The creative act , A way of being by Rick Rubin - full audiobook

The creative act a way of being by Rick Rubin nothing in this book is known to be true it's a reflection on what I've noticed not facts so much as thoughts some ideas May resonate others may not a few May awaken an inner knowing you forgot you had use what's helpful let go of the rest each of these moments is an invitation to further inquiry looking deeper zooming out or in open possibilities for a new way of being Everyone is a Creator those who do not engage in the traditional Arts might be wary of calling

themselves artists they might perceive creativity as something extraordinary or beyond their capabilities a calling for the special few who are born with these gifts fortunately this is not the case creativity is not a rare ability it is not difficult to access creativity is a fundamental aspect of being Being Human it's our Birthright and it's for all of Us creativity doesn't exclusively relate to making art we all engage in this act on a daily basis to create is to bring something into existence that wasn't there before it could be a conversation the solution to a problem

a note to a friend the rearrangement of furniture in a room a new root home to avoid a traffic jam what you make doesn't have to be witnessed recorded sold or encased in glass for it to be a work of art through the ordinary state of being We're already creators in the most profound way creating our experience of reality and composing the world we perceive in each moment we are immersed in a field of undifferentiated matter from which our senses gather bits of information the outside Universe we perceive doesn't exist as such through a series

of electrical and chemical reactions we generate a reality internally we create forests and oceans warmth and cold we read words hear Voices and form interpretations then in an instant we produce a response all of this in a world of our own creation regardless of whether or not we're formally making art we are all living as artists we perceive filter and collect data then curate and experience for ourselves and others based on this information set whether we do this consciously or unconsciously by the mere fact of being alive we are active participants in the ongoing Process

of creation to live as an artist is a way of being in the world a way of perceiving a practice of paying attention refining our sensitivity to tune in to the more subtle note looking for what draws Us in and what pushes us away noticing what feeling turn Tes arise and where they lead a tune Choice by a tune Choice your entire life is a form of self-expression you exist as a creative being in a creative Universe a singular Work of art tuning in think of the universe as an eternal creative unfolding trees blossom cells

replicate Rivers Forge New tributaries the world pulses with productive energy and everything that exists on this planet is driven by that energy every manifestation of this unfolding is doing its own work on behalf of the universe each in its own way true to its own creative impulse Just as trees grow flowers and fruits Humanity creates works of art the Golden Gate Bridge The White Album gica haia Sophia the Sphinx the space shuttle the autoban CLA Delon the colos see him in Rome the Philips screwdriver the iPad Philadelphia cheese steak look around you there are so

many remarkable accomplishments to appreciate each of these is Humanity being true to itself as a hummingbird is true to Itself by building a nest a peach tree by bearing Fruit and a nimbus cloud by producing rain every nest every Peach every raindrop and every great work is different some trees may appear to make more beautiful fruits than others and some humans may appear to compose Greater Works than others The Taste and Beauty are in the eye of the beholder how does the cloud know when to rain how does the tree know when spring begins how

does the bird know when it's time to build a new Nest the universe functions Like a clock to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under Heaven a time to be born a time to die a time to plant a time to reap A Time to Kill a time to heal a Time To Laugh A Time To weep a time to build up a time to break down a time to dance a time to mourn a time to Cast Away Stones a time to gather Stones together these rhythms are not set

by us we are all participating in a larger creative act we are not conducting we are being Conducted the artist is on a cosmic timetable just like all of nature if you have an idea you're excited about and you don't bring it to life it's not uncommon for the idea to find its Voice through another maker this isn't because the other artist stole your idea but because the idea's time has come in this great unfolding ideas and thoughts themes and songs and other works of art exist in The Ether and ripen on schedule ready to

find expression in the physical World as artists it is our job to draw down this information transmute it and share it we are all translators for messages the universe is broadcasting the best artists tend to be the ones with the most sensitive antenna to draw in the energy resonating at a particular moment many great artists first develop sensitive antenna not to create art but to protect themselves they have to protect themselves because everything hurts more they feel everything more Deeply often art arrives in movements bow house architecture abstract expressionism French New Wave Cinema beat poetry

punk rock to name a few from recent history these movements appear like a wave some artists are able to read the culture and position themselves to ride that swell others might see the wave and choose to swim against the current we are all antenna for Creative thought some Transmissions come on strong others are more faint if your Antenna isn't sensitively tuned you're likely to lose the data in the noise particularly since the signals coming through are often more subtle than the content we collect through sensory awareness they are energetic more than tactile intuitively perceived more

than consciously recorded most of the time we are gathering data from the world through the five senses with the information that's being transmitted on higher frequencies we are channeling Energetic material that can't be physically grasped it defies logic in the same way that an electron can be in two places at once this elusive energy is of great worth though so few people are open enough to hold it how do we pick up on a signal that can neither be heard nor be defined the answer is not to look for it nor do we attempt to

predict or analyze our way into it instead we create an open space that allows it a space so free of the normal Overpacked condition of of our minds that it functions as a vacuum drawing down the ideas that the universe is making available this freedom is not as difficult to achieve as one might think we all start with it as children we experience much less interference between receiving ideas and internalizing them we accept new information with delight instead of making comparisons to what we already believe we live in the moment rather Than worrying about future

consequences we are spontaneous more than analytical we are curious not jaded even the most ordinary experiences in life are met with a sense of awe deep sadness and intense excitement can come within moments of each other there's no facade and no attachment to a story artists who are able to continually create great works throughout their lives often manage to preserve these childlike qualities practicing a way of being that Allows you to see the world through uncorrupted in innocent eyes can free you to act in concert with the universe's timetable there's a time for certain ideas

to arrive and they find a way to express themselves through us the source of creativity we begin with everything everything seen everything done everything thought everything felt everything imagined everything forgot en And everything that rests unspoken and unthought within us this is our source material and from it we build each creative moment this content does not come from inside us the source is out there a wisdom surrounding us an inexhaustible offering that is always available we either sense it remember it or tune into it not only through our experiences it may also be dreams intuitions

subliminal fragments or other ways still unknown by which the outside Finds Its way inside to the mind this material appears to come from within but that's an illusion there are tiny fragments of the vastness of source stored within us these precious wisps arise from the unconscious like vapor and condense to form a thought an idea clouds never truly disappear they change form they turn into rain and become part of the ocean and then evaporate and return to being clouds the same is true of art art is a circulation of energetic Ideas what makes them appear

new is that they're combining differently each time they come back no two clouds are the same this is why when we are struck by a new piece of art it can resonate on a deeper level perhaps this is the familiar coming back to us in an unfamiliar form or maybe it is something unknown that we didn't realize we were looking for a missing piece in a puzzle that has no end turning something from an idea into a reality can make it seem Smaller it changes from unearthly to Earthly the imagination has no limits the physical

world does the work exists in both awareness in most of our daily activities we choose the agenda and develop a strategy to achieve the goal at hand we create the program awareness moves differently the program is happening around us the world is the doer and we are the witness we have Little or no control over the content the gift of awareness allows us to notice what's going on around and inside ourselves in the present moment and to do so without attachment or involvement we may observe bodily Sensations passing thoughts and feelings sounds or visual cues

smells and tastes through detached noticing awareness allows an observed flower to reveal more of itself without our intervention this is true of all things awareness is not a state you Force there is little effort involved though persistence is key it's something you actively allow to happen it is a presence with and acceptance of what is happening in the Eternal now as soon as you label an aspect of s course you're no longer noticing you're studying this holds true of any thought that takes you out of presence with the object of your awareness whether analysis or

simply becoming aware that you're aware analysis is a secondary function the Awareness happens first as a pure connection with the object of your attention if something strikes me as interesting or beautiful first I live that experience only afterward might I attempt to understand it though we can't change what it is is that we are noticing we can change our ability to notice we can expand our awareness and narrow it experience it with our eyes open or closed we can quiet our inside so we can perceive more on the outside Or quiet the outside so we

can notice more of what's Happening inside we can zoom in on something so closely it loses the features that make it what it appears to be or Zoom so far out it seems like something entirely new the universe is only as large as our perception of it when we cultivate our awareness we are expanding the universe this expands the scope not just of the material at our disposal to create from but of the life we get to live the Ability to look deeply is the root of creativity to see past the ordinary and mundane and

get to what might otherwise be invisible The Vessel and the filter each of us has a container within it is constantly being filled with data it holds the sum total of our thoughts feelings dreams and experiences in the world let's call this The Vessel information does not enter the vessel directly like rain filling into a barrel It is filtered in a unique way for each of us not everything makes it through this filter and what does get through doesn't always do so Faithfully we each have our own method of reducing source our memory space is

limited our senses often misperceive data and our minds don't have the processing power to take in all the information surrounding us our senses would be overwhelmed by light color sound and smell we would not be able to distinguish one object from Another to navigate our way through this immense world of data we learn early in life to focus on information that appears essential or of particular interest and to tune out the rest as artists we seek to restore our childlike perception a more innocent State of Wonder and appreciation not Tethered to utility or survival our

filter inevitably reduces Source intelligence by interpreting the data that arrives instead of letting it pass freely as the Vessel fills with these recast fragments relationships are created with the material already collected these relationships produce Bel beliefs and stories they may be about who we are the people around us and the nature of the world we live in eventually these stories coales into a world viw as artists we want to hold these stories softly and find space for the vast amount of information that doesn't fit easily within the limits of our belief System the more raw

