Reading Notes
6-8 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended
Topics and Themes
The evolution of the creative life, finding joy, transforming creative setbacks into guidance.
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A life of creativity is a life of fewer and fewer "no's." And, it all starts with a little bit of beginner's luck.
When first you answer the call to pursue a new creative path, for some reason you receive a burst of energy. The wind is at your back. Paintbrushes are on sale. A neighbor has a guitar gathering dust in their closet. Your Mom has a close friend who is a retired choreographer. It's almost like someone (Universe? Truth? God? Energy? Thin air? Who?) is telling you, "Yes... Do this!" I love this part. It's like getting a blast of luck to help you get on your way, a little extra verve in your step.
While it's nice to begin with such energy and excitement, sooner or later it leaves us. We shouldn’t be surprised to feel a little bit tired of engaging with this new creative pursuit. Perhaps we're feeling too tired to practice. The idea of picking up a paintbrush seems a little overwhelming. Stretching out on the mat to warm up just seems a little more brittle than usual. It's almost as if we're beginning to see the tiniest “no's” on the horizon.
This is okay. It's part of the process. The work almost always loses the beginning flow. After that initial burst of energy wears thin, sooner or later the hard work beckons us. At that point, we have decisions to make and trade offs to experience. It almost seems as if more and more reasons to stop appear to us, more and more “no's.”
Oh, those ugly no's.
If you've ever met someone who has trouble finishing, they probably quit at this point. I don't judge or blame them.
For those obstinate enough to keep moving forward, there's good news: The amount of “yes's” slowly increases. Perhaps it comes in the form of gaining comfort with a routine. With each blank canvas, your body begins to feel settled into a rhythm. With each tired morning getting up to make your coffee, you feel a little bit relieved you don't have to think about whether practicing is an option. With each extra hour on stage, it becomes more like home. Finishing a piece somehow gets just a little bit easier because of the routine you’ve built. The act of showing up has become more and more comfortable.
As the routine gets deeper, sooner or later some magic begins to pop-up. The writing of the novel comes unstuck and you're on a hot streak; 50 pages flow out of you. On the 200th time coming back to the Eurorack synth (I'm speaking for myself here), the sounds become incredibly detailed, nuanced, and deeply interesting. On the 10th night of a rock tour, the band finally finds it's rhythm and it begins to push deeper at the experience to see what else they can do.
At this stage, the creating goes so darned easily. Fewer no's. More yes's. At times, you might experience what it's like to sit back and marvel at the beast of a painting that's staring right back at you. It's a wonderful feeling to have invested your time into a chosen activity and finally have felt the epically smooth flow while engaged with it.
Sooner or later, the "no's" begin to shift in their character. Whereas before, a "no" felt like a great shutdown and perhaps a slap to the face, a "no" becomes more like guidance. It’s almost as if the “no” were saying, "Hey, if you want to keep on creating and feeling the awesomeness of creating, don't go to that place... Go here instead." They become directional markers, signs for where to go.
The no’s guide you into the flow, over and over again. The work keeps going. You don't stop. You're on a roll now. Work is easy. It's fun and enjoyable. Your creativity has become an integral part of your life, and all your friends know you as the creative one. You can speak easily and confidently of what you do. People will marvel at your ability to dance Argentine Tango, at your output as a prolific short story writer, as a ceramics artist of high yield. The amount of "no's" decreased while the amount of yes's become more populated throughout your body of work. More and more flow comes to you as you dig deeper into the craftsmanship of the work. Yes. Yes. Yes! Your pieces have a deeper, more mysterious quality to them, as if they couldn't possibly have been made by you.
After years of creation and a deep creative routine, many of the "no's" completely disappear. At this point, we shift from being concerned with the quality of the stuff we are creating to being more interested in how it feels to create, period. It's almost as if we judge the pieces by how we felt when we were creating them rather than how they compare to others’ work. This makes sense: It feels good to engage, to create, and we adore the pieces that have that extra psychic energy to them.
The experience and the flow of creating become more important than the simple output, the one thing that people can see. At this stage, I'm pretty sure artists look either extraordinarily committed to their art or bat-shit-crazy to their family, friends, and especially their neighbors. Thankfully, immunity to the reactions of others comes naturally at this stage. The older we get, the less we care. My friends know not to reach out to me in the mornings. I won't answer the phone. They get it!
Sooner or later, we create things because we just need to create things. There's a real drive to just do something… anything! It's a compulsion to create. There aren't any no's because we've let them all go. No's disappear because we don't care about them anymore. A "no" at this point is more like an adventure that we get pulled into: "Oooo, I wonder what's behind door number three?!? Let's just go have a peek..." No's are just plain fun, and we refuse to let them go. Who knows? It could inspire something even more interesting, more creative, and allow us to experience even more flow!
A life of creativity is a life of fewer and fewer "no's." Thank goodness for that.
