Tag Archives: creativity

How the pendulum swings

Posted on February 2, 2012 | 43 Comments

1.

I’ve written about the idea of balance before, usually work-life balance (as if they are separate entities). Lately I find myself contemplating (and by “contemplating,” I mean stressing over, discussing endlessly, writing about, and wrestling with) the balance between connection and solitude.

I love connection. I crave it. After having spent most of my adult life battling my (at times debilitating) shyness, I’ve spent the last few years ditching the shy girl, wading out into the currents of my life as if I believe I’m as fearless as I pretend to be. The funny thing about acting brave is that it forces you to be brave. It’s been an amazing, bruising, awkward and often embarrassing time for me. I never, ever want to go back.

And yet…

At the risk of beating a dead metaphor, I do sometimes feel caught up in the rapids of so many smart, creative, fascinating people doing smart, creative, fascinating things. The number of hours I have in a day never changes, and it seems no matter how careful I am with them, there is always (ALWAYS!) one more blog to read, one more person to meet with, one more worthy cause to embrace.

2.

I have two friends on opposite ends of the connection-solitude divide. One is absolutely connected, plugged in, aware. She works for a non-profit, keeps up with what’s going on in the world, reads an astounding number of blogs, essays, articles and books. She’s an involved mother of a teenager. She goes on walks with her husband every evening. I know she makes time for her friends because I’m one of them.

Feeling myself to be often on the ragged edge of overload, I asked her how she does it and it was as if I’d pulled off her superhero cape. “Seriously, j,” she said, “I’m losing my mind. Something’s gotta give.”

My other friend has some very internal work to do. He’s pulled away from all his connections. He has his (sound and soulful) reasons for doing that, but it’s left him feeling dislocated, adrift and out of touch. He’s staying clear of the yucky stuff – the big, bad, stressful stuff – it’s true, but he’s also missing out on the tiny, brave and beautiful things that make up the lives of the people he loves, or could love, if he were here among us to see them.

3.

The truth is, we humans need to feel both connectedness and solitude. Author Susan Cain says we “have two contradictory impulses: we love and need one another, yet we crave privacy and autonomy. “

To be our best, most loving and creative selves, we need both time to connect and time to be alone. Our connections on and offline offer us not only love and support, but new perspectives on familiar issues, new ideas, critical analysis. Solitude then gives us the chance to process all that newness, reject what doesn’t work, embrace what does, and then make the necessary adjustments to our world view.

I get inspired by the world outside my door, by people, by nature, by art, by my conversations, my debates, my everyday interactions. But I can’t create out there. In the words of super Zen genius Leo Babauta, “It’s only when we are alone that we can reach into ourselves and find truth, beauty, soul.”

4.

Although I often suspect it’s just a myth, or an experience (like orgasms) too blissful to stay in all the time, I still find myself searching for the balance point between connection and solitude. I set limits to how many emails I’ll respond to in a sitting, how long I’ll play on Twitter, how many news stories and blog posts I’ll read in a day. I try to be fiercely protective of my writing time.

But the reality is that I tend to swing from one extreme to another, from connection to solitude and back again. I struggle against my restless demons, feeling out of touch and a little antsy when I focus for days on a project, and guilty about the work that isn’t getting done when I’m busy connecting, meeting with people who fascinate or love or inspire me.

If there is such a thing as balance, maybe it’s just a matter of accepting how the pendulum swings. Maybe it’s less about divvying up perfectly the hours in a day, and more about embracing the mess of a fully lived life, where people get loved and work gets done and cool stuff gets made in fits and spurts, and it’s okay that it doesn’t happen neatly. It’s okay to feel, by turns, productive and then wildly irresponsible, focused and then utterly scattered. The well gets emptied and then it gets filled, and it’s okay that I spend so little time at the half way point… everything just so.

In fact, I’m beginning to understand that it’s more than okay.

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Posted in creative badassery, writing, writers, and stuff we like

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Getting it up

Posted on January 26, 2012 | 33 Comments

The thing about creativity is that unless you make a living practicing your art, it’s easy to deprioritize it. (Note: WordPress is saying deprioritize isn’t a word, but I’m sticking to it because WordPress also says that WordPress isn’t a word.)

On the to-do list you might not even have had time to write today, “make something awesome” would likely fall somewhere near the bottom, after “drop off the kids-prescription-dry cleaning-car,” “write the report,” “attend the meeting,” “reassure the boss,” “pick up the the kids-prescription-dry cleaning-car,” “do the laundry” “pay the bills,” “cook, clean, cry, collapse.”

It’s a perfectly understandable, soul-killing decision to NOT make something awesome. But as day after day passes in this frenzied “I have no time for creative badassery” mode, the muscle that creates your art – your wicked imagination – atrophies. It gets harder and harder to get it up.

So to speak.

I don’t want that to happen to you (or me), so I made a list of five ways to sneak back up on our creative natures. These ideas are small, but powerful… like Altoids.

  1. Unplug.
    Even if only for a few minutes each day, unplug your phone, your computer, your TV, your radio, and every device you have that starts with a lower case “i.” Immerse yourself in your physical surroundings. If at all possible, get dirty.
    *
  2. Take a picture.
    I seriously think cameras are magical in their ability to change our perspectives. Don’t believe me? Look at Marcie Scudder’s rainy day, Jen Erbe’s birches, jb’s kitchen table, my picture of stillness…
    *

    And – bonus! – the “make something awesome” goal is built right into this one!
    *
  3. Do something out of character.
    Wear a kilt or a tutu (or, for me, something purple). Publicly display your affection, throw yourself a surprise party, tell someone in no uncertain terms that what they do makes your knees weak, your head spin, your throat dry… and even with all that, you hope they never, ever stop.
    *
  4. Play.
    Alone or with your lover, your crush, your best friend, your kid, your parents, a perfect (or not-so-perfect) stranger. Do something, anything. Just. For. Fun.
    *
  5. Fuck should.
    For a day, an afternoon, an amazing hour of precious freedom, don’t do anything just because you should.

It may be that the awesome thing you make… is you.

xo

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Posted in j's lists, writing, writers, and stuff we like

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I was here

Posted on December 12, 2011 | 47 Comments

I don’t want a life without regret.

There. I said it. I know there will be push back. I know it’s a popular phrase, “no regrets.” It’s a brand and a bumper sticker, in addition to being a big, badass thing people aspire to. I’ve heard people say, “I have no regrets,” and I wonder about them. I wonder how that’s possible.

What does it even mean to live a life without regrets? And why would anyone want to?

I’ve written on this topic before, clumsily, hitting all around what I’ve wanted to say, attempting to make a case for regret, just as I’ve made a case for the value of a broken heart. I’ve never quite found the words. But last week I watched Kathryn Schulz’s TED talk on regret and she said this…

Here’s the thing. If we have goals and dreams and we want to do our best, and if we love people and we don’t want to hurt them or lose them, we should feel pain when things go wrong. The point isn’t to live without any regrets, the point is to not hate ourselves for having them… We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create and to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regret doesn’t remind us that we did badly; it reminds us that we know we can do better.

I’ll go one step further. Regret often reminds us of the risks we were willing to take – however ill-advised, however misguided. There is magic in that, in daring to be wrong, in caring about someone or something enough to be hurt, enough to be stupid. There is beauty in our awkward, floundering progress to become the people we aspire to be, our best selves.

But beauty (especially the imperfect, searching kind) and regret aren’t mutually exclusive.

If somehow you’ve managed to live a life where you never hurt someone you loved, where your own stupidity never caused damage or loss, then you’re lucky and amazing, but I have to wonder what kind of life have you lived, how engaged in the human process have you been?

I have regrets, little ones, and the big, ugly, gut-wrenching kind that I’m not brave enough to blog about; the kind that result from the actions I took, and the kind that are all about what I didn’t do, what I didn’t say, the moments of opportunity I let get by me.

My regrets don’t remind me that I’m imperfect; I’m painfully aware of that already. They remind me to pay attention. They’re like “I was here” signs painted indelibly in places I shouldn’t have been, places where I got hurt or hurt someone else, places that fucked me up but also taught me truths about myself and the world that I might not have learned any other way.

I don’t have, and don’t aspire to have, a life without regret. What I aspire to is a life so full of passion, creativity and daring that failures are as inevitable as successes, and a life so full of love for what I do and for the people who do it with me that I can’t help but feel the pain – and yes, sometimes the regret – of things going wrong.