data we can take in and the less we shape it the closer we get to Nature one can think of the the creative actors taking the sum of our vessels contents as potential material selecting for elements that seem useful or significant in the moment and representing them this is Source drawn through us and made into books movies buildings paintings meals businesses whatever projects we embark on if we choose to share what we make our work Can recirculate and become Source material for others Source makes available the filter distills The Vessel receives and often this happens

beyond our control it is helpful to know this default system can be bypast with training we can improve our interface with source and radically expand the vessel's ability to receive changing the instrument is not always the easiest way to change the sound of the music but it can be the most Powerful no matter what tools you use to create the true instrument is you and through you the universe that surrounds us all comes into Focus the Unseen by conventional definition the purpose of art is to create physical and digital artifacts to fill shelves with Pottery

books and records though artists generally aren't aware of it that end workk is a byproduct of a greater desire we aren't creating to produce or sell Material products the ACT creation is an attempt to enter a mysterious realm a longing to transcend what we create allows us to share glimpses of an inner landscape one that is beyond our understanding art is our portal to the Unseen World Without the spiritual component the artist works with a crucial disadvantage the spiritual World provides a sense of wonder and a degree of open-mindedness not always found within the confines

of science the world Of reason can be narrow and filled with dead ends while a spiritual Viewpoint is Limitless and invites fantastic possibilities the Unseen World is boundless the word spirituality may not speak to those who dwell chiefly in the intellect or those who equate the word with organized religion if you prefer to think of spirituality as simply believing in connection that's fine if you choose to think of it as believing in magic that's fine too the things we Believe carry a charge regardless of whether they can be proven or not the practice of spirituality

is a way of looking at a world where you're not alone there are deeper meanings behind the surface the energy around you can be harness to elevate your work you're part of something much larger than can be explained a world of immense possibilities harnessing this energy can be marvelously useful in your creative Pursuits the principle operat Ates on Faith believing and behaving as if it's true no proof is needed when you're working on a project you may notice apparent coincidences appearing more often than Randomness allows almost as if there is another hand guiding yours in

a certain direction as if there is an inner knowing gently informing your movements Faith allows you to trust the direction without needing to understand it pay particular attention to the Moments that take your breath away a beautiful sunset an unusual eye color a moving piece of music The Elegant design of a complex machine if a piece of work a fragment of Consciousness or an element of nature is somehow allowing us to access something bigger that is its spiritual component made manifest it Awards us a glimpse of the Unseen It's Not Unusual for science to catch

up to Art eventually nor is it unusual for for art to catch up to the spiritual look For Clues material for our work surrounds us at every turn it's woven into conversation nature chance encounters and existing works of art when looking for a solution to a creative problem pay close attention to what's happening around you look for Clues pointing to new methods or ways to further develop current ideas a writer may be in a coffee shop working on a scene and unsure what a character is going to say next a phrase might be Overheard in

the chatter from another table that provides a direct answer or at least a glimpse of a possible direction we receive these types of messages all the time if we remain open to them we might read a book and find a quote leaping off the page or watch a movie and notice a line that moves us to pause and Rewind sometimes it's the exact answer we've been looking for or it could be an echo of an idea that keeps repeating in Other places begging for more attention or affirming the path we're on these Transmissions are subtle

they are everpresent but they're easy to miss if we aren't looking for Clues they'll pass by without us ever knowing notice connections and consider where they lead when something out of the ordinary happens ask yourself why what's the message what could be the greater meaning this process isn't a science we can't control clues or will them to be Revealed sometimes it helps to have a strong intention to find a specific answer or to confirm a particular path other times letting go of that intention altogether can help you find your way an integral part of the

artist's work is deciphering these signals the more open you are the more clues you will find and the less effort you'll need to exert you may be able to think less and begin to rely on answers arising within you you might imagine that the outside world is A conveyor belt with a stream of small packages on it always going by the first step is to notice the conveyor belt is there and then anytime you want you can pick up one of those packages unwrap it and see what's inside a helpful exercise might be opening a

book to a random page and reading the first line your eyes find see how what's written there somehow applies to your situation any relevance it Bears might be by chance but you might allow for the possibility That chance is not all that's at play when my appendix burst the Doctor Who diagnosed it insisted that I go to the hospital immediately to have it removed I was told there were no other options I found myself in a nearby bookstore standing out on a table in the front was a new book by Dr Andrew W I picked

it up and let it fall open the first passage my eyes went to said if a doctor wants to remove a part of your body and then they tell you it has no Function don't believe this the information I needed was made available to me in that moment and I still have my appendix when Clues present themselves it can sometimes feel like the delicate mechanism of a clock at work as if the universe is nudging you with little reminders that it's on your side and wants to provide everything you need to complete your mission look

for what you notice but no one else Sees practice in the wild animals must narrow their field of vision to survive a tight Focus prevents distraction from critical needs food shelter Predators procreation for the artist this reflexive action can be a hindrance widening one's scope allows for more moments of interest to be noticed and collected building a treasury of material to draw from later a practice is the embodiment of an approach to a concept this can support Us in bringing about a desired State of Mind when we repeat the exercise of opening our senses to

what is we move closer to living in a continually open State we build a habit one where expanded awareness is our default way of being in the world to deepen this practice is to embark on a more profound relationship with sour as we reduce the interference of our filter we become better able to recognize the rhythms and movements around us this allows us to Participate with them in a more harmonious way when we take notice of the cycles of the planet and choose to live in accordance with its Seasons something remarkable happens we become connected

we begin to see ourselves as part of a greater ho that is constantly regenerating itself and we may then tap into this all powerful propagating force and ride its creative wave to support our practice we might set up a daily schedule where we engage In particular rituals at specific times every day or week the gestures we perform don't need to be grand small rituals can make a big difference we can decide to take three slow deep breaths Upon A wakening each morning this simple act can set a course to start each day still centered and

in the moment we might also eat our meals mindfully slowly savoring each bite with appreciation take a daily walk in nature looking at everything entering our field Of vision with gratitude and connection take a moment to Marvel at the feeling of our heartbeat and the movement of blood through our veins before sleep the purpose of such exercises is not necessarily in the doing just as the goal of meditation isn't in the meditating the purpose is to evolve the way we see the world when we're not engaged in these acts we are building the musculature of

our our psyche to more acutely tune in this is so much of What the work is about awareness needs constant refreshing if it becomes a habit even a good habit it will need to be reinvented again and again until one day you notice that you are always in the practice of awareness at all times in all places living your life in a state of constant openness to receiving living life as an artist is a practice you're either engaging in the practice or you're not it makes no sense to say you're not good at it it's

like Saying I'm not good at being a monk you're either living as a monk or you're not we tend to think of the artist's work as the output the real work of the artist is a way of being in the world submerge the great works broadening our practice of awareness is a a choice we can make at any moment it is not a search though it is stoked by a curiosity or hunger a hunger to see beautiful things hear beautiful sounds feel deeper Sensations To learn and to be fascinated and surprised on a continual basis

in service of this robust Instinct consider submerging yourself in the cannon of great works read the finest literature watch the masterpieces of Cinema get up close to the most influential paintings visit architectural landmarks there's no standard list no one has the same measures of greatness the cannon is continually changing across time and space nonetheless exposure to great art Provides an invitation it draws us forward and opens doors of possibility if you make the choice of reading classic literature every day for a year rather than reading the news by the end of that time period you'll

have a more honed sensitivity for recognizing greatness from the books than from the media this applies to every choice we make not just with art but with the friends we choose the conversations we have even the thoughts we reflect on all Of these aspects affect our ability to distinguish good from very good very good from great they help us determine what's worthy of our time and attention because there's an endless amount of data available to us and we have a limited bandwidth to conserve we might consider carefully curating the quality of what we allow in

this doesn't just apply if your goal is to make art of lasting significance even if your goal is to make fast food it will likely Taste better if you experience the best fresh food available to you during the process level up your taste the objective is not to learn to mimic greatness but to calibrate our internal meter for greatness so we can better make the thousands of of choices that might ultimately lead to our own great work nature as teacher of all the great works that we can experience nature is the most absolute and enduring

we can witness it Change through the seasons we can see it in the mountains the oceans the deserts and the forest we can watch the changes of the Moon each night and the relationship between the moon and the stars there is never a shortage of awe and inspiration to be found Outdoors if we dedicated Our Lives solely to noticing changes in natural light and Shadow as the hours pass we would constantly discover something new we don't have to understand nature to Appreciate it this is true of all things simply be aware of moments when your

breath gets taken away by something of great Beauty if it may be witnessing a single line formation of birds snaking through a half lit evening sky or standing AED at the foot of a giant redwood tree that's thousands of years old there's so much wisdom in nature that when we notice it it awakens possibility within us it is through communing with nature that we move Closer to our own nature if you're picking colors based on a panone book you're limited to a certain number of choices if you step out in nature the the pallet is

infinite each Rock has such a variation of color within it we could never find a can of paint to mimic the exact same shade nature transcends our Tendencies to label and classify to reduce and limit the natural world is unfathomably more rich interwoven and complicated than we Are taught and so much more mysterious and beautiful deepening our connection to Nature will serve our spirit and what serves our spirit in variably serves our artistic output the closer we can get to the Natural World the sooner we start to realize we are not separate and that when

we create we are not just expressing our unique individuality but our seamless connection to an infinite Oneness there's a reason we are drawn to gazing at the ocean it is said the ocean Provides a closer reflection of who we are than any mirror nothing is static the world is always changing you can engage in the same awareness practice 5 days in a row in the same location and have a unique experience each time different sounds and different smells may be present no two gusts of wind feel quite the same the tone and quality of sunlight

changes from minute to minute and day to day within the Richness of nature the variations are easily noticeable some are shouts others Whispers even if an element seems static whether a work of art in a museum or an everyday object in a kitchen when we look at it deeply we can see a newness we recognize aspects unnoticed before reread the same book over and over and will likely find new themes undercurrents details and connections you can't step into the same stream twice because it's always flowing Everything is the world is constantly changing so no matter

how often we practice paying attention there will always be something new to notice it's up to us to find it likewise we are always changing growing evolving we learn and forget things we move through different moods thoughts and unconscious processes the cells in our body die and regenerate no one is the same person all day long even if the world outside were to remain static the information we took In would still be everchanging and so too would the work we bring forth the person who makes something today isn't the same person who returns to the

work tomorrow look inward the sound of water churning in the distance is audible I feel a breeze of what might be warm air though it's difficult to tell since my arm hair senses the movement as cooling two birds are singing and with my eyes closed I'm placing them approximately 50 Paces Behind me and to my right now a smaller bird or at least one with a smaller and higher pitched chirp enters the soundscape behind me to the left from the rhythmic interplay it seems clear the birds are not in conversation each sings its own song

