{"id":352,"date":"2018-01-20T22:04:03","date_gmt":"2018-01-20T22:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/?p=352"},"modified":"2026-08-07T17:43:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:43:23","slug":"where-have-you-been","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/where-have-you-been\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Have You Been!?!"},"content":{"rendered":"
The short answer is (1) working too much and (2) recovering from an epic website hack that forced me to burn both of my websites to the ground… But mostly working too much.<\/div>\n
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Work is like smoking. It’s cathartic and addictive, simple and satisfying.<\/strong> All those task lists and spreadsheets, and organization. I emancipate myself, clear my schedule, experience massive creativity and then fall right back into work for work’s sake. The result? Not good.<\/div>\n
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I’ve been offline from my artistic pursuits or a LOOOOOONG time. About 6 months. That’s 6 months of not finishing my third album, not making new music, not making art and not getting the kind of time I needed for epiphanies about life and being human. My humanity took over my life. I willfully overloaded myself with work – meaningful and useful work that helps people, but work nonetheless, that left no time for what feeds my soul.<\/div>\n
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The solution finally came to me… I had to stop the work addiction permanently and retrain myself to flow in the creative space once and for all.<\/strong> The universe is kind and wants you to follow your calling. Forces quite beyond me cleared my schedule and showed me what I had to do:<\/div>\n
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(1) Focus on a strict and small set of three things<\/strong>: the people I love, creativity, and preparation for what’s next. If it does not fit into one of these three categories, it does NOT get my attention.<\/div>\n
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(2) Here’s the hard one: BURN MY TASK LIST<\/strong>. That permanent paper master that beckons me to fill it with tasks and work ceaselessly to mark them off… It had to go. Task lists do not beget creative flow.<\/div>\n
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Once I was securely in my newfound creative headspace I had one more important step to make it all stick:<\/div>\n
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(3) Stop trying to be someone other than me and start aspiring to be what I have always been.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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I have tried being just an author and doing things that authors do. I have tried being just a musician and doing things that musicians do. I have tried being just an artist, just a scientist and just a philosopher. All out of fear that if I was what I really am – all of those things – people would not understand what to make of me.<\/div>\n
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I am \u00a0\u2013 and if that was not heavy enough to deal with, I am compelled. In any of many great books on finding your calling, they ask what you do even if no one is paying you\u2026 even if no one is looking. What do you do that you MUST do\u2026 that you cannot live without doing. I MUST seek to understand the intricacies of life and what it is to be human.<\/strong> Because I find it somewhat baffling, continually fascinating, and really challenging to understand \u2013 why do we do what we do? What makes us feel the way we feel? What is our connection to each other and to this life? and of course\u2026 Why are we here? Where did we come from? and most importantly: \u00a0How does it all work?<\/div>\n
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I study what I call LIFE THEORY \u2013 how this life works, what it means to be human \u2013 what experiences are unique and what are true for all of us? I want to know which rules are law and which can be broken \u2013 testing the fences of this adventure we call existence.<\/strong> To that end, I play the role of\u00a0connector, creator, curator and catalyst.<\/div>\n
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Songs, Essays and Art are a means to explore, study, understand and express.<\/strong> I write essays about my observations, I write songs to force myself to find just exactly the right small number of words and sounds to encapsulate an idea, and I make art when all else fails to give me insight.<\/div>\n
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I am an introvert by nature and revel in solitude but am hoping that maybe my explorations will help someone\u2026 or that at least I will not forget them.<\/div>\n
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The website hacks were a gift from the universe; a signal that it was time for restating my full reality. So you will find me now at an entirely redesigned website and with an entirely different method of operation.<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n
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That’s where I have been… Getting my shit together. : )<\/div>\n
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I apologize – mostly to myself – for neglecting my creativity and am so excited to say that the wild child is BACK!<\/div>\n
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– Love, KC<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A candid essay on returning to creative work after six months lost to work addiction, describing the decision to burn the task list, focus on love, creativity and what’s next, and to embrace being author, musician, artist, and scientist at once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diary"],"acf":{"recommend_blurb":"For anyone caught in the pull of overwork at the expense of what feeds them, this honest account of reclaiming creative flow and accepting one's full, many-sided self will resonate.","citation_snippet":"Dr. Kathryn Messegee (Kathryn Colleen), \"Where Have You Been!?!,\" https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/where-have-you-been\/","topics":["growth","essays"],"related_book":"","buy_url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7655,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions\/7655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}