Quote I am considering this week
“Creativity is a choice, it’s not a bolt of lightning from somewhere else. There’s a practice available to each of us – the practice of embracing the process of creation in service of better. The practice is not the means to the output, the practice is the output, because the practice is all we can control.” Seth Godin
Idea I have been reflecting on this week
“Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, lucky, but of all, endurance” James Baldwin
I have been reflecting deeply on the creative process this week. For some time I have been moving towards an experience-based model of living and turning away from outcomes-focused living. This means not only emotional non-attachment to outcomes, but a genuine move towards really living into the process and not spending any energy on trying to predict outcomes. This definitely feels like a deepening into living with presence but has also brought some interesting clarity when it comes to creativity. I always believed that creative thought came from a plethora of inspiration, of bringing in many different new ideas and ways of thinking and then spontaneously erupting in new thoughts within myself as a result.
But actually something different has been happening recently. The more I pull focus on the present and lessen the amount of incoming, the more quiet there is and the more space there is for new ideas to come through. The creative process demands both – exposure to a diverse community of thought and inspiration but equally as important, entering into a bubble with no incoming, as complete a silence as you can manage and time to allow magic to come through.
To know how and when to switch between the two feels like an art in creative living that is worth exploring
The James Baldwin quote above is from The Writers Chapbook compiled by George Plimpton, inspired by this blog post
and One More Thing
The Art Of Embracing Boredom
If you are a creative person, particularly if you like generating new ideas all the time you may reject the idea of boredom. You may think it’s useless. That you would prefer a life where you were permanently ‘on’.
But we actually miss out on something really important when we don’t lean in to embracing some level of routine monotony that engenders boredom.
We miss the lesson of mastering how to standardise which is a necessary prerequisite before we can optimise.
We have to get really good at repeatedly doing something before a flash of inspiration comes through of how to make it different. Getting to the point of boredom with something is the hallowed ground for a TRULY new idea to come through.
If you are always chasing the next you are most likely consuming more than you are creating and I doubt you are coming across something really original each time. You are more likely latching on to the outcomes of someone else’s diligent labour. The time they have spent in process, and pushing through boredom.
If you want to get creative in an honest way and birth truly new ideas you need to commit to the monotony of routine…to allow yourself to arrive at the fertile ground of boredom in order to make space for something genuinely new to flow through.
There are more new ideas out there to be birthed then there are ideas already made manifest. The possibilities are limitless, but in order to see them requires persistence and commitment to the process.
Often truth is paradox and I feel we have stumbled on some facet of truth in the paradox that true authentic creativity actually comes from committing to a routine process that doesn’t look or feel like the birthplace of newness but in fact it’s very opposite, the fertile ground of boredom.
If you want to dive deeper into this theme reflect on the following
💕What process is your creativity asking of you?
💕What would you need to do everyday to lay the groundwork for a truly brilliant idea to come through?