I noticed the sound of a passing vehicle and in the distance children's voices a blood blur of rhythmic music arrives from the far left there is an itch on the left side of my face just in front of my ear a vehicle With a larger heavier sound passes and a bit of jazz music makes an appearance much closer to my position only now do I realize I turned it on earlier at a quiet volume and it had been inaudible until this moment someone arrives I open my eyes and it all goes away it's common to

believe that life is a series of external experiences and that we must live an outwardly extraordinary life in order to have something to share the experience of our inner world is often Completely overlooked if we focus on what's going on inside ourselves Sensations emotions the patterns of our thoughts a wealth of material can be found our inner world is every bit as interesting beautiful and surprising as nature itself it is after all born of nature when we go inside we are processing what's going on outside we're no longer separate we're connected We Are One ultimately

it doesn't make a difference whether your content Originates on the inside or the outside if a beautiful thought or phrase comes to mind or if you see a beautiful sunset one's not better than the other both are equally beautiful in different ways it's helpful to consider there are always more options available to us than we might realize memories and the subconscious when presented with new instrumental tracks for the first time Some vocalists record the first sounds out of their mouths with no thought or Preparation often they'll sing random words or sounds that aren't words at

all it isn't uncommon out of the gibberish for a story to unfold or key phrases to appear there's no active attempt to write in the this process the work is being created on a subconscious level the material exists hidden within there are practices that can assist in accessing this deeper well inside Yourself for example you can try an anger relasing exercise where you beat on a pillow for 5 minutes it's more difficult than you might think to do this for the full duration time yourself and go hard then immediately fill five pages with whatever comes

out the objective is to not think about it to avoid directing the content in any way just write whatever words spill forth there's an abundant reservoir of high quality information in our subconscious And finding ways to access it can spark new material to draw from the psyche has admittance to a universal wisdom deeper than what we can come up with in our conscious mind it provides a far less limited view an oceanic Source we don't know how it works and we don't know why it works yet many artists tap into something Beyond themselves without recognizing

the process at play purely through accessing the subconscious often reaching these states is outside of our Control some artists have created their best Works while feverish with a temperature over 103 these trans-like conditions bypass the thinking part of the brain and access the dream state there's great wisdom in transitional Realms between wakefulness and sleep right before you fall asleep what thoughts and ideas come to you how do you feel when you wake from a dream in the wisdom tradition of Tibetan Dream yoga among others llamas say the dream state is just as real or unreal

as the waking State keeping a dream journal might be of use place a pen and paper next to the bed and as soon as you wake up begin writing immediately with as much detail as possible before doing anything else try to limit any unnecessary movement simply turning your head can be enough to dislodge the Dream from stored memory as you write the picture will develop And you'll remember more of the story more of the setting more of the details than you did when you first set your pen to paper the more you do this practice

morning after morning the better you will get at recalling your dreams it may also help to set an intention to remember your dreams before going to sleep memories can also be thought of as dreamlike they're more a romantic story than a faithful document of a life event And there's good content to be found in these dreamy Recollections we have of past experiences another helpful tool is Randomness or more accurately apparent Randomness since there may be organization happening on a different level than we understand when we throw the I Ching for example we don't determine how

the sticks or coins land but through them we get information we can use to help decision making and once Again bypass our conscious mind and perhaps tap into a larger intelligence it's always there I'm strongly affected by the sun when it's a bright day I feel energized when it's gloomy I'm gloomy on those overcast days it helps to tune into the fact that the sun is still there it's just hidden behind a thicker layer of clouds at noon the sun is high in the sky regardless of how light or dark it is outside in the

same way regardless of how much we're Paying attention the information we seek is out there if we're aware we get to tune in to more of it if we're less aware we miss it when we miss it it really does pass Us by tomorrow presents another opportunity for awareness but it's never an opportunity for the same awareness setting we're affected by our surroundings and finding the best environment to create a clear channel is personal and to be tested it also depends on your intention Isolated places like a forest a monastery or a sailboat in the

middle of the ocean are fine locations to receive direct Transmissions from the universe If instead you want to tune in to the collective Consciousness you might sit in a busy spot with people coming and going and experienced source as filtered through Humanity this secondhand approach is no less valid one step further removed might be to plug into the culture itself constantly consuming Art entertainment news and social media all the while noticing the patterns the universe is promoting it's helpful to view currents in the culture without feeling obligated to follow the direction of their flow instead

notice them in the same connected detached way you might notice a warm wind let yourself move within it yet not be of it one person's connected Place may be another's distraction and different environments may be right at different Points in your artistic process Andy Warhol was said to create with a television radio and record player all on simultaneously for Eminem the noise of a single TV set is his preferred backdrop for writing Marcel PR lined his walls with sound absorbing cork closed the drapes and wore earplugs Kafka too took his need for silence to an

extreme not like a Hermit he once said but like a dead man There is no wrong way there is only your way it's not always easy to follow the subtle energetic information the universe broadcasts especially when your friends family co-workers or those with a business interest in your creation creativity are offering seemingly rational advice that challenges your intuitive knowing to the best of my ability I followed my intuition to make career turns and been recommended against doing so every time it helps to Realize that it's better to follow the universe than those around you interference

may also come from the voices within the ones in your head that murmur you're not talented enough your idea isn't good enough art isn't a worthwhile investment of your time the result won't be well received you're a failure if the creation isn't successful it's helpful to turn those voices down so you can hear the Chimes of the cosmic clock ring reminding you it's time your Time to participate self-doubt self-doubt lives in all of us and while we may wish it gone it is there to serve us flaws are human and the attraction of art is

the humanity held in it if we were machine likee the art wouldn't resonate it would be soulless with life comes pain insecurity and fear we're all different and we're all imperfect and the imperfections are what makes each of us and our work Interesting we create pieces reflective of who we are and if insecurity is part of who we are then our work will have a greater degree of Truth in it as a result the making of art is not a competitive act our work work is representative of the self you would be amiss to say

I'm not up to the challenge yes you may need to deepen your craft to fully realize your vision if you're not up to it no one else can do it only you can you're the only one with your voice The people who choose to do art are many times the most vulnerable there are singers considered among the best in the world who can't bring themselves to listen to their own voice and these are not rare exceptions many many artists in different Arenas have similar issues the sensitivity that allows them to make the art is the

same vulnerability that makes them more tender to being judged still many continue to share their work and risk criticism in spite of this it's as If they have no other choice being an artist is who they are and they are made whole through self-expression if a Creator is so afraid of judgment that they're unable to move forward it might be that the desire to share the work isn't as strong as the desire to protect themselves perhaps art isn't their role their temperament might serve a different Pursuit this path is not for everyone adversity is part

of the process we are not obligated to follow This calling because we have a talent or skill it's worth remembering that we are blessed to get to create it's a privilege we're choosing it we're not being ordered to do this if we'd rather not do it let's not do it some successful artists are deeply insecure self-sabotaging struggling with addiction or facing other obstacles to making and sharing their work an unhealthy self-image or a hardship in life can fuel great art creating a deep Well of insight and emotion for an artist to draw from they can

also get in the way of the artist being able to make many things over a long period of time people who are particularly challenged in this sense generally can't produce creative work over and over again this isn't because they're not artistically capable but because they were only able to break through their own issues one or two times and share great work one of the reasons so many Great artists die of overdoses early in their lives is because they're using drugs to numb a very painful existence the reason it's painful is the reason they became artists

in the first place their incredible sensitivity if you see tremendous beauty or tremendous pain where other people see little or nothing at all you're confronted with big feelings all the time these emotions can be confusing and overwhelming when those around you don't see what you see and Feel what you feel this can lead to a sense of isolation and a general feeling of not belonging of otherness these charged emotions powerful when expressed in the work are the same dark clouds that beg to be numbed to allow sleep or to get out of bed and face

the day in the morning it's a blessing and a curse make it up while the emotional undercurrents of self-doubt can serve the art they can also interfere with the creative process Beginning a work completing a work and sharing a work these are key moments where many of us become stuck how do we move forward considering the stories we tell ourselves one of the best strategies is to lower the stakes we tend to think that what we're making is the most important thing in our lives and that it's going to Define us for all eternity consider

