“Good morning, you won the lottery.” This is what my wife and I jokingly say to each other every morning. It’s an acknowledgment of gratitude, of the unbelievable unlikeliness of being here, now, against astronomical odds.
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Making, creating is the essence of life – we literally move and reproduce. We are constantly creating, whether we are conscious of it or not.
I’ve known for some time that focus destroys fear. Chuushin was the result of my focus on destroying fear.
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In my book, The Art of Creative Rebellion, I write about doing something beyond your day job – engaging with a pursuit that is strictly for yourself, not for monetary gain or fame. It’s an uncomfortable place for many of us to be as we feel that any time that is not spent “productively,” that is either in the pursuit of money or given to others (family or friends,) is somehow indulgent. Even selfish. But in reality, we can only experience who we are in these moments of play, when we dance, write, act, paint, draw or go for an aimless walk.
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The weird thing about these times is that we feel that we simultaneously have too much time on our hands and yet have no time at all. Time is tricky. Because when we finally get through all of the things we have to do, working, taking care of the kids, buying groceries, doing the dishes, fixing the car, fixing whatever is wrong with the house, trying to work out, spending time with family and (socially-distanced) friends; we are exhausted. Oh yeah, and then there is the global pandemic. And the current political and social turmoil...
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This seemingly never-ending pandemic and the political state of the nation, along with dealing with the balance of work and life has me, like pretty much everyone else I know, thinking about how to conduct oneself in these turbulent times.
For me, it seems to come down to two simple issues: courage and kindness.
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After a long day of Zoom and work, I spend my evenings painting large canvases as a practice that centers me while also being able to throw me completely into moments of uncertainty and anxiety. There’s no “command-Z” for analog work –– if you screw up, you either have to incorporate it into the work or you start over.
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So here’s my advice: Whatever you choose to do, do it without concern for how it compares or will be received by the unseen masses. You know deep inside what is Quality for you. You know if something is any good or works. You have your own standards. And if the work isn’t up to your standards, don’t fret. Just keep going. Do another painting, another chapter, another song. No one has to read your first draft but you.
Think and plan. But then true learning comes from the doing. The messy process of lurching towards truth.
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So how do I make a personal creative practice while balancing the demands of reality? The answer is pretty simple. I make “sacred time and space” for my personal endeavors. You can choose any hour you like at any time of day (4 am, 3 pm, midnight, whatever floats your boat) but the rules are that you simply do that one thing that is only for you, whether it’s yoga, meditation, writing, playing guitar, making art or chopping wood. You can only do that one thing and nothing else. If you are composing music on a piano, you either play or you sit and do nothing. No social media, no TV. No nothing but simply the task at hand.
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