how I unleash my creativity
Creativity for me is merely a spiritual process. It’s those wee hours into the dark night of the soul, a place for me to hold a mirror to myself, or simply a means to bask in my God-given light. Maybe it’s a haven for us, a sanctuary, a sacred temple. Or it’s a lighthearted playground, or an imitation game of God’s works and His grand show. And at hard times, it’s a dial-up connecting to God Himself.
Creativity unfolds for its own sake.
“Creativity is the single most important Gift for drawing humanity out of its mass psychosis.” -Richard Rudd
A quick note. This page is not meant to be “responsive”. This is my digital graffiti wall, so to speak. For that it requires a wide screen. This is a WYSIWYG type of project and it is a wall I return back to periodically to spray paint (I may erase, I may spray over outdated thoughts or add new ones). So I’d love for you to see this page as a wall that cannot accommodate to all dimensions but one, a full screen on a computer. In this sense, you may have to respond to it. I know, how Rick Rubin of me (lol).
Thank you and I hope you enjoy your stay.
The Artist’s Way
“Great Creator, I will take care of the quantity. You take care of the quality.”
For me, there is no other way to start this topic but to start it with Julia Cameron’s revered book, “The Artist’s Way”. In actuality, I think this whole page can be condensed to one single suggestion: “Read The Artist’s Way.” [After working on this page for days, I return to this paragraph to insert that I pay special homage to Julia Cameron and dedicate this page to her.]
This book has a special place in my heart as it helped me as a “recovering artist”. What is a recovering artist? It’s the one who knew they had a special well in their soul from which they drew regularly to keep themselves sane and in love with the world. But like the effects of some mysterious or not so mysterious climate change, every year the waters would deplete themselves, levelling lower and lower. Until one day, the fertile soil is gone, the land is as hard as rock, cracked and barren..a drought. Where did it all..go? Sometimes time, social conditionings, and the workings of our karmic contracts do a number on us, that we lose touch with our grace.
Ever since I was young, I had a strong sentimentality and my resonance with any kind of art would take a strong hold of me. Reading, watching, absorbing art would produce the effect of a sharp knife twisting into my heart.. in a good way. It felt really good to find that fire burning inside of me. Things just touched me so heavily to the point where tears would well up in my eyes with ease. And one day, in my mid 20’s, that superpower seemed to have disappeared.
I needed some sort of artistic CPR to lift me from this dry spell, something needed to be dislodged critically. I mustered up all the energy I had to go to a nearby bookstore to pick this book up. And slowly yet exponentially quickly, chapter by chapter, I began dusting off the ash on my heart, pulling back the layers and removing the clown makeup. Watering my soil, feeding it the nutrition it needed sourced from this book and ultimately from God, I de-frauded myself, and eventually, found myself again. Self-expression came back with a fiery vengeance.
Of all the great exercises in this book, the most effective assignment for me were the Morning Pages. As much as I was a writer at heart, I never journaled in my 20’s surprisingly. I remember during the hardest time of that era I’d get nudges from different healers to journal, to write my feelings down. Despite those messagings peaking my intrigue, I still brushed off these “suggestions”—which were really urgent prescriptions—because I had thought those were generic sayings to close off a healing session. I took the advice as “typical self-affirmation practices to take home with you” and nothing more serious than that. Boy.. Even I heard from my higher self that I should journal and write more but perhaps was so weak spiritually to take heed. But there comes a boiling point where the silent suffering is no longer bearable. As I had a “I’ll do anything” approach during this difficult time, I promised myself to complete the homework in this book. So as I dedicated myself to the Morning Pages, my life took a turn quite quickly. The next thing you know, I quit two big foundations of my life: my job and my marriage. I find myself moving to a different province. Yes, these are common things that happen when you seriously submit yourself to the book (just look it up!). Though I can’t attribute all those milestones to just this book. There were many other factors at play, such as my personal natal transits and progressions, inspiration from my close friends, and probably a bit (a lot?) of divine ordinance! But truly, this book allowed me to see myself straight in the eyes, and in turn, run towards the reality I wanted to create for myself, by embracing the child in me that wanted to love and be loved again.
Audiobook or physical book?
I think both are fine. The audiobook is great to listen to on walks, though I find for me the retention of the wisdom is difficult when listened to in audio form. I need the physical book laid in front of me to take active notes and to quickly flip between chapters. Warning, you’ll want to highlight every page, top, down, front, to back!