moving forward with the more accurate point of view that it's a small work a beginning the Mission is to complete the project so you can move on to the next that next one is a stepping stone to the following work and so it continues in productive Rhythm for the entirety of your creative life all art is a work in progress it's helpful to see the piece we're working on as an experiment one in which we can't predict the outcome whatever the result we will receive useful information that will benefit the next experiment if you start

from the Position that there is no right or wrong no good or bad and creativity is just free play with no rules it's easier to submerge yourself joyfully in the process of making things we're not playing to win we're playing to play play and ultimately playing is fun perfectionism gets in the way of fun a more skillful goal might be to find comfort in the process to make and put out successive works with ease Oscar wild said that some things are too Important to be taken seriously art is one of those things setting the bar

low especially to get started frees you to play explore and test without attachment to results this is not not just a path to more supportive thoughts active play in experimentation until we're happily surprised is how the best work reveals itself another approach to overcoming insecurities is to label them I was working with an artist who was frozen by doubts and unable to move forward I Asked if he was familiar with the Buddhist concept of papancha which translates as preponderance of thought this speaks to the mind's tendency to respond to our experience es with an avalanche

of mental chatter he responded I know exactly what that is that's me now that he had a name for what was holding him back he was able to normalize his doubts and not take them so seriously when they came up we'd call them papancha notice them then move Forward I was in a meeting with another artist who had just released a very successful album but felt afraid to do more work and listed different reasons why she didn't want to make music anymore there are always good reasons not to continue it's fine you don't have to

make music ever again there's nothing wrong with that just stop if it's not making you happy it's your choice as soon as I said this her expression changed and she realized she Would be happier creating than not creating gratitude can also help realizing you are fortunate to be in a position that allows you to create and in some cases get paid to do what what you love might tip the balance in favor of the work ultimately your desire to create must be greater than your fear of it even for some of the greatest artists that

fear never goes away one legendary singer despite performing for over five decades was never able to eliminate his Stage fright despite a terror so strong it made him sick to his stomach he still stepped into the spotlight each night and performed a spellbinding show by accepting self-doubt rather than trying to eliminate or repress it we lessen its energy and interference it's worth noting the distinction between doubting the work and doubting yourself an example of doubting the work would be I don't know if my song is as good as it can be Doubting yourself might sound

like I can't write a good song these statements are Worlds Apart both in accuracy and in impact on the nervous system doubting yourself can lead to a sense of hopelessness of not being inherently fit to take on the task at hand All or Nothing thinking is a non-starter however doubting the quality of your work might at times help to improve it you can doubt your way to Excellence if you have an imperfect Version of a work you really love you may find that when it finally seems perfect you don't love it in the same way

this is a sign the imperfect version was actually the one the the work is not about perfection one thing I learned through having spell check is that I regularly make up words I'll type a Word and then the computer will tell me it doesn't exist since it sounds like what I'm aiming to say I sometimes decide to use it anyway I know what it means and Perhaps the reader will understand the meaning better than if I used an actual word the imperfections your tempted to fix might prove to be what make the work great and

sometimes not we rarely know what makes a piece great no one can know the most plausible reasons are theories at best why is beyond our comprehension the Leaning Tower of Pisa was an architectural era which Builders further exacerbated by trying to fix now hundreds of years later it's one of the Most visited buildings in the world precisely because of this mistake in Japanese pottery there's an Artful form of repair called kin sui when a piece of ceramic pottery breaks rather than trying to restore it to its original condition The Artisan accentuates the Fault by using

gold to fill the crack this beautifully draws attention to where the work was broken creating a golden vein instead of the floor diminishing the work it becomes a focal Point an area of both physical and aesthetic strength the scar also tells the story of the piece chronicling its past experience we can apply this same technique to our ourselves and embrace our imperfections whatever insecurities we have can be reframed as a guiding force in our creativity they only become a hindrance when they prevent our ability to share what's closest to our heart art creates a profound

connection between The artist and the audience through that connection both can heal distraction distraction is one of the best tools available to the artist when used skillfully in some cases it's the only way to get where we are going when meditating as soon as the mind quiets the sense of space can be overtaken by a worry or a random thought this is why many meditation schools teach students to use a mantra an automatic repeated phrase leaves little Room in the mind for thoughts that pull us out of the moment the Mantra then is a distraction

and while certain distractions can take you out of the present moment others can keep the conscious Part of Yourself s busy so that the unconscious is freed up to work for you worry beads rosaries and malas work in the same way when we reach an impass at any point in the creative process it can be helpful to step away from the project to create space and Allow a solution to appear we might hold a problem to be solved lightly in the back of our Consciousness instead of the front of our mind this way we can

remain present with it over time while engaging in a simple unrelated task examples include driving walking swimming showering washing dishes dancing or performing any activity we can accomplish on autopilot at times physical movement can spur ideas to move too some musicians For example do a better job of writing Melodies while driving than sitting in a room with an audio recorder on these types of distractions keep one part of the mind busy while freeing the rest to remain open to whatever comes in perhaps this process of non-thinking thought allows us to access a different part of

our brain one that can see more angles than the direct path distraction is not procrastination procrastination consistently undermines our ability to Make things distraction is a strategy in service of the work sometimes disengaging is the best way to engage collaboration nothing begins with us the more we pay attention the more we begin to realize that all the work we ever do is a collaboration it's a collaboration with the art that's come before you and the art that will come after it's also a collaboration with the world you're Living in with the experiences you've had with

the tools you use with the audience and with who you are today the self has many distinct aspects it's possible to create a piece love it and then look at it the next day and feel completely different about it the inspired artist aspect of yourself may be in conflict with the crafts person aspect disappointed that the crafts person is unable to create the physical embodiment of the inspired artist's Vision this is a common Conflict for creators since there is no direct conversion from abstract thought to the material world the work is always an interpretation there

are many different hats the artist wears and creativity is an internal discussion between these aspects of self the negotiation continues until the selves create the best work they can together the work itself also wears different hats you may make a piece and feel you know exactly What it is then someone else may experience it and sense they know what it is and yet what you see and what they see may be completely different what's of particular interest about this is that neither one is right and both are right this is not something to be concerned

about if the artist is happy with the work they're creating and the viewer is enlivened by the work they're experiencing it doesn't matter if they see it in the same way in fact it is Impossible for anyone to experience your work as you do or as anyone else does you could have a distinct idea of what a piece means how it functions or why it's pleasing and someone else can like it or dislike it for an entirely different reason the purpose of the work is to awaken something in you first and then allow something to

be awakened in others and it's fine if they're not the same thing we can only hope that the magnitude of the charge we experience Reverberates as powerfully for others as it does for us sometimes the artist may not be the crafter of the work Marcel duchon would find everyday objects a snow shovel a bicycle wheel a urinal and simply decide they were art he called them readymades a painting is just a painting until you put a frame on it and hang it on the wall then it's called Art what's considered art is simply an agreement

and none of it is true what is true is That you are never alone when you're making art you are in a constant dialogue with what is and what was was and the closer you can tune in to that discussion the better you can serve the work before you intention an old man in Kolkata would walk to get water from a well every day he'd carry a clay pot and lower it by hand slowly all the way down careful not to let it hit the sides of the well and Break once it was full he'd

raise the pot slowly and carefully again it was a focused timec consuming act one day a traveler noticed the old man engaged in this difficult task more experienced with mechanics he showed the old man how to use a pulley system this will allow the pot to go straight down quickly The Traveler explained then fill with water and come back up without hitting the sides it's much easier and the pot will be just as full with much less work the Old man looked at him and said I think I'm going to keep doing it the way

I always have I really have to think about each movement and there's a great deal of care that goes into doing it right I'd imagine if I were to use the pulley it would become easy and I might even start thinking about something else while doing it if I put so little care and time into it what might the water taste like it couldn't possibly taste as good our thoughts feelings processes and Unconscious beliefs have an energy that is hidden in the work this unseen unmeasurable Force gives each piece its magnetism a completed project is

only made up of Our intention and our experiments around it remove intention and all that's left is the ornamental shell though the artist may have a number of goals and motivations there is only one intention this is the grand gesture of the work it is not an exercise of thought a goal to be set or A means of commodification it is a truth that lives inside you through your living it that truth becomes embedded in the work if the work doesn't represent who you are and what you're living how can it hold an energetic charge

an intention is more than a conscious purpose it's the congruence of that purpose it requires an alignment of all aspects of oneself of conscious thought and unconscious beliefs of capabilities and commitment Of actions when working and not it's a state of living in harmonic agreement with oneself not all projects take time but they do take a lifetime in calligraphy the work is created in one movement of the brush all the intention is in that single concentrated movement the line is a reflection of the energy transfer from the artist's being including the entire history of their

experiences thoughts and apprehensions into the hand the Creative Energy exists In the journey to the making not in the act of constructing our work embodies a higher purpose whether we know it or not we're a conduit for the universe material is allowed through us if we are a Clear Channel Our intention reflects the intention of the cosmos most creators think of themselves as the conductor of the orchestra if we zoom out of our small view of reality we function more as an instrumentalist in a much larger Symphony the universe is orchestrated we may not have

a great understanding of what this magnum opus is because we only see the small part we play The Bee attracted by the scent of the flower lands on one then another inadvertently enabling reproduction should the bee go extinct Not Just Flowers but birds small mammals and humans would likely also cease to exist it's fair to assume that the bee doesn't know its role in this interconnected puzzle and in preserving The balance of nature the be is simply being similarly the total output of human creativity in all its kaleidoscopic breadth pieces together the fabric forming our

culture the underlying intention of our work is the aspect allowing it to fit neatly into this fabric rarely if ever do we know the grand intention yet if we surrender to the creative impulse our singular piece of the puzzle takes its proper shape intention is all there is but the Work is just a reminder rules a rule is any guiding principle or creative Criterion it might exist within the artist the genre or the culture Rules by their nature are limitations the laws of math and science are different from the rules we are looking at here

those laws describe precise relationships in the physical world which we know to be true by testing them against the world itself self the rules Artists learn are different they are assumptions not absolutes they describe a goal or method for short-term or long-term results they are there to be tested and they are only of value as long as they are helpful they are not laws of nature all kinds of assumptions masquerade as laws a suggestion from a self-help book something heard in an interview your favorite artist best tip an expression in the culture or Something a

teacher once told you rules direct us to average behaviors if we're aiming to create works that are exceptional most rules don't apply average is nothing to Aspire to the goal is not to fit in if anything it's to amplify the differences what doesn't fit the special characteristics unique to how you see the world instead of sounding like others value your own voice develop it cherish it as soon as a convention is established The most interesting work would likely be the one that doesn't follow it the reason to make art is to innovate and self-express show

something new share what's inside and communicate your singular perspective pressures and expectations come from different directions society's Moors dictate what's right and wrong what's accepted and frowned upon what's celebrated and reviled the artists who Define each generation are generally the The ones who live outside of these boundaries not the artists who embody the beliefs and conventions of their time but the ones who transcend them art is confrontation it widens the audience's reality allowing them to Glimpse life through a different window one with the potential for a glorious new view in the beginning we approach our

craft with a template of what's come before if you're writing a song you might think it should be 3 to 5 minutes Long and have a certain amount of repetition to a bird a song is a very different thing the bird doesn't prefer a three to 5 minute format or accept the chorus as the hook yet the song for the bird is just as sonorous and even more intrinsic to the bird's being it's an invitation a warning a way to connect a means of survival it's a healthy practice to approach our work with as few

accepted rules starting points and limitations as possible often the Standards in our chosen medium are so ubiquitous we take them for granted they are invisible and unquestioned this makes it nearly impossible to think outside the standard Paradigm visit an art museum most of the paintings you'll see a canvas stretched over a rectangular frame made of wood whether it's jacqu Louie Davids The Death of Socrates or the alterpiece paintings of hilmer AF Clint the content may vary yet the materials are consistent there's a Generally accepted standard if you want to paint you're likely to begin by

stretching canvas over a rectangular wooden frame and propping it up on an easel based solely on the tools selected you've already exponentially narrowed what's possible before a single drop of paint has made contact with the canvas we assume the equipment and format are part of the art form itself yet painting can be anything that involves the use of color on a surface for an aesthetic or Communicative purpose all other decisions are up to the artist similar conventions are woven into most art forms a book is a certain number of pages and is divided into chapters

a feature film is 90 to 120 minutes and often has three acts embedded in each medium there are sets of norms that restrain our work before we've even begun genres in particular come with distinct variations on rules a horror film a ballet or a country Al Each come with specific expectations as soon as you use a label to describe what you're working on there's a temptation to conform to its rules the templates of the past can be an inspiration in the beginning phases but it's helpful to think Beyond what's been done before the world isn't

waiting for more of the same often the most innovative ideas come from those who Master the rules to such a degree that they can see past them or from those who never learned them at all The most most deceptive rules are not the ones we can see but the ones we can't these can be found hiding deeper in the mind often unnoticed just beyond our awareness rules that entered our thinking through childhood programming lessons we've forgotten osmosis from the culture and emulating the artists who inspired us to try it for ourselves these rules can serve

or limit us be aware of any assumptions based on conventional wisdom rules obeyed UNC Consciously are far stronger than the ones set on purpose and they are more likely to undermine the work every Innovation risks becoming a rule and Innovation risks becoming an end in itself when we make a discovery that serves our work it's not unusual to concretize this into a formula on occasion we decide this formula is who we are as an artist what our voice is and isn't while this may benefit certain makers it can be a limitation for others Sometimes a

formula has diminishing returns other times we don't recognize that the formula is only a small aspect of what gives the work its charge it's helpful to continually challenge your own process if you had a good result using a specific style method or working condition don't assume that is the best way or your way or the only way avoid getting religious about it there may be other strategies that work just as well and allow new possibilities directions And opportunities this is not always true but it's something to consider holding every rule is breakable is a healthy

way to live as an artist it loosens constraints that promote a predictable sameness in our working methods as you get further along in your career a consistency May develop that's of less interest over time your work can start to feel like a job or a responsibility so it's helpful to notice if you've been working with the same Palet of colors all along start the next project by scrapping that pallet the uncertainty that results can be a thrilling and scary proposition once you have a new framework some elements of your older process may find their way

back into the work and that's okay it's helpful to remember that when you throw away an old Playbook you still get to keep the skills you learned along the way these hard-earned abilities transcend rules they're yours to keep Imagine what can arise when you overlay an entirely new set of materials and instructions over your accumulated expertise As you move away from familiar rules you may bump up against more hidden rules that have been guiding you all along without your knowledge once recognized these rules may be released or used with more intention any rule is worth

testing be it conscious or unconscious challenge your assumptions and methods you you might find a better Way and even if it's not better you'll learn from the experience all of these experiments are like free throws you have nothing to lose Beware of the assumption that the way you work is the best way simply because it's the way you've done it before the opposite is true for any rules you accept of what you can and cannot do as an artist of what your voice is and isn't of what's requ ired to do the work and what

you Don't need it would be worthwhile to try the opposite if you're a sculptor for example you might start with the idea that what you're making has to exist in the material world that would be a rule to explore the opposite would be to consider how a sculpture can exist without being a physical object perhaps your best work could be conceived digitally or conceptually with no solid footprint or maybe it won't be your best work but the thought process might lead You somewhere novel and intriguing think of a rule as an imbalance Darkness and Light

are only meaningful in relationship with each other without one the other wouldn't exist they are a matched dynamic system like yin and yang examine your methods and consider what the opposite would be what would balance the scales what would be the light to your dark or the dark to your light it's not uncommon for an artist to focus on one end of the Seesaw even if if we Don't choose to create on the other side understanding this polarity can inform our choices another strategy might be to double down to take the shades you're currently working

in to the extreme only through experimenting with balance do you discover where you are on the Seesaw once you identify your position you can move to the opposite side to find balance or go further out along the limb you're on creating more leverage for every rule followed examine the Possibility that the opposite might be similarly interesting not necessarily better just different in the same way you can try the opposite or the extreme of what suggested in these pages and it will likely be just as fruitful listening when listening there is only now in Buddhist practice

a bell is rang as part of the ritual the sound instantly pulls the participant into the present moment it's a small reminder to Wake up while the eyes and the mouth can be sealed an ear has no lid nothing to close it takes in what surrounds it it receives but can't transmit the ear is simply present to the world when we hear sounds enter the ear autonomously often we're not aware of all the individual sounds in their full range listening is paying attention to those sounds being present with them being in communion with them though

to say that we listen with the ears or the Mind might be a misconception we listen with the whole body our whole self the vibrations filling the space around us the act of sound waves hitting the body the spatial perceptions they indicate the internal physical reactions they stimulate this is all part of listening certain Bas sounds can be felt only in the body they can't be perceived by the ears the difference can be noticed when listening to music through headphones instead of speakers headphones create an Illusion tricking your senses into believing you are hearing everything

the music is offering many artists refuse to use headphones in the studio as it is a poor replica of the real world listening experience with speakers we are closer to the sound of instruments in the room immersed physically in a full Sonic spectrum of vibration many of us experience life as if we're taking it in through a pair of headphones we strip away the the full register we hear Information but don't detect the subtler vibrations of feeling in the body when you practice listening with the whole self you expand the scope of your Consciousness to

include vast amounts of information otherwise missed and discover more material to feed your art habit if it's music you're listening to consider closing your eyes you may find yourself getting lost in the experience when the piece ends you might be surprised by where you find yourself You've been transported to another place the place where the music lives communication moves in two directions even when one person speaks and another listens silently when The Listener is totally present the speaker often communicates differently most people aren't used to being fully heard and it can be jarring for them

sometimes we block the flow of information being offered and compromise true listening our critical mind May kick in taking Note of what we agree with than what we don't or what we like and dislike we may look for reasons to distrust the speaker or make them wrong formulating an opinion is not listening neither is preparing a response or defending our position or attacking anothers to listen impatiently is to hear nothing at all listening is suspending disbelief we are openly receiving paying attention with no preconceived ideas the only goal is to fully and clearly understand what

is Being transmitted remaining totally present with what's being expressed and allowing it to be what it is anything less is not only a disservice to the speaker but also to yourself while creating and defending a story in your own head you miss information that might alter or evolve your current thoughts if we can go beyond our reflexive response we may find there is something more beneath that resonates with us or helps our understanding The new information might reinforce an idea slightly alter it or completely reverse it listening without prejudice is how we grow and learn

as people more often than not there are no right answers just different perspectives the more perspectives we can learn to see the greater our understanding becomes our filter can begin to more accurately approach what truly is rather than a narrow sliver interpreted through our bias regardless of the type of art You're making listening opens possibilities it allows you to see a bigger World many of our beliefs were learned before we had a choice in what we were taught some of them might go back generations and may no longer apply some may never have applied listening

then is not just awareness it's freedom from accepted limitations patience there are no shortcuts the lottery win winner isn't ultimately Happy after their Sudden Change of Fortune the home built hastily rarely survives the first storm the single sentence summary of a book or news event is no substitute for the full story we often take shortcuts without knowing it when listening we tend to skip forward and generalize the speaker's overall message we miss the subtleties of the point if not the entire premise in addition to the assumption that we are saving time this shortcut also avoids

The discomfort of challenging our prevailing stories and our world view continues to shrink the artist actively Works to experience life slowly and then to re-experience the same thing a new to read slowly and to read and read again I might read a paragraph that inspires a thought and while my eyes continue moving across the page in the physical act of reading my mind may still be lost in the previous idea I'm not taking in information anymore when I realize this I return to the last paragraph I can recall and start reading from there again sometimes

it's three or four pages back rereading even a well understood paragraph or page can be revelatory new meanings deeper understandings Inspirations and nuances arise and come into Focus reading in addition to listening eating and most physical activities can be experienced like drug ding we can participate either on autopilot or with focused intention so Often we Sleepwalk through our lives consider how different your experience of the world might be if you engaged in every activity with the attention you might give to Landing a plane there are those who approach the opportunities of each day like Crossing

items off a to-do list instead of truly engaging and participating with all of themselves our Contin ual quest for efficiency discourages looking too deeply the pressure to deliver doesn't grant us Time to consider all possibilities yet it's through deliberate action and repetition that we gain deeper Insight patience is required for the Nuance development of your craft patience is required for taking in information in the most faithful way possible patience is required for crafting a work that resonates and contains all that we have to offer every phase of an artist's work and life benefits from cultivating

this achievable habit patience is developed Much like awareness through an acceptance of what is impatience is an argument with reality the desire for something to be different from what we are experiencing in the here and now a wish for time to speed up tomorrow to come sooner to relive yesterday or to close your eyes then open them and find yourself in another place time is something that we have no control over so patience begins with acceptance of natural rhythms the implied benefit of Impatience is to save time by speeding up and skipping ahead of those

rhythms paradoxically this ends up taking more time and using more energy it's wasted effort when it comes to the creative process patience is accepting that the majority of the work we do is out of our control we can't force great to happen all we can do is invite it in and await it actively not anxiously as this might scare it off simply in a state of continual welcoming if we remove time From the equation of a work's development what we're left with is patience not just for the development of the work but for the development

of the Artist as a whole even the masterpieces that have been produced on tight timelines are the sum of decades spent patiently laboring on other works if there is a rule to creativity that's less breakable than the others it's that the need for patience is ever present beginner's Mind some 3,000 years ago in China the Strategic board game go was developed some believe Warlords and Generals based it on the stones they place on maps to determine their battle plans besides being the oldest continually played board game in human history it's also one of the most

complex in modern times beating this game became known in the artificial intelligence Community as the Holy Grail since the number of possible configurations on the board is larger Than the number of atoms in the universe it was believed computers didn't have the processing power needed to beat a skilled human player rising to the challenge scientists built an artificial intelligence program called alphago the program learned to play by teaching itself studying more than 100,000 past games it then played against itself over and over until it was ready to challenge the reigning Grandmaster of the game in

move 37 of the second match the machine Was faced with a decision that would determine the way the rest of the game would be played there were two apparent choices to be made Choice a was the kind of move that would signal the computer was playing a game of offense Choice B would signal it was playing a defensive game instead the computer decided to make a third move a move no one steeped in the game had ever made in thousands of years of play not a single human player would Choose move 37 one commentator said

most thought it was a mistake or simply a bad move The Grandmaster playing against the machine was so taken a back he stood up and walked out of the room he eventually returned not with his usual confident composure but visibly shaken and frustrated by the experience in the end alphago won the game and that never been seen before move experts said was the one that turned the course of the game in favor of the AI in the end the Computer won four out of five matches and The Grandmaster permanently retired from competition upon first hearing

this story I found myself in tears and confused by this sudden swell of emotion after further reflection I realized that the story spoke to the power of Purity in the creative act what was it that allowed a machine to devise a move no one steeped in the game had ever made in thousands of years of play it wasn't necessarily its intelligence it was the Fact that the machine learned the game from scratch with no coach no human intervention no lessons based on an expert's past experience the AI followed the fixed rule R not the Millennia

of accepted cultural norms attached to them it didn't take into account the 3,000 year old traditions and conventions of go it didn't accept The Narrative of how to properly play this game it wasn't held back by limiting beliefs and so this wasn't just a landmark event in AI Development it was the first time go had been played with the full spectrum of possibilities available with a clean slate alphago was able to innovate devise something completely new and transform the game forever if it had been taught to play by humans it most likely wouldn't have won

the tournament one go expert commented after Humanity spent thousands of years improving our tactics computers tell us that humans are completely wrong I would go as far As to say not a single human has touched the edge of the truth of go to see what no human has seen before to know what no human has known before to create create as no human has created before it may be necessary to see as if through eyes that have never seen know through a mind that has never thought create with hands that have never been trained this

is beginner's mind one of the most difficult states of being to dwell in for an artist precisely because It involves letting go of what our experiences have taught us beginner's mind is starting from a pure childlike place of not knowing living in the moment with as few fixed beliefs as possible seeing things for what they are as presented tuning in to what enlivens us in the moment instead of what we think will work and making our decisions accordingly any preconceived ideas and accepted conventions limit what's possible we tend to believe that the More we know

the more clearly we can see the possibilities available this is not the case The Impossible only becomes accessible when experience has not taught us limits did the the computer win because it knew more than The Grandmaster or because it knew less there's a great power in not knowing when faced with a challenging task we may tell ourselves it's too difficult it's not worth the effort it's not the way things are done it's not likely to Work or it's not likely to work for us if we approach a task with ignorance it can remove the barricade

of knowledge blocking progress curiously not being aware of a challenge may be just what we need to rise to it innocence brings forth Innovation a lack of knowledge can create more openings to break new ground The Ramones thought they were making mainstream bubble gum pop to most others the lyrical content alone about lobotomies sniffing glue and pin heads Was enough to challenge this assumption while the band saw themselves as the next Bay City Rollers they unwittingly invented punk rock and started a countercultural revolution while the music of the Bas rollers had great success in its

time the Ramon's singular take on rock and roll became more popular and influential of all the explanations of the Ramones the most apt may be Innovation through ignorance experience provides wisdom to Draw from but it tempers the power of naive T the past can be a teacher offering tried and true methods familiarity with the standards of The Craft awareness of potential risks and in some cases virtuosity it lures us into a pattern that absolves us of the opportunity to engage innocently with the task at hand the more ingrained your adopted approach the harder it is

to see past it though experience doesn't rule out Innovation It can make it more difficult to access animals like children don't have a hard time making a decision they act out of innate Instinct not learned behavior this primitive Force packs an ancient wisdom that science has yet to catch up with these childlike superpowers include being in the moment valuing play Above All Else having no regard for consequences being radically honest without consideration and having the ability to freely move from one emotion To the next without holding on to story for children each moment in time

is all there is no future no past I want it now I'm hungry I'm tired All Pure authenticity the great artists throughout history are the ones able to maintain this childlike enthusiasm and exuberance naturally just as an infant is selfish they're protective of their art in a way that's not always Cooperative their needs as a Creator come first often at the expense of their Personal lives and relationships for one of the most loved singer song writers of all time if inspiration comes through it takes precedence over other obligations his friends and family understand that in

the middle of a meal conversation or event if a song calls he'll exit the scene and tend to it without explanation accessing childlike spirit in our art and our lives is worth aspiring to it's simple to do if you haven't accumulated too many fixed habits and thoughts if You have it's very difficult nearly impossible a child has no set of premises it relies on to make sense of the world it may serve you to do the same any label you assume before sitting down to create even one as foundational as sculptor rapper author or entrepreneur

could be doing more harm than good strip away the labels now how do you see the world try to experience everything as if for the first time if you grew up in a landlock town that you Never left the first time you traveled and saw the ocean would likely be a dramatic or inspiring experience if you spent your whole life living near the ocean your experience of it would almost certainly be less dramatic when you see what's present around you as if for the first time you start to realize how astonishing it all is as

artists we aim to live in a way in which we see the extraordinary hidden in the seemingly mundane then challenge ourselves to Share what we see in a way that allows others a glimpse of this remarkable Beauty Talent is the ability to let ideas manifest themselves through you inspiration it appears in a moment an Immaculate Conception a Divine flash of light an idea that would otherwise require labor to unfold suddenly blooms in a single inhalation what defines inspiration is the quality and quantity of the download At a speed so instantaneous It seems impossible to process

in inspiration is the rocket fuel powering our work it is a universal conversation we yearn to be part of the word comes from the Latin inspirare meaning to breathe in or blow into for the lungs to draw in air they must first be emptied for the mind to draw inspiration it wants space to welcome the new the universe seeks balance through this absence you're inviting energy in the same principle Applies to everything in life if we are looking look for a relationship when we're already in one then we are full there is no room for

the new to enter and we are unable to welcome in the relationship we want to create space for inspiration we might consider practices of quieting the Mind meditation awareness silence contemplation prayer any ritual that helps us fend off distraction and papancha breath itself is a potent vehicle to calm our thoughts Creat space and tune in it cannot guarantee that inspiration will come though the vacancy May draw the Muse into play taken more spiritually inspiration means to breathe life into an ancient interpretation defines it as the immediate influence of the Divine for the artist inspiration is

a breath of creative Force drawn in instantly from outside of our small selves we can't be sure where this spark of insight originates it's helpful to know It's not us alone when inspiration does arrive it is invariably energizing but it is not something to rely on an artistic life cannot be built solely around waiting inspiration is out of our control and can prove hard to find effort is required and invitations are to be extended in its absence we may work on other areas of the project independent of this Cosmic transmission epiphanies are hidden in the

most ordinary of moments the casting of a Shadow the smell of a match igniting an unusual phrase overheard or misheard a dedication to the practice of showing up on a regular basis is the main requirement to vary your inspiration consider varying your input turn the sound off to watch a film listen to the same song on repeat read only the first word of each sentence in a short story arrange Stones by sign or color learn to lucid dream break habits look for differences notice connections one Indicator of inspiration is awe we tend to take so

much for granted how can we move past disconnection and desensitization to the incredible Wonders of Nature and human engineering all around us most of what we see in the world holds the potential to inspire astonishment if looked at from a less jaded perspective train yourself to see see the awe behind the obvious look at the world from this Vantage Point as often as possible submerge yourself the Beauty around us enriches our lives in so many ways it is an end in itself and it sets an example for our own work we can aim to develop

an eye for Harmony and balance as if our Creations have always been here like mountains or feathers ride the wave as long as it can be ridden if you are fortunate enough to experience the stri of inspiration take full advantage of the access remain in the energy of this rarified moment for as long as it lasts when flowing keep Going if you're a writer and you tap into a stream of ideas before bed you may want to stay with it until dawn if you're a musician and you've reached your goal of creating one song or

10 songs yet the music is still coming capture all you can the work yielded may not be be used in the current project but it may be of use another time or it may not the task of the artist is simply to recognize the transmission and stay with it in gratitude until it truly runs Its course in terms of priority inspiration comes first you come next the audience comes last these are special moments and are to be treated with the utmost devotion our schedules are set aside when these fleeting moments of illumination come summon your

strength and commit yourself on behalf of this offering even when it arises at an inopportune time this is the serious artist's obligation John Lennon once advised that if you start a song write It through to the end in that sitting the initial inspiration has a Vitality in it that can carry you through the whole piece don't be concerned if some of the parts are not yet all they can be get through a rough draft a full imperfect version is generally more helpful than a seemingly perfect fragment when an idea forms or a hook is written

we may feel that we've cracked the code and the rest will take care of Itself if we step away and let that initial spark fade we may return to find it's not so easy to rekindle think of inspiration as a force not immune to the laws of entropy ride the wave as long as it can be ridden if you are fortunate enough to experience the strike of inspiration take full advantage of the access remain in the energy of this rarified moment for as long as it lasts when flowing keep going if you're a writer and

you tap into a stream of Ideas before bed you may want to stay with it until dawn if you're a musician and you've reached your goal of creating one song or 10 songs yet the music is still coming capture all you can the work yielded may not be used used in the current project but it may be of use another time or it may not the task of the artist is simply to recognize the transmission and stay with it in gratitude until it truly runs its course in terms of priority inspiration comes First you come

next the audience comes last these are special moments and are to be treated with the utmost devotion our schedules are set aside when these fleeting moments of Illumination come summon your strength and commit yourself on behalf of this offering even when it arises at an inopportune time this is the serious artist's obligation John Lennon once advised that if you start a song write it through to the end in that sitting the initial inspiration has a Vitality in it that can carry you through the whole piece habit the first thing I would show players at our

our initial day of training was how to take a little extra time putting on their shoes and socks properly the most important part of your equipment is your shoes and socks you play on a hard floor so you must have shoes that fit right and you must not permit your socks to have wrinkles Around the little toe where you generally get blisters or around the heels I showed my players how I wanted them to do it hold up the sock work it around the little toe area and the heel area so that there are no

wrinkles smooth it out good then hold the sock up while you put the shoe on and the shoe must be spread apart not just pulled on the top laces you tighten it up snugly by each eyelet then you tie it and then you double tie it so it won't come Undone because I don't want shoes coming untied during practice or during the game I don't want that to happen that's just a little detail that coaches must take advantage of because it's the little details that make the big things come about the sentiments above are John

Wooden the most successful coach in the history of college basketball his teams won more consecutive games and championships than any others in history it must have been Frustrating for these Elite athletes who wanted to get on the court and show what they could do to arrive at practice for the first time with this legendary coach only to hear him say today we will learn to tie our shoes the point wooden was making was that creating effect habits down to the smallest detail is what makes the difference between winning and losing games each habit might seem

small but added together they have an exponential effect on performance just One habit at the top of any field can be enough to give an edge over the competition wooden considered every aspect of the game where an issue might arise and trained his players for each one repeatedly until they became habits the goal was immac ulate performance wooden often said The only person you're ever competing against is yourself the rest is out of your control this way of thinking applies to the creative life just as well for both the artist and the Athlete the details

matter whether the players recognize their importance or not good habits create good art the way we do anything is the way we do everything treat each choice you make each action you take each word you speak with skillful care the goal is to live your life in the service of art consider establishing a consistent framework around your creative process it is often the case that the more set In your personal regimen the more freedom you have within that structure to express yourself discipline and freedom seem like opposites in reality they are Partners discipline is not

a lack of Freedom it is a harmonious relationship with time managing your schedule and daily habits well is a necessary component to free up the Practical and creative capacity to make great art it could even be said that a focused efficiency in life is more Important than one in work approaching the Practical aspects of your day with military Precision allows the artistic Windows to be opened in childlike Freedom creativity supporting habits can begin the moment you arise each day these might include looking at sunlight before screen light meditating out doors if possible exercising and showering

in cold water before beginning creative time in a suitable space these habits look different for everyone and perhaps Different for the same artist from day to day you might sit in the forest pay attention to your thoughts and make notes or drive in a car for an hour with no destination in mind listening to classical music and seeing if any Sparks arise it's helpful to set scheduled office hours or uninterrupted periods of Joyful play that allow your imagination to soore for one person that window of time might be 3 hours for another 30 minutes some

prefer to work From Dusk Till Dawn While others create in 20 minute sessions with 5 minute breaks between each find the sustainable rituals that best support your work if you set a routine that is oppressive you'll likely find excuses not to show up it's in the interest of your art to create an easily achievable schedule to start with if you commit to working for half an hour a day Something Good Can Happen that generates momentum you may then look at the clock and realize You've been working for 2 hours the option is always open to

extend your creative hours once the Habit is formed feel free to experiment the goal is to commit to a structure that can take on a life of its own instead of creating only when the mood strikes or to start each day with the question of how and when you're going to work on your art put the decision making into the work not into when to work the more you reduce your daily life maintenance tasks the greater The bandwidth available for Creative decisions Albert Einstein wore the same thing daily a gray suit Eric Sati had seven

identical outfits one for each day of the week limit your practical choices to free your creative imagination we all yearn to establish new healthy productive habits such as exercising eating more local Natural Foods or practicing our craft more regularly but how often do we consider examining and removing the habits that currently Drive Our days how often do we regard behaviors accepted as the way people are or the way we are merely as habits each of us has automatic habits we have habits in movement habits in speech thought and perception habits in being ourselves some of

them have been practiced every day since we were children a pathway gets carved into the brain and becomes difficult to change most of these habits control us beyond our decisions to the point they function Autonomously and automatically like the regulation of our body temperature I recently learned a different way of swimming it felt awkward and counterintuitive because I learned to swim when I was very young my previous method was so ingrained I didn't ever have to think about it I effortlessly knew how to do it it had worked well enough to get me from one

side of the pool to the other even though there were other ways that could take me farther And faster with more ease in our artistic Pursuits we also rely on habits to get from one point to another some of them don't serve the work or they undermine its progress when we stay open and pay close attention it is possible to recognize the these less helpful habits and soften their spell and begin to explore new practices ones that come in and out of our creative lives like temporary collaborators remaining as long as they serve the work

and Departing when they are no longer beneficial thoughts and habits not conducive to the work believing you're not good enough feeling you don't have the energy it takes mistaking adopted rules for absolute truths not wanting to do the work laziness not taking the work to its highest expression settling having goals so ambitious that you can't begin thinking you can only do your best work in certain conditions requiring specific tools or equipment to do the Work abandoning a project as soon as it gets difficult feeling like you need permission to start or move forward letting a

perceived need for funding equipment or support get in the way having too many ideas and not knowing where to start never finishing projects blaming circumstances or other people for interfering with your process romanticizing negative behaviors or addictions believing a certain mood or state is necessary to do your best work Prioritizing other activities and responsibilities over your commitment to making art distractability and procrastination impatience thinking anything that out of your control is in your way create an environment where you're free to express what you're afraid to express seeds in the first phase of the creative process

we are to be completely open collecting anything we find of Interest We can call this the seed phase we're searching for potential starting points that with love and care can grow into something beautiful at this stage we are not comparing them to find the best seed we simply gather them a seed for a song could be a phrase a Melody a baseline or a rhythmic feel for a written piece it may be a sentence a character sketch a setting a thesis or a plot point for a structure a shape a material Choice a function or

the natural properties of a Location and for a business it could be a common inconvenience a societal need a technical advancement or a personal interest collecting seeds typically doesn't involve a tremendous amount of effort it's more a receiving of a transmission and noticing as if catching fish we walk to the water bait the hook cast the line and patiently wait we cannot control the fish only the presence of our line the artist casts a line to the universe we don't get to Choose when a noticing or inspiration comes we can only be there to receive

it as with meditation our engagement in the process is what allows the result collecting seeds is best approached with active awareness and boundless curiosity it cannot be muscled though perhaps it can be willed as the seeds arrive forming conclusions about their value or fate can get in the way of their natural potential in this phase the artist's work is to collect seeds plant them Water them with attention and see if they take root having a specific vision of what a seed will become could serve as a helpful guide in later phases in this initial stage

it may cut off more interesting possibilities an idea appearing to hold less Vitality May grow into a beautiful work other times the most exciting seed may not ultimately Ely yield fruit it's too soon to tell until we are further along in the process and the idea has Been developed it's impossible to assess these germs of an idea accurately the appropriate seed will reveal itself over time placing too much emphasis on a seed or dismissing it prematurely can interfere with its natural growth the temptation to insert too much of yourself in this first phase can undermine

the entire Enterprise be wary of taking shortcuts or Crossing items off your list too quickly the seed that doesn't get watered cannot reveal its Ability to bear fruit collect many seeds and then over time look back and see which ones resonate sometimes we're too close to them to recognize their true potential and other times the magical moment that inspired a seed into existence is bigger than the seed itself it's generally preferable to accumulate several weeks or months worth of ideas and then choose which of them to focus on instead of following an urge or obligation

to rush to the Finish Line With what is in front of us today the more seeds you've accumulated the easier this is to judge if you've collected a 100 seeds you might find that seed number 54 speaks to you in a way that none of the others do if number 54 is your only choice without other seeds for context it's more difficult to tell when we make assumptions about what seeds won't work or may not fit with what we believe to be our artistic identity we may be prevented from growing as Creators sometimes the purpose

of a seed is to propel us in a completely new Direction along the way it may morph into something hardly resembling its original form and become our finest work yet at this point in time it's helpful to think of the work as bigger than us to cultivate a sense of awe and wonder at what's possible the work productivity is not generated by our hand alone Experimentation we have collected a handful of seeds of starting points and potentialities we now enter the second stage the experimentation phase fueled by the initial hit of excitement at discovering a

starting point we play with different combinations and possibilities to see if any of them reveal how the seed wants to develop think of this as a search for life we're looking to see if we can get the seeds to take root and sprout a stem there's No right way to experiment generally speaking we want to begin interacting with the seeds developing our starting point in different directions we are cultivating each seed much as a gardener creates optimal conditions to Foster growth this is one of the fun parts of a project because nothing is at stake

you get to play with forms and see what takes shape there are no rules cultivation will look different for every artist and every seed if the seed Is a character in a novel perhaps we widen the world they live in develop a backstory or become the character and start writing from their point of view if the seed is a story for a film we might want to explore various settings it could be different countries communities time periods or realities Shakespeare's plays for example have been adapted into movies centered around everything from New York street gangs

to samurai from Santa Monica to outer space There are countless directions to explore and we never know which will guide us to a dead end and which will lead to new Realms until we test it in the case of a song a vocalist might respond very quickly to a musical track and the melody will immediately reveal itself other times although the singer finds the musical track compelling they will listen to it a thousand times and nothing will come from it in this phase we are not looking at which iteration Progresses the quickest or furthest but

which holds the most promise we focus on the flourishing and wait to prune we generate possibilities instead of eliminating them editing prematurely can close off routs that might lead to beautiful Vistas previously unseen in the experimentation phase conclusions are stumbled upon they surprise or challenge us more often than they fulfill our expectations ancient Chinese Alchemists Searching for immortality mixed salt peter sulfur and charcoal they discovered something else gunpowder countless other inventions penicillin plastic pacemakers posit notes were discovered by accident consider how many innovations that might have changed the world have been lost because someone was

so focused on their goal they miss the Revelation right in front of them the heart of experiment is Mystery we cannot predict where a seed Will lead or if it will take root remain open to the new and unknown begin with a question mark and embark on a journey of Discovery take full advantage of the energy inherent in the seed itself and do whatever's possible not to disturb it you may be tempted to intervene and steer it development toward a specific goal or preconceived idea this may not lead to the most productive of its possibilities

at this stage of the process allow the Seed to follow its own path toward the Sun the time to discriminate will come later for now allow space for magic to enter not every seed must grow but it may be there is a right time for each one if a seed does not seem to be developing or responding consider storing it rather than discarding it in nature some seeds lie dormant in anticipation of the Season most conducive to their growth this is true of art as well there are ideas whose Time has not yet come or

perhaps their time has come but you are not yet ready to engage with them other times developing a different seed May shed light on a dormant one some seeds are ready to germinate instantaneously you may start experimenting and find yourself completing the work and being pleased with the result or you may get halfway through the project then feel unsure where it wants to go as we lose Enthusiasm we often continue to labor on a seed believing that the work has to turn out for the better because we've invested so much time in it if the

energy continues to drop it does not necessarily mean that the seed is bad we just may not have found the right experiment for it perhaps we need to step away for a Time and shift perspective we may choose to start over with it or set it aside for a while and sift through the others the outcome is Not up to us give some attention to each seed regardless of what you believe its potential may be and look for a beautiful response if you have just one seed a very specific Vision you want to carry out

that's fine there is no right way you might consider the possibility however that it could end up being a limitation because you no longer taking advantage of all that you have in you being open to possibility gets you to a Place you want to go that you may not know you wanted to get to if you know what you want to do and you do it that's the work of a Craftsman if you begin with a question and use it to guide an adventure of Discovery that's the work of the artist the surprises along the

way can expand your work and even the art form itself when a plant is flourishing we can see the Life Spring forth from every stalk leaf and flower how do we know when an idea is Flourishing often the most accurate signposts are emotional not intellectual excitement tends to be the best barometer for selecting which seeds to focus on when something interesting starts to come together it arouses Delight it's an energizing feeling of wanting more a feeling of Leaning forward follow that energy during the experimentation phase we are paying attention to this natural reaction of enthralment

in the body there is a time For the headwork of analysis but not yet here we follow the heart at some point we may be able to look back and understand why the feeling arose other times we will not and that's fine too for now this is of no concern if two ideas feel somewhat equal in weight and one has clear potential to turn into something beautiful and the other shows less potential but seems more interesting feel free to follow your interest base decisions on the Internal feeling of being moved and notice what holds your

interest this will always be in the greatest service of the work failure is the information you need to get where you're going try everything mixing blue and yellow makes green adding 2 + 2 makes four when combining basic elements in the ordinary course of Life much is predictable in creating art the sum total of the parts often defies expectation theory and practice don't always line up the Formula that worked yesterday might not work tomorrow The Proven Solutions are sometimes the least helpful there is a gap between imagination and reality an idea might seem brilliant in

our mind but once employed it might not work at all another might seem dreary at first then upon execution it might be exactly what's called for to dismiss an idea because it doesn't work in your mind is to do a disservice to the art the only way to truly know if any idea works is To test it and if you're looking for the best idea test everything ask yourself as many what if questions as you can what if this were the first painting anyone saw in their life what if I removed every adverb what if

I made all the loud Parts quiet look for different polarities and see how they affect the piece perhaps take on the temporary rule that there are no bad ideas test them all even the ones that seem underwhelming or unlikely to work this Method becomes especially useful in group efforts often when working with others different ideas are put forward and end up in competition based on experience we may believe we can see what each person is imagining and what the result will be it's impossible though to know exactly what someone else is thinking and if we

can't predict how our own ideas will work and we can't how can we draw conclusions about what someone else imagines instead of talking Through different solutions to work out which is best take it out of the realm of the verbal to truly weigh choices it's necessary to bring them into the physical world have them acted out played out or built into a model descriptions do not do ideas Justice we want to set up an environment where the decision making occurs free of the misguiding force of persuasion persuasion leads to mediocrity to be evaluated ideas have

to be seen heard Tasted or touched it's best if the person who has the idea either demonstrates it or supervises the execution until it matches what they are suggesting this will help avoid misunderstandings once the idea is witnessed in its full expression it may turn out far better than you imagin it may even be a perfect fit or it could be exactly what you expected something will be gained through the process whatever the result give yourself Permission to be wrong and experience the joy of being surprised when working through ways of solving a puzzle there

are no mistakes each unsuccessful solution gets you closer to one that works avoid becoming attached to the particulars of the problem widen your field of view if the the idea takes the project somewhere with a stronger energetic charge follow the New Direction demanding to control a work of art would be just as foolish as Demanding that an oak tree grow according to your will allow the work to grow in the direction it seeks evolve in accordance with its natural state and have its own life enjoy the journey of cycling through all permutations to reveal a

work's True Form taking a wrong turn allows you to see Landscapes you wouldn't otherwise have seen crafting once a seed's code has been cracked and its true form deciphered the Process shifts we are no longer in the unbounded mode of Discovery a clear sense of direction has arisen often unbeknownst to us we find ourselves in the craft phase now comes the labor of building we work to add to a foundation that has revealed it itself through our experimentation the lines have been drawