Writer’s block: even the term itself is entirely uncreative. It’s become a modern cliché, but really anyone can experience this drab feeling of rut. Creative barriers come up in almost every career path in this world; bakers get bored of sourdough, probably. Sometimes these periods of quiet come about naturally, in a year like we’ve had, it’s easy to feel uninspired. For some, creative blocks are a symptom of something else, namely anxiety. Anxiety and creative blocks go hand in hand like a f****d up Bonnie & Clyde. A couple of days in a creative drought can end with a walk around the block or a new playlist, but when the block sets up shop in your mind, it’s time for a new strategy. While my writer’s block was laying down rugs in the fifth-floor walkup of my mind, I was searching for solutions, and found one in the form of cannabis infused gummies.
Growing up, weed held a pretty negative connotation. In the early 2000s, I think that existed naturally, since society’s gaze painted stoners as baggy clothed and drooling basement dwellers. In many parts of the country, marijuana wasn’t considered a natural remedy to anything other than the fight against productivity. For myself and many others, the relationship with marijuana went from ‘I’m not a stoner,’ to ‘no thanks, I prefer to drink,’ to ‘okay, I’ll do it socially,’ to watching Soul slumped on my sister’s couch in Los Angeles, contemplating my spark.
I had spent my whole life loving to write, and wanting to do it for my career, but it seemed like as soon as I walked out of my university, I got lost. I found that I loved to write in college, because I couldn’t ever go too far off the edge. I was always adhering to a word count, or a topic, or MLA format. When you remove every rule and encounter a blank word document, you’re playing a different game. Now, all you have are your authentic thoughts, your secret vulnerabilities, and how far you are willing to explore those. I wanted to write television pilots, but never got past the first page, instead spent hours researching industry terminology, downloading screenwriting software, and never actually doing the work. I started PR writing as a publicist, which trained me to write from the outside in. What will the headline look like? How will this perform SEO-wise? My inner saboteur grasped onto those external obstacles and barriers, keeping my real ideas and vulnerabilities buried under fears of ‘messing up.’
In the past few months, I have taken steps from social smoking and towards independent use of CBD and cannabis-infused gummies, and it has unlocked something for me. Anxiety keeps you in a box, shutting the lid and sitting on it. I had never let my mind run wild until I learned to relax, and the cannabis helped me release myself from the confines of structure, rules, and business models. That said, I don’t view it as a magical cure-all, and I don’t want to rely on a substance to feel open and creative. I like to think of my use as training; I’m getting comfortable with the idea of running wild and understanding the internal mechanisms that are working against me. To do anything creative, you have to start with the crazy ideas and scale things back later. Don’t let anxiety or fear throw up walls and obstacles before you’ve even started, and if there is something out there that can assist in this training, it’s worth the old college try.
My recommendation? Kiva’s Camino gummies are my current favorite. The flavors are dangerously good; limit yourself to one. Midnight Blueberry and Wild Cherry are my picks, but Pineapple Habanero is next on my list. The gummies are infused with terpenes, mood-enhancing essential oils known for their anti-anxiety effects, among other benefits. The Kiva website lists all products available for shipping in California and Nevada, and features informative content on the history and use of cannabis. Kiva can also be found at dispensaries like Sweet Flower, where I first got my hands on them.
Cannabis, especially in an edible format, is not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s fine. In truth, that’s not the point I’m trying to make. The fight against writer’s block, and any sort of creative block for that matter, is a lifelong one. There are always going to be moments and periods that are sheerly uninspired, days when you feel like you’ve never had a single original or valuable thought in your lifetime. Growth means ignoring those feelings and stepping out of your comfort zone to try things you never thought you might, until one day, you write that first chapter, and you just might have cannabis to thank for it.