When I first heard about this book, I had gotten the audiobook. Truly, it went in one ear out the other, especially because I was foregoing the homework. For me, I don’t think audiobooks in general help with my retention. I found that having the physical copy for particular books to be necessary and important.
Why are the Morning Pages so important?
Very often we take little time for ourselves. We’re too busy tending to the day’s upcoming voyage and call “winding down” as “watching a couple of reels and YouTube as a treat”. That seems to be our way of “giving back to ourselves after a hard day’s work”. It’s not. We’ve forgotten to go inside and till our soil, tend to our garden, see what roots are rotting, what needs watering, what needs to be pruned for new growth. How rare is it that we have thoughts about a particular encounter but never say it explicitly out loud, we just think it and let it go as a fleeting thought? Or sometimes we hold our feelings so tightly to our dear hearts, we don’t want anyone dare come across this secret of ours, so we never express it out, even in writing. This is where we become dishonest with ourselves, and the more we trail farther from connecting with our emotions, the more we are starving ourselves. Be willing to say what you want to say, feel how you want to feel, and truly be courageous to open up to yourself in writing.
Is writing the Morning Pages by hand necessary?
Although Julia Camera strongly encourages the pages to be written by hand, I found for myself that typing on the computer was much more effective. I truly tried giving the “by-hand” thing a chance, but it only cramped up my fingers and my hand, making it difficult for me to practically lay out my all my thoughts on paper. I also noticed the speed of my hand could not catch up with my thoughts. So typing was much, much more effective for me.
Complimentary content:
The Courage to Be Disliked -Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga
Your natal chart. Your Gene Keys and Human Design. Any “permission slip” that allows you to tap into the fierce energy that is uniquely yours. Remind yourself of yourself again and again.
Spiritual sacred texts. The Bible, I Ching, Bhagavad Gita, The Vedas, The Quran, Paramahansa Yogananda’s works..
The Career Archetypes Youtube channel- https://www.youtube.com/@TheCareerArchetypes
Doechii’s YouTube videos of her weekly vlogs working with The Artist’s Way. Truly inspiring.
“It is very important to understand that the time given to Morning Pages is time between you and God. You best know your answers. You will be led to new sources of support as you begin to support yourself”
“The pages round up the usual suspects. They mention the small hurts we prefer to ignore, the large successes we’ve failed to acknowledge. In short, the Morning Pages point the way to reality: this is how you’re feeling; what do you make of that? And what we make of that is often art.” -82
“As we lose our vagueness about ourself, our values, our life situation, we become available to the moment. It is there, in the particular, that we contact the creative self. Until we experience the freedom of solitude, we cannot connect authentically. We may be enmeshed, but we are not encountered. Art lies in the moment of encounter: we meet our truth and we meet ourselves; we meet ourselves and we meet our self-expression. We become original because we become something specific: an origin from which work flows.” -82
“Create like a child, edit like a scientist.”
The most important thing is that we honour our inner child with our art. Our art is a product of what we truly feel, free from the fettered vices of superficiality, exhibitionism, the consciousness of all other eyes around us. I strive to crystallize my art when created in humility and truth. And by this, I don’t necessarily mean “be modest”. By all means, be audacious. But don’t fake audacious for audacity’s sake. Be genuinely, uniquely, weirdly you audacious. Get the difference!?
Whatever thoughts you have, lay them out. We’ll sift them in due time.
My process with writing (any types of work such as essays, poetry, short story, etc.) starts like a paint splatter on paper. As soon as it appears in my head, I must write it down as quickly as possible. I call this “jarring the spark”. I must seize it quickly before it leaves me (they don’t always leave me in a rush. Sometimes, if they’re worth contemplating on, they will return!). Jar it so that you can later return to it to rekindle with a match so that you may start a slow-burning fire with it if you wish. When I write it down, it almost never comes out as eloquent or articulate as the finished product, but the skeleton needs to be out into the material realm to begin with! The key here is that I am fully aware of how rough of a sketch this is as I write it down, that it’s not as well-written as I want it to be, and I hold ample amount of space to know that there’s refinement to be done. For me, I really appreciate that I hold this third-perspective awareness, that bird’s eye view perspective that knows, and has a standard for what is appealing/tasteful to me versus not, but I don’t let that get in the way of my splattering it on paper nonetheless. It all first has to be written down.
It’s like a painter who sketches the structural form with the underpainting with the brown/red broad strokes. They start off with that skeleton and then create a real-living person in time. (see blow or search “oil painting underpainting”)
Sometimes I don’t have my fancy camera and so the iPhone camera will do just fine. It’s our polaroid camera of the times. But I must use even this wisely. Sometimes, certain moments are meant to be cherished and indulged without a need to capture it. I struggle with this often. When is it appropriate to take out the camera which immediately alters the atmosphere of that which you had just savoured?
Why being a child in your art is so important is because I often find we can get lost in the technicalities of the work. When we delve into any medium, we start getting into the mindset of improvement which is good, but it can overdo itself. When we start to learn how to turn knobs on that dj controller, we start learning how transitions work. Then we get led to an article about what “most people fail to know about transitions” and then we get self-conscious as we turn into the tastes of ‘the other’. We must learn to hone our craft with reverence yet at the same time hold the middle finger up when it needs to dispel our fear of judgment. When we learn how to draw portraits, we toil over how to draw the perfect nose, with anatomical precision, shadows and all. When we produce videos, we feel as if we need to learn how to film in the perfect lighting and dimensions, respecting the rule of thirds, colour-graded to the nines. I feel that when we start wanting to create art with a laser sharp knife, we can run the tendency of incising the work surgically that we remove the heart in its doing. There is a time and place for precision, but I most often find myself working with a blunt knife. Broad strokes. Sometimes we leave those broad strokes, sometimes we sharpen them a little. But I think this balance is important.
Dove and serpent “Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” Matthew 10:16
Be like a child - Matthew 18:3-4
3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
“A wonderful child blooms like a flower, with no conscious intent to advertise its unfolding fragrance or beauty. So is the would-be divine man: he absorbs himself in expressing the glory of God, unaware, like a child of his own qualities.” -Paramahansa Yogananda
It’s so important though when editing in scientist mode, to leave those child fingerprints on the artwork. As much as possible. Sure, there can be refinements, lines and edges cleaned up, but I really love to see purity, innocence, and the detachment from perfection to shine through in my personal work, because it evokes the pure essence of the feeling at the time.
“Creating like a child” means the process comes from a sincere heart. As an artist, our art is a means to create a safe, cozy home for our guests. We can do all the Martha Stewart-ing we want to provide the most luxurious, beautifully plated feast. We must be careful of the militant behaviour that can sneak up on this process. It can start with the modest self-serving desire to please, to entertain, to satisfy. It can quickly take form of the fear to “not fuck up”, to ensure the guests goes in for seconds, the guests will finish their plates, the guests will compliment me for my ability to perfectly season. Some call it healthy ambition, or pat themselves on the back for “doing it right”. They may even be lying to themselves that they’re enjoying it this way. That’s why they’ve hosted a million times, right? Could be. But could it possibly be from the love of outcome and validation? The applause and “thank you’s” at the end of the show? Often I find a very, very delicate and blurry line between dogma’s of “duty, obligation, service” and “sincerity, vulnerability, humanness” at the dinner. Even as you serve the food, are you connecting with the guests or are you overtaken by the watchdog attitude of “perfectly arranged, organized, and enjoyed” that you’re starving yourself from connecting with your loved ones? Did they enjoy those appetizers? They’re not going in for seconds. Was it too salty? Too sweet? Do they like it? Do they like me? How then, could the guests possibly digest this food, no matter how “tasteful”, with this kind of energy around them?
I would far more enjoy the simple meal that is served with no forethought nor afterthought. No weird, extraneous sentiments nor calculations attached. A rice porridge enjoyed in the company of peace is far nourishing than the grand feast that is prepared in franticness and forethought.
Simplicity with a side of sincerity please!
We’ll come to realize that when we create art like a child, that the act is not a sexy, “romanticized” process. I’m not out here laying down on a patch of grass on the top of a hill, spewing out a Jane Eyre novella in a leather notebook with my feather pen.
I’m vomiting my lightweight thoughts, ideas, and sketches to the cloud, whether that’s on Notion or my iPhone Notes. I’m furiously typing away on that keyboard as soon as the thought seizes me before it leaves me. And all that energy whirling happens internally. The outward picture isn’t all that “aesthetically pleasing” or instagrammable.