Okay, your turn. Tell me about a life without regret. :)

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Posted in j'epiphanies, love

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I do so love the word “begets”

Posted on November 17, 2011 | 19 Comments

Not long ago, I was talking to a writer friend who hasn’t been writing. She’s had a lot going on, inside and out, and it’s been hard for her to find that place inside,  where it’s both quiet and humming, dreamy and focused, wild and disciplined… that place where the artist and the art beautifully, magically collide.

I understand. I’ve been there too. It’s like living on the perimeter of your soul. She said that she was thinking of trying something completely different: painting. She’d always been interested in it but never pursued it because she didn’t think she was good enough, and so… maybe now…

I dropped everything to reply:

Yes!

I think it’s so important for us to indulge our creativity – even when the project that pulls us isn’t part of our plan, even when it won’t make us money, even when it feels frivolous and beside the point. In fact, especially when it feels frivolous and beside the point.

I love ill-advised creativity, the kind we don’t really expect to be good at. When you do something creative outside your field, it’s like giving yourself permission to be an absolute beginner. You can mess up, challenge conventional wisdom (because… well, hell, you don’t even know what the conventional wisdom is). It’s hard for a writer to let herself write crap, but it’s not that hard for a writer to sculpt or paint or photograph crap.

When you indulge your creativity outside your field(s) of expertise, you invite a sense of play. Less attached to the result, you can open to the experience – the crazy firing synapses, the giddy newness, the FUN. I told my friend that I have that sense of adventure every time I take my camera out into the world. Talk about not being attached to the result, I’m delighted when my subject actually appears in the frame.

And here’s the really wonderful part. Much as love begets love, creativity (of all kinds) begets creativity. I think if my friend starts painting, those first beautiful, timid, exhilarating brush strokes may also be her first beautiful, timid, exhilarting steps back to her writing.

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The (real) worst thing

Posted on November 10, 2011 | 44 Comments

I was talking to a writer on Twitter, an amazingly talented writer who regularly blows me away with the power and clarity of her essays and the emotional precision of her stories. She told me that her parents don’t take her writing seriously. I know another writer who never told her husband when she decided to write a book. She didn’t tell him when she finished it either. Or when she landed her agent.

Sometimes chasing a dream, throwing your best, most creative self at something that doesn’t net you a regular paycheck, a positive performance review or a set of fancy business cards is lonely work. The people you normally depend on for emotional support and encouragement fall short; they don’t know what to say or how to say it. Maybe they don’t even understand what drives you.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend about this, telling her about how I sometimes get discouraged by the attention my writing doesn’t get from people I love or admire. I think it’s common for creatives to feel that way because so much of our work isn’t compensated, and the only measure we have that it’s good or impactful is the number of views we get, the comments or mentions, an editor’s decision to publish our piece.

In the end, I told her, you have to write (or paint, or take pictures, or perform, or make jewelry, or sculpt) because it’s where your passion lies, because it’s the thing you can’t not do, and because deep down inside, no matter what people say (or don’t say), you believe your work is meaningful.

Self-validation is a skill, one I’m only beginning to master (and by master I mean, most of the time, I can keep writing, not let the doubt and uncertainty swallow me whole). And when I’m feeling the aloneness of it, the disconnect between the fervor and faith inherent in my creative process and the sometimes unnervingly quiet response, I’m learning how to make myself feel better.

Sometimes I write myself through it. My journal is full of pages that start out as angsty artist rambling and end up as pep talks. Sometimes I grab my camera and go someplace pretty, or find a trail and let the rhythm of my feet align my insides. In the best of times, I tackle the next new thing, because I know that’s what creatives do. It’s the thing they can’t not do, and the only thing worse than failing (or being ignored) is not having created anything at all.

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Posted in on my mind..., writing, writers, and stuff we like

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Three big, little, unrelated things

Posted on June 7, 2011 | 38 Comments

Because sometimes I can’t decide which thing I want to talk to you about…

1.

I read this on Brene Brown’s blog and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

If we want to make meaning, we need to make art. Cook, write, draw, doodle, paint, scrapbook, take pictures, collage, knit, rebuild an engine, sculpt, dance, decorate, act, sing—it doesn’t matter. As long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning.

I love the idea of cultivating meaning through the act of creation. It means it’s never a waste of time to indulge your creative impulses.  (I just made a date with someone I adore on Twitter. We are baking souffles in October/November. Souffles! Because we want to.)

2.

