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Yes, there will be some dark articles but I promised to write one about creativity. Creativity is light. It is what our heart wants, what we have talent for. We are born with some natural talents and the great pianist will never become a great carpenter no matter what employment markets and academic opinions wish. The employers want to explore and use talents paying as little as possible. This strategy is the best one to maximize profit - using others to serve you. In the bottom of enterprize there is always a social syndrome called slavery. Well, I really try to be a positive realist and it is not easy. I promise to manage turning out this dark issue into a positive solution of anxiety and depression till the end of this story.

Since I am going to build a recycled steam-punk lamp, I have to mention that for two years ago I re-educated myself to be an industrial electrician. It sounds cool, doesn't it? I like to fix things - to build lamps, I like electric motors but I dislike electronics and programming. Well, this is why the Swedish employment market has a shortage of 4000 electricians today. Because the market (the employers) demand of us humans to be both electricians, electronic engineers and computer programmers. These three completely different talents and professions are demanded to fit in one single personality. They are almost always incompatible in one combination. The technical development goes further so quickly due to globalization, so very very few can catch up. During my education I was shocked that the teachers could not understand the theory of what they would teach us. It was very embarrassing. I was getting panic-attacks quite often because this education had nothing to do with my natural talents. I managed theory and practice somehow but when it came to the point of practice at the professional field my body gave up on day three. I was warned that the job is much heavier than it seems like but I did not listen. The Swedish authorities encourage women to earn more by taking traditionally male jobs. The problem is that in those branches the tolerance of female issues and motherhood is zero. The guys I worked with for three days were wonderful people but the branch itself is extremely macho.

Anyway, I am interested in fixing stuff, remaking old things… creativity! I am not interested in programming elevators and machines and I can not work under stress. My talent is aesthetic and psychological, not technical. So no matter what employers desperately need, we are born with talents to serve society based on natural aptitude. Yes, you can learn and develop but you can not become what you are not aimed for, no matter how much you study, desire, work and fight against your nature. It is like banging your head into a concrete wall.

As a result of my failure in late re-education I lost significant ability to remember and concentrate. This is weakness and when you are weak, you hide. My hands lost their strength and the doctors can not understand why. I suspect some muscle issue. Since my hands are very weak, I can not work efficiently. That is why I write and make pictures and not video. If I make a video it would be a comedy - dropping tools, being clumsy. No, thanks. I am not the comedian type. 

As a result of the story I just wrote, I ended up in a depression. For the second time in my life I looked for a professional help. The communication with the psychologist had no positive result. There were changes in my private life result of free will, love and destiny, that took me out of the depression. I will not go into details here but CREATIVITY was the divine light as usual. I moved into a new home, made it beautiful, got a little garden, and music! I started to listen and write some music. When I do not have inspiration for music, I write. When I do not have inspiration for writing, I knit, sew or build and rebuild things. So creativity is endless if you let it in - if you allow yourself to be creative.

Creativity can keep us concentrated on something constructive. It gives us confirmation to the self and the power of the self. No, I am not advertising egoism, but belief in the self, in our own capability to make changes. This eliminates one of the reasons for every depression - low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence. That's why creativity is part of my therapy and healing of long lasting depressions and anxiety. No matter what has embroiled you in the depression, the condition has probably diminished your feeling of self-worth. Be creative and allow yourself to feel worthy to enjoy life, to be proud of what you do. 

I can only give you a simple idea of what I do. You might find something else to be creative with. Find out what kind of creativity makes you happy and just do it no matter what they think… (those whose opinion we never asked for) 

Here you see the materials for my lamp. The whole cable-set I bought for 1 dollar/euro, the metal can - 2 $/€. Everything secondhand. Sometimes you can get such things for free from relatives and friends. I often get donations of material I never asked for. There are good people who know I am creative and give me a lot of things. 

My tools are semi-professional and I do not buy tools second hand. I won't name the brands because it would be advertising and I am not paid to do that… haha! But good tools are the base for good results. 

This is the simplest way to make a DIY design-lamp with safe cables from other lamps. Usually, I build my own cables with a textile cover and cool switches which are used for motors' control-panels, but this is nothing I recommend because of safety issues. If you are the handy technical type, then you probably can do this stuff.

You need drills and a smaller drilling machine that can both drill and screw. You need some short screws to lock the can. You need a cable-stop so the edges of the can do not damage the isolation of the cable. It is the black plastic part beside the big drill. The switch is already on the cable so we don't bother about this connection.

You need a chisel and a hammer, pliers and connectors (wagos). If you have a tool called "punch", you can make a perfectly round hole in a thin plate but it is a professional tool that costs too much for a hobby. Then the hole will be covered by the plastic ring, so it does not really matter if it is perfectly round or not.

Use a permanent marker to make a circle on the can-lock. Then depending on the size of your chisel, make an octagon with eight strong hits with the hammer. Remove carefully the inner circle and fit the lamp base. The white parts and cables will be inside the can, so everything visible will be black. Think about components that fit to each other not only technically but aesthetically as well.

 

Then you must peel the cables: First, leave at least two or three centimeters of the outer isolation without damaging the inner one. Then peel away one cm of the inner isolation on each cable. Be careful to not damage the copper wires. When you connect the cables with wagos (the orange one) or the so called sugar-cubes (this is the old way but still used), make sure cables with the same color are connected end to end. The colors of cables are standard so blue is "neutral" and brown is "phase". This is the European standard. The phase is the electricity going to the lamp and the neutral is the electricity going back from the lamp to the network.

 

 

Before you connect the cables you have to drill a hole in the can. Make a light hit with the drill and the hammer at the point you will center the hole. This hit is needed to fixate the drill at the correct place otherwise it slides sideways and scratches the surface. Slide carefully the cable through the hole and fixate it with the cable-stop which is screwed from the inside of the can. I had to use a nut, because my drills are not the right size and the hole became half a millimeter too loose. Well, problems have solutions. 

 

Now you can connect the cables and try the lamp so everything works. When you connect cables with wagos or "sugar-cubes", you must check a few times that they are really stable and you can not drag them out. This is for the sake of safety. 

 

Once you are ready, you need a weight at the bottom of the lamp so it is really stable. I use fine cement and two plastic bags. I mix the cement powder with water until it weighs about  1.5 kg and the consistency is like toothpaste. Place the bag carefully in the can, without twisting cables and connections and leave the bags open. Wait a few days for the cement to harden and fixate the locker of the can with three screws. I always drill before screwing. 

 

Turn on the light and let it in!