This relates to my 26th gene key. Invisibility. That’s where the most effective transformation happens. When I’m so deep into my own core that I do not care how I look in the process, what I look like to others (on a purely physical in the moment level and macro social level)
The interesting phenomenon here is once I get into the zone of my work for hours and lift myself out for a break..I pass by a mirror, I catch a glimpse of myself. I see a radiance coming out of my skin, it’s more toned and refined and my eyes look brighter, my beauty truly shines. It’s very uncanny to experience it every time.
“To the perfectionist, there is always room for improvement. The perfectionist calls this humility. In reality, it is egotism. It is pride that makes us want to write a perfect script, paint a perfect painting, perform a perfect audition monologue.”
- The Artist’s Way pg 120
I often love getting in touch with myself at 4 AM because of the “Blue Hour” so beautifully expressed in this movie, Four Adventures of Reinette and Maribelle. But sometimes I find this not sustainable because if I do it too many consecutive times I starve my body of the sleep it needs, and it definitely shows in my face and my work. Sometimes I just need the full sleep. Listen to your body!!!
There’s a careful balance of not being too constrained to the routine. I give myself flexibility to change things up. It also requires parameters so you’re not just working on blazen strikes of lightning
Things that help me:
Coffee
There’s nothing like sipping a black coffee while working on your art. Truly. Nothing like it.
I use coffee as my hourglass, a running timer where my artistic energy unleashes itself in practical form. There’s something about coffee running out. When you don’t have that coffee with you. For me, the internal atmosphere changes, and I’m working on not having such a crucial dependency on it. But boy does it feel so magical.
Headphones
Sometimes I have no music and use the noise-cancellation mode to tune out the world. Sometimes I need music playing. Each decision is intentional. Sometimes the music is disruptive to your creative or working process. Sometimes it’s helpful for you to lock in and get those words organized within the parameters of a timer.
There is no set time where inspiration strikes. An artist is not an artist when he only enters his art room.
I’ve always found it silly that people had dedicated spaces for certain things.
I’d rather take a walk and be in nature than go to a dedicated factory of treadmills to exercise.
I’d rather sit quietly with God under a tree than go to a church.
I make art wherever I go, even when I am simply breathing and observing the life in front of me, not just in the war room.
There’s something magical about being half-awake in the crack of dawn, sipping on coffee and writing my thoughts. I sometimes miss this moment like I missed a train when I wake up when my body wants to and I’m scrolling social media. I try to prevent this from happening as much as possible.
You’ve probably heard of the famous spoon and plate method Albert Einstein practices to get into his creative mode. Hypnagogia is the transitioning state between sleep and wakefulness. Whether it is the state of sleep to wakefulness or wakefulness to sleep, I find this limbo zone an incredibly powerful time to dive into my well. I try my best to wake up early and work in the sleep state. I don’t do this all the time. Sometimes I sleep in because I know my body needs the full 8 hours or other times simply because I am not disciplined enough. But when I do get in that zone, it is a magical sensory experience.
Before the coffee gets cold
As much as I love that divine spark in me at random moments of the hour. I still need to anchor myself to a ritual and routine.
Don’t make it hard for yourself, it’s often with a palette knife than a surgical one. Broad strokes, broad strokes. We’ll pencil in the details later, we’ll refine those edges in due time.
“Before the coffee gets cold” is taken from Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s novel title. I did not enjoy the book as much as the title. The title to me is an accountability mantra I sometimes remind myself when I catch myself slipping..on a micro and macro level. On a micro level it’s a way for me to use my coffee as an hourglass (or a Pomodoro timer) to stay focused on the work in front of me before the coffee runs out. There’s nothing like a good intermittent sip of coffee as you work at your craft. And when it runs out and I’m still left to work on the thing, it’s just not the same, frankly. Sometimes I spoil the magic taste of my caffeine when all I’m doing is sipping on it without much output. It feels as though I have wasted a great coffee moment. So I really strive to make good use of my coffee. On a macro level, it’s about when I’m almost nearing the finish line with my work and perhaps I get bored of it from toiling over for it for days. It’s that Sagittarius Sun/Aries Moon in me that gets bored quick and moves on to the next thing. I’m already developing my next idea when I’m still in the premature finishing phase of the current one. So I reel it back in. Before that feeling gets cold, let’s finish it. And hold onto that feeling as long as possible so that you can finish it. That’s why I need to finish the work under a tight timeframe before that proverbial coffee gets cold in me. Get it out before the feeling stales out. Finish it while you have that heart for it in you.