My friend and I were talking about people who become their tragic story. Whatever it is – their terrible childhood, their grief, their illness, their addiction – they’ve told the story so many times, it has become their identity, the thing everyone knows about them.

To some degree, it’s inevitable. Our wounds (maybe even more than our joyful experiences) shape us, color our perceptions of the world. But there is a subtle difference between telling your painful story and becoming it. One is healthy, I think. Healing. It says, “hey, this is what I’ve been through on my way to here.” It’s a story you may or not may not tell depending on whether it’s relevant to the current situation. The other is limiting. It traps us. It says, “I am still a victim of this tragic story that I tell everyone about myself.”

We were thinking about which kind of person we were… and more importantly, which kind we’d be from that moment on.

3.

The sun came out here today. Finally. After weeks of rain and overcast. It was beautiful. I walked the dogs under blue skies and bright sunshine. Last week, when I truly believed that I was wrestling with mild seasonal affective disorder, people east and south of me kept saying things like, “Don’t complain, j. It’s 96 degrees here. I’d switch with you in a heartbeat.”

I told them I would happily switch, but they didn’t really believe me. Hardly anyone loves heat. Most people would rather be too cold than too hot. But here’s the thing. Arguing about which weather is yuckiest is like arguing about whether little dogs or big dogs are better. It’s stupid. You like what you like.

I like it hot. And I like big dogs. (And my big dogs, in case you’re keeping track, much prefer cold weather to hot.)

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Posted in j's lists, on my mind...

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Doodle Magic

Posted on April 27, 2011 | 23 Comments

Since stumbling onto doodle therapy last November, I’ve become a doodle zealot. I’ve always idly scribbled away during meetings and phone calls and arguments with my muse, but since November, I’ve committed myself. I doodle with glee, watching my unedited thoughts drop on to the page in visual form. It’s trippy. And fun. And, yes, therapeutic.

I asked you all to join me and in your usual completely awesome (I have the best readers EVER) way, you did. Here is our second magnificent, super awesome, incredible doodle extravaganza!

Pam, trying out her new pens. (This one is hanging above my desk!)

Cynthia, Trees!

Jeffrey - A poet, and he doodles too!

Chris, doodled in the wax remains of a candle. (Bonus... see the heart?)

Dillon, doodled in class.

Estrella, making boredom pretty.

Graham, doodled on his phone.

Haley (via Amy at Very Culinary). Love this: Rock Girl.

j, doodled over the course of March.

jb, dream tree.

Kellie sent me a doodle!!!

Milli, doodled with right and left hands, simultaneously.

Walker, hand doodle.

Xaidread, line doodle.

Jeffrey, doodling life.

Pam, doodling in February.

j, doodling the love project.

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Posted in the view from here (Pictures!)

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Her Best Life

Posted on December 6, 2010 | 20 Comments

I read this post over at Scoutie Girl all about how to deal effectively with criticism. It’s smart, helpful. You should read it. But there were two sentences in particular that struck me. In discussing fear of failure, Tara Gentile wrote that if our wildest dreams succeeded, we would revel in those successes and plan for our next ones.

“But,” she says, “creative people fail. A lot.”

I read that, and it was like the sun breaking through a cloud bank for me. It was the beginning of an epiphany, one of those very cool, very rare, soul-shaking sort of realizations that usually only happen when you sell everything you own and travel to a foreign country with little more than the clothes on your back.

Creative people fail. A lot. They fail because they are willing to try things. Scary, inadvisable, evolutionary, unconventional things. New things. Creative people spend a lot of time as beginners. Over and over again. They take risks, stretch themselves, reach for something more, leap.

For a long time I’ve been struggling under the weight of my mistakes. I’ve made some big ones, and I’ve spent a lot of time feeling guilty and lost and self-conscious because of them.

What I realize now is that I’ve been focused on the wrong thing. It’s not about the mistakes I’ve made (and learned from), it’s about my willingness to make them in the first place.

Creative people fail. A lot. Sometimes spectacularly. I suspect the potential for colossal screw ups is directly proportional to the amount of time one spends leaping into unfamiliar territory. Creative people do that a lot too – leap into unfamiliar territory. Because they know that’s where all the real learning takes place, the real challenges, excitement, passion, joys, successes. They fail because they’re willing to fail, even though it sucks and it hurts and sometimes it’s devastating. They know, eventually, it becomes the next jumping off place, as long as they’re willing to jump.

