When your creative identity is tethered to a specific skill, and that skill disappears, you do not just lose income. You lose orientation. You lose language for who you are. You lose the way you introduce yourself at parties. Who are you if not that?

Creative burnout is a strange beast. It doesn’t always arrive with a dramatic collapse. Sometimes it looks like competence. Productivity. A calendar full of meetings. Deadlines met. Invoices sent. Posts scheduled. And yet…