I first discovered my love for painting during a high school exchange program in the U.S. When I returned home, I decided to take art as a focus subject. Now, painting is more of a hobby, but it's something I deeply enjoy—especially creating portraits of my loved ones, like my siblings, parents, and close friends. For a long time, I didn’t quite understand why this meant so much to me, but I’ve come to realize that I have a deep desire to capture their images on paper, something I cannot do in my mind. Creative work—whether it’s painting, writing, a DIY project, or decorating a room—has always been a "process of letting the finished product emerge in front of me" as well. Back in art class, I struggled with the mandatory sketchbook that was supposed to document our ideas, experiments, and project plans in advance. This sketchbook was graded, as it was meant to prove that we had a "creative process" behind our final pieces—because apparently, the finished painting alone wasn't sufficient evidence. But for me, this approach just didn’t work. I felt completely lost. In class, I would avoid drawing in the sketchbook, pretending I preferred to do this work at home. The truth is, I never sketched or planned out my work. For my portraits, I usually used a reference photograph to get started, but not my own "visual idea". Some might call this copying, but for me, painting wasn't about that. The joy of painting was in playing with colors and shapes, letting the piece develop in front of me. I could take a reference photograph and then create my own version of the portrait on a blank space with colors I chose. How amazing! I could completely lose myself in this process—adding, adjusting, and painting over until I was satisfied with the result. My way of doing art didn't fit well with the curriculum, though because I always ended up with a final piece and an empty sketchbook. The night before a project deadline was hectic. I would sit down with the empty sketchbook pages and fabricate an entire creative "process," starting from the back with my finished piece and working to the front. I even added fake dates to make it seem like I had developed the piece gradually through sketches. I played along because it seemed like everyone else was doing it the “right” way, too. Deep down, I always knew there wasn’t a single "right" way to be creative, and that I had the right to use my mind in a way that worked for me. The word "creative" comes from the Latin word creare, which literally means "to produce" or "to bring into existence." In its essence, being creative means bringing something new into the world, whether it's an idea, a piece of art, or a solution to a problem. I look back at those days and can’t help but smile and shake my head. I wonder if I could have explained my situation to my art teachers had I known about aphantasia back then. Maybe it would have spared me the hours spent fabricating proof that I was a creative individual.