjoy, but I was just so wrapped up in this mental swamp that I didn’t edit a thing.

Then couple of months later I was laughing to another friend that this didn’t make any sense. Like when I had time and nothing else, I was paralyzed, but now when I work 200h a month, I suddenly still find time to edit, to write, and to create. Not maybe on Instagram or TikTok that much… but side note, I have a cool plan for both, just don’t know if I’ll make it happen or not. When thinking about this a little bit more, time has passed: my mind has had time to sort out the experience, it has formed a story from the experience the same way I sorted out my media files (you can’t believe how long it takes!). Also because of the seasonal jobs creating feels like a novelty: and honestly I want to keep it that way. If you read the diaries of seasonal workers, you know I don’t really want to become an influencer. Not like that anyway. I wouldn’t keep up with the phase and I wouldn’t even find the motivation to try. It’s cool if sharing my thoughts through writing and experiences through videos at some point helps me cover a few months here and there, but that’s not the goal. The harder goal is to keep creating as this novelty, enjoyable thing (and note, I emphasize the process, not the content. I’m just creating, if it’s notable content or not that algorithms favor… I don’t really care).

So I promise I will be productive in my own time, I promise I won’t be consistent, but I swear I will make this from my heart with excitement. To me, this attitude and understanding that great things take time, and that’s ok, is a reflection of slow living. It doesn’t mean not being busy, but it rather means life with your own deadlines, and delivery dates and giving yourself a chance to take the time to work out your experiences, to live, to enjoy, and sometimes just do nothing. Letting the time in between take its place is a big part of that, and so is accepting the seasons in your life where you do nothing useful and don’t give a shit about the self-imposed deadlines.