You can only get somewhere new by going somewhere new – in your head, in your heart, in the world. Instead of punishing myself for my missteps, I’ve decided to start loving the girl who seems so willing, always, to step off the beaten path, convinced, despite the more-than-occasional floundering, that that’s where her best life is.

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Posted in j'epiphanies, writing, writers, and stuff we like

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Squint, and I look graceful

Posted on June 27, 2010 | 11 Comments

Today officially ends the 21.5.800 project.

But wait… there’s more! Ten more days actually. By popular demand – there are over 500 people all over the world participating – the 21.5.800 project is being extended.

So… ten more days – 8,000 more words and at least six more yoga sessions. Okay! I’m in. Again. And here’s why…

Anyone who’s been following Zebra Sounds for very long knows that I embark on these adventures all the time. I spent 12 (quite wonderful) weeks making 12 lovely things. I (insanely) participated in NaNoWriMo. I discovered a secret alphabet,  spent a month trying new things, a month asking for advice, and a month attempting to do one good deed every day. I spent three months immersed in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.

For the past year and a half, I’ve been on a steep continual learning curve, personally, professionally and creatively. Over and over again, I’ve been a beginner. It’s been painful and exhilarating; I’ve felt clumsy, lost, and more alive than ever before. I regularly feel that I’m in over my head, besieged by demons I keep thinking I’ve slayed; I am regularly surprised at what it turns out I am capable of after all.

Participating in 21.5.800 has affected me in ways I absolutely didn’t expect. I’ll write more about that soon, but for now, let me just say that there is value in doing what scares you and committing to something you’re not really sure you can do. There are a million reasons not to follow the crazy longings of your heart, and life has a way of making them all seem legitimate. Over the past year and a half, I’ve learned the value of leaping over all of them… even when I’m scared… even when it’s less of a leap, and more an awkward tiptoeing-past-the-sleeping-demons kind of thing.

The important thing, I think, is to start, and let one awkward step lead to the next.

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Oh, and I promised to get back to you on my attempt to master savasana. I kicked ass! (And by “kicked ass” I mean that I was able to, more or less, lie still for, more or less, 15 minutes… mostly less.) I never quite felt the total release that my friend described, and I wouldn’t go so far as to call me a badass savasana master, but I can play dead if I have to, and you just never know when a skill like that might come in handy.

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Posted in j'epiphanies

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Creative Habits

Posted on June 8, 2010 | 18 Comments

If you were to analyze my more soul-searching Zebra Sounds posts, I think you’d find they are usually about either getting quiet, or getting out. Seems I’m forever seeking inner peace and focus, or I’m craving connection in all its forms – from creative collaboration to heart-crashing love.

I’ve always found these two goals difficult to reconcile. To get quiet and focused, I need solitude. To connect meaningfully with my world, I need companionship… and too much of either makes me want to don the cape and fly somewhere tropical. (Okay, yes, I always want to do that, but you know what I mean. Either extreme makes me feel a need to escape.)

Recently I read an interesting piece on Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits blog in which he stated that the number one habit of creative people is solitude. That makes sense. When it comes time for me to actually put words on the page (or the screen as the case may be), I can’t do it with people. Instead, I close the door to my office, sit my ass down, and type. I do this again and again until eventually my typing becomes writing.

So, solitude. Got it. And the number two habit of creative people? Participation. Leo writes, “This can come in many forms, but it requires connecting with others, being inspired by others, reading others, collaborating with others.”

That makes sense too. Out in the world, we have the conversations (relationships, fun, fights, sex, disappointments, successes) that make our lives meaningful. Our interactions shape us, form our understanding of the world and become, I think, the basis of our creative work.

Solitude and participation. Two sides of the same coin. I like that. No wonder I feel driven to achieve both.

The 21.5.800 project, has me taking very seriously my commitment to write every day. Seems a perfect time for me to get some advice from you guys. What are the habits you consider important to your creativity? I’m really curious – anything from lucky charms, to specific music, to self-flogging and threats, I want to hear it. (Well, you can leave off the self-flogging, actually, I already do that.)

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For people not on Twitter or Facebook who might have missed it, here is my latest piece for iwalk-iwrite, “A Golden Gateway to an Urban Wilderness.” (A view of San Francisco you might not know.)

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