I’m Happy, So Why Can’t I Write?

The Strange Relationship Between Happiness and Creativity

For the first time in a while, things are good. I should be overflowing with words, right? So why is my mind suddenly... quiet? Creativity is often fueled by longing, struggle, or restlessness—so what happens when those things are no longer present?

It’s Sunday morning, and I'm drawing a blank… Every Sunday, I sit in front of my computer and decide what the topic of discussion will be. Usually, something stirs—an idea, an observation, a nagging thought I haven’t been able to shake. But today? Nothing. No frustration, no melancholy, no deep existential question gnawing at me. Just quiet.

I open the Notes app on my phone, where my thoughts from the week rest, waiting for this exact time to be awakened, ready to pour out into the universe.

But they have nothing for me this week.

A random line from 4:30 AM on Saturday “It is never too early, and never too late, so she leaves”. A new “bucket list” of things I want to do this summer/year. And the address for the only place to buy mace in New York.

Nothing that feels like a thread worth pulling, nothing begging to be unraveled.

Just scattered fragments of a mind that, for once, isn’t tangled up in itself.

And maybe that’s the problem.

I used to think my best writing came from struggle. That the words flowed easiest when I had something to untangle—heartache, confusion, an unresolved feeling. Now that my mind is clear, my hands are still. And I’m starting to wonder:

Does happiness dull creativity, or does it just ask us to find a new way in?

I’m having this discussion with Nick on a Discord call as I type this. He’s currently getting over a sickness from this week—apparently, it’s called Norovirus.

I read him what I’ve written so far, and his first response is, "I love how you make something that isn’t depressing somehow seem depressing."

I laugh, but he’s not wrong. It’s a habit—turning even the most mundane details into something deeper, something heavier. Maybe that’s what writing has always been for me: a way to take something simple and hold it up to the light, just to see what shadows it casts.

I’m happy, so maybe that’s enough for today.