My coffee is finite and I so cherish the taste as I create. So I ensure every sip is a reward. Sometimes I indulge and the coffee runs out quick before I get a good paragraph in. And that sucks because I lose out on the special feeling..this sex of coffee and art. It becomes an indulgement that finishes before the end product which is a disappointment to me.
As much as art is a process of capturing those lightning rays of inspiration, we do need structure. Why does Capricorn and Virgo exist in the 12 zodiacs? Because those aspects of structure, discipline, and dedication to the routine is necessary for tangible outcomes.
Discipline, limitations, etc.
As much as I love latching onto the sparks that spontaneously dawn on me, it is imperative that I revere routine, outline, and the discipline to commit to the agenda. Commitment is just as important as spontaneity.
Four of wands
I did a tarot reading for myself and the “what resources I need to rely on” card for me came the 4 of wands. It was hard to decipher what this really meant. So I did some digging and I happened across an excerpt that exactly related to my situation:
Know thy audience
Know thy self
“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
Toni Morrison If there’s a story that you want to hear to inspire you into knowing it’s never too late, it’s Toni Morrison’s.
Toni Morrison was a senior editor at the Random House. Being a working single mother of two songs, she found the cracks of dawn to be the only sliver of time to put in her own writing. She would use legal pads and scraps of paper to just get a few paragraphs in which ultimately led to her first book, The Bluest Eye. Though at 39 she published her first book, her journey ended up winning her the 1993 Nobel Literature prize.
Toni Morrison mentions in interviews that she was looking to read something that she wanted to read but often couldn’t find that.
But more than a moral of “it’s never too late to start”, there is another extremely important gem in this. That you write because you haven’t found something that resonates so deeply with you..because it can be started within you.
“It’s inside myself that I must create someone who will understand.” - Clarice Lispector
This page took weeks for me to work on and some days I find myself toiling..the anxiety of getting it done sometimes creeps up. And then I do some reading here and there, and it leads me to some of my old writings. And it ends up being exactly what I needed to hear. So I find that churning out small finished works is just as important if only to give a gift to your future self. When I finish reading it I feel so heard, and think, “Wow, this is exactly what I needed to hear.” and that feeling may be found in other authors’ works..but that feeling where you have given yourself what you needed is another uniquely beautiful feeling.
Art does not require approval. It just requires your resonance.
This is why I also feel like the memes is art statement bears truth. Perhaps put in screenshot of this?
I believe that when you make your art for you, you’ll end up making it for the right audience. You put your work on some channel like a radio frequency, there will be others who tune into that and your work will resonate heavily. Understand that the quality of the audience trumps the quantity. There is sacredness in having your work resonate with the right people, who need to hear/see/smell/witness it at the time they divinely encountered your work.
It’s equally important to keep your mind clean and ensure things/people/negative judgments of people are not residing in your mind rent-free. For a while my instagram has been private, it still is because for a long time it’s been a secondary-thing to a phone, as many millenials will understand. It’s always been one of those things where I meet someone in person and it’s a convenient way to connect with them. My ig is not my audience, when I put my work out on my ig, it’s just for me to look back at/But even though I know my work won’t resonate with people on ig, I used it as a way to publish my work. And I barely get likes and comments on most of them and that’s okay. Because they’re for me. I really love to go back on my page and watch my work. Because it inspires me to keep going and simply, because I enjoy watching/reading/looking at my work. Have some archive of your own works. Go back to them from time to time to edit or just get inspired by your own shit. This is why it’s important to make shit for you as your main audience.
Sometimes your art, even if released to the audience, is truly, deeply, viscerally for your own self. It’s a comment you responded to on a thread, only to happen upon it 3 years later. Your comment from the past made sense to your future self, the present. And these moments are quite jawdropping. You realize the divine touch in some of your artwork because God was over your shoulder taking a dip of His finger from the graphite and smudged a corner of your portrait and said, “Here, let me help with this.” And then years later, you notice that smudge, that you may have brushed off as just a smudge at the time of making. You notice that smudge was meant to convey an important message to your future self. It’s a constant conversation, a reaping of personal karma, a dialogue with all versions of you and God.
That’s why making art in anonymity might be the most divinely inspired times. It’s a sacred “Blue Hour” in the big picture of time. Because at that point you know you’re purely dialoguing with yourself.. it’s a soliloquoy more than it is a play for a bigger audience that you will have to work through some day which may require a slightly refined and “different” sort of energy.
