Reflections on my creative journey: non-answers from a curious artist, for other curious artists.
Rereading
It threw into relief this truth: that what we are experiencing now, in this moment, will not last. A week or a month or four years down the road, the thing that is currently gnawing at us, or inspiring us, or frustrating us, likely won’t elicit the same response. It’s like spiritual taste buds that change over time.
Warming Up
Any singer will tell you that rolling out of bed and immediately making your most beautiful sounds is an unrealistic expectation. It can take hours of being awake and warming up before you’re in your “best voice.”
I’ve noticed a parallel with writing. It feels like a big ask to roll out of bed and dive into writing something of value. There’s a certain amount of warming up that’s required to activate those creative parts of the brain.
Show Up and Share My Work
Unlike many resolutions, the mantra doesn’t have a finish line. We can’t do the mantra and be done with it, meaning that we can carry it with us into as many aspects of our life as we choose. Rather than the limiting nature of a resolution (e.g. “I’m going to read more books this year.”), the mantra’s applicability is limited only by our imagination.
Original Work
The flaw in this logic lies in the fact that, unless we pour ourselves into the creation of unoriginal work at first, chances are we won’t find our idiosyncrasies. It’s in the creation of unoriginal work—yes, of copying other artists (to an extent, and without plagiarizing)—that we figure out how our voice differs from the rest. We learn how our work relates to the genre, and how it differs. Idiosyncrasy is born.
So the irony is: in our feverish search for originality, we actually significantly reduce our chances of ever finding it.
My Mornings
I love my mornings. They’ve become my favorite part of the day, hands down.
According to Gretchen Rubin, some people are inherently night owls, and others are inherently early birds. If that’s true, I am absolutely the latter.
This is how I’ve structured my mornings in such a way that I feel prepared to move into my day from a calm, rooted place. I hope it inspires you to think about how you can do the same, in your own way:
On Criticism
When we receive unsolicited, hurtful criticism, we can choose to set boundaries. Not by throwing a fit, or calling for backup, or even quietly cursing. By saying, “You have the right to say what you’d like in this moment, but I also have the right to not listen.”
Desk Job Lessons
Artists often get very wrapped up in our whats. We are our art; we and our creations are one and the same. But what happens when a catastrophe comes along and rips away our ability to share our creations with others, at least in the way we were accustomed to sharing them? Over-identifying with the “what” leads to inflexibility, and if it all falls apart, it leads to despair.
Rather, we can realize that what we create is simply a function of our reason for creating. If I can’t build the empathy bridge on a stage, maybe I can do it at a computer.