You must keep creating. If you don’t … a part of you dies. If you do … a part of you comes ALIVE.
If you let that part of you die, it will break your heart trying to revive it. If that part of you comes alive, you become FULLY you.
If you don’t create, you lose your soul. If you do, you share your soul with others. Creating is simultaneously one of the most selfless yet self-edifying things you can ever do.
If you’re in an artistic or creative drought, it might be because you’ve been expressing yourself in one medium for too long. Artists are multi-talented. The secret? Your main artistic expression feeds off your lesser ones.
Today: use a different muscle.
When I get stuck on writing a blog post, I play music. When I get stuck trying to write a song, I write a blog. When I can’t write, I cook. I can’t smell a song, but when I smell that chicken francaise, it makes me sing. When I eat it, adjectives fill my head.
Me: writing > music > cooking.
They are all cars on the train of creativity; they’re just different entry points. Some days I hit the mark and can jump straight onto the locomotive. Other days I get on via the caboose. At least I got on the train. And when I’m on that train, I come alive. I become fully me. So do you.
I know you can at least SEE or HEAR things and carry an appreciation for other work done well. I’m terrible at interior design, but you best believe I soaked in the artistry of the resort a few weeks ago. The marble tiles, the high-count sheets, the warm interior lighting. It was an artistic and inspiring environment that fed my creative spirit.
Art is an expression of the overflow of your life. So …
Today: LIVE life.
It’s the only real way to deepen your artistic reservoir. This is a simple as: don’t eat, dine. Don’t watch TV, watch a sunset. Don’t stalk her on Facebook, ask her out on a date. It’s as complex as: saving money for months, working travel logistics, taking days off with friends or family, and going to ___.
Either way, get out of the cubicle. Otherwise your art will always be a copy of someone else’s art which is a copy of someone else’s. And that’s when creating becomes joyless. Uninspiring. A chore.
I first “saw” Napa Valley in the movie Sideways, but I didn’t really see it ’til I went. I’ve been there three times now and I still gape at the way the rich verdant vineyards endlessly blanket the dusty rolling hills against the cloudless bursting blue sky of the radiant California afternoon. I could never write that sentence and mean it from watching Sideways.
I first “saw” depravity in those UNICEF commercials, but I didn’t really see it ’til I traveled. I’ve been all over the world and still gape at the way human beings can live in cities of garbage walking barefoot through feces without clean water under economies where they earn less than $1 per day.
Both experiences filled my artistic reservoir. LIVE your life, and create from it. You need to.
What do you do to stay creatively fresh and inspired?
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