It’s like when I post my YouTube videos with just pure copyrighted song. For me, there is no other way around it. I can’t just sub in non-royalty free music. I need this particular song or the whole video loses its magic. And the thing people say about copyrighted music on YouTube is that it doesn’t really matter if you post it when you’re not monetizing your channel. It’s only when you do when it starts to matter and you have to vigilant and really start working within the parameters of copyright, and that can be quite stunting/limiting…
So this space of anonymity and non-monetization is a really sacred gift God provides. Use it, take absolute advantage out of it. Squeeze the shit out of it because one day, it will be gone, if you are destined for universal resonance with your art.
art is resonance with you past, present, and future self. in this way your art is a shapeshifter of truth.
It is vital that I must let art unfold itself on its own accord.
After I create my art, it becomes a walking meditation. It walks with me in times of strife, during the night, in the wake of dawn. It changes shape where it no longer looks the same as it did in the past. It takes on new meaning, birthing new insights, realizations, and epiphanies in the future. It becomes a time travel artifact that keeps me in intimate conversations with God. A book of personal and divine revelations.
subway take -> memes are art
A careful balance of active consumption and content dieting
Art imitates life.
Respond to stuff. But also limit consumption. You know your barometer on that.
This year and moving forward I’m practicing the art of stillness and the stillness of art. I’ve been used to a lot of movement and shaking around in my past art, that I’m starting to be more still in my camera shots, my paint strokes, and my writing. I let nature and God reveal themselves to me and capture in stillness. There is so much beauty in the frame in doing so. I came back from a trip where most of my footage was rendered unusable because I did not know how to be still. I have to let things be, let God be, let it all be so that it dawns on me and I may merely be a mirror to reflect back the divine image.
Consume. And then respond to the thing you consume. Respond to art, to life, anything that speaks to you.
Be vigilant about what you consume. Consume chicken noodle soup (vegan if you can!), not KFC, for the soul.
Social media sometimes gives you the little bit of motivation that you really needed to hear at that time. I do believe that sometimes the content you encounter is divinely given as opposed to the algorithm turning its gears. But both mechanisms co-exist. Sometimes I get caught up in myself, my ego starts to snowball, and the algorithm works with that energy too. It starts showing me posts that satiate my egoic thoughts and tendencies. And it can steer me right off the path in the same way it got me onto it. So I struggle and strive to be hyper-vigilant to the media that takes hold of me at certain hours of the day. Sometimes it’s a good little nudge up the mountain, “Come on, you can do it! Go you!” Sometimes, it takes an insidious form that props me up the top of the mountain before I am even there and tells me to look down at those beneath me. It seems dramatic and evil, but the way it manifests is quite subtle and nuanced, like a mustard seed, which is why I should write in its blown-up sense, so that I am aware of how watchful I should be.
Invest in work that speaks to you. Invest in the artist you get inspired by. Invest in what you appreciate and admire, for this generates good karma.
Your support in the artist supports the artist in you. It all comes back, eventually. Trust the karmic process.
Be open to content diets.
Simple said, the truth is within us. We have our barometers of truth, grace, love, and wisdom. Merely searching outwardly for that might distort our own. So it’s important we delve deep into ourselves to search for what resonates, and that truth will be blindingly impactful to others who share the same fabric of your soul.
That being said, the paradox of this is that the rule is to not be so tied to rule. I’m not going to be stringent about the structure I must adhere to. If I feel so called to follow my nose, if my curiosity takes a hold of me, I will pause my progress to delve into that which calls me. It often does serve me well to offer new insights and spurs even more inspiration and creative flow to the work I had temporarily unattended. It is interesting how this works, though delicate. I have to be really intentional with my non-intentionality.
“Be still and know that I am God.”
“But because everything that happens around me I turn into fodder for our conversations.”
Someone out there needs to hear your truth. They are looking to be inspired by your art so that they may feel freedom to produce theirs. They are chained by ego and social conditioning that has buried them too deep. They are waiting to hear and see your imperfect work so that they may feel that they have permission to simply be themselves in their work as well.
Steve Jobs - conventional rule to break ->
https://experteditor.com.au/blog/gen-steve-jobs-says-the-most-creative-people-usually-break-5-conventional-rules/
“Don’t ship until it’s perfect—and stick to the plan.”
Publish like a publisher
We’ve discussed “creating like a child and editing like a scientist.” But the third act is publishing like a publisher. Plain and simple. This is often the hardest part.
Now the irony with this section is that I had been debating back and forth whether to include this section. All the time I’ve been preaching the good preach on how art is for yourself, so I hear the prefrontal cortex of some readers chirping up: “then why is publishing so important?” Seems a bit contradictory, doesn’t it.
But ultimately I felt this need to still include this section. While dozing off to sleep, I’ve gotten this section shone on my third eye and so it feels important that I do include this part. Secretly, I believe the reason why this sentiment should be stated is to plant the seed in some of the artists who don’t believe they can make a living out of their truths. But in order to do so, they need to cast their seeds out.
Do not publish for glorification but with the deep knowing that someone, somewhere needs to hear, see, smell, taste what you have to say. Share in compassion for such persons.
Your sensitivity is your strength
“물론 그가 가려는 길은 많은 노력이 필요한 머나먼 여행이지만, 결국엔 찾는 걸 발견하게 될 지도 모르지.”
“그게 뭔데요?”
“생각나는 거 없어? 래리가 이사벨한테 이야기하는 도중에 퍽 분명하게 표현한 것 같던데. 바로 신 말이야.”
“…It’s a long, arduous road he’s starting to travel, but it may be that at the end of it he’ll find what he’s seeking.”
“What’s that?”
“Hasn’t it occurred to you? It seems to me that in what he said to you he indicated it pretty plainly. God.”
The Razor’s Edge / 면도날
-William Somerset Maugham
You may feel everything so deeply, but remember to be gentle to yourself and others.
“You’re too deep.”
“Stop overthinking.”
“I worry that you feel too hard.”
While these may not be wrought with bad intentions, it is important that we be discerning of the futility of such well-meaning suggestions. I came across a video of a fan telling their favourite musician that they sometimes worry about him because of how deep his lyrics can get. They all of a sudden find it worrisome for their mental health. I find that extremely ironic. While I understand that as fans, it is certainly valid to care about the human behind the art, it’s important to recognize that fans are made fans because they resonate with the art that could not have come about from surface-level initiations. They worry about the very superpower that manifests itself in great works of art on which they feed. For this I think it can sometimes be harmful to artists to tell them to take it easy, “to chill”, to stop feeling too deeply. But equally so should the artist be vigilant in protecting themselves from such tone-deaf notions, if only to maintain their pitch-perfectness.
People sometimes get overwhelmed with my questioning of life, the different gospels, the ideologies, and my search for truth. They project their anxieties by asking me why I would run myself to ruins by being chained by such perplexities. Sometimes I am also met with nihilistic attitudes that there is no point because no one can “know” truth nor God. Well that’s one surefire way of staying outside of God’s door.
7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Matthew 7:7-8
However, I must release my sensitivity in a respectful, safe manner. Ahimsa is the name of the game here. Let me not project, not try to glare a look at a fault of some person in my expression of art which is my expression of my sensitivity, for it can so easily do this. I have a shadow, they have a shadow, we all have shadows. And by casting my light onto their shadows do I find myself in a bigger shadow.
Ignorance is bliss for many people, but it’s merely bliss of a drug high. It will never match the ecstasy that comes from digging into one’s own soul, to asking the hard questions and trying to answer them. Because in so doing, they start to hear the whispers of God.
Don’t do it out of spite.
I pity the soul who hides behind 10 layers of clothing and chooses not feel... For that is how beautiful, profound feeling and creation surfaces from the human pore. “If you allow your pain, or the world pain, to be expressed through an artistic process, you will see alchemy in progress.” - The 64th Gene Key: The Aurora, Richard Rudd
Not a real Jung quote but a synthesis of his written works.
Though I am sensitive and though I am deep, there comes moments when I am required to lift my head up from the drawing desk. To draw myself back up my deep well and to simply sit and be. To simply exist.
I grapple with the paradox of embracing the maya of duality in my art and my meaning. Sometimes my art vibrates strongly in duality which is why it resonates so readily with the common person. But the higher octave of art vibrates in unity of all, the collection of all, the curtains falling down on the great maya.
Life force
“Whenever I feel powerless and exhausted, I know that in this moment I am devoting my energy to something that is not suitable for me. I am, so to speak, abusing my life force, which then refuses to serve.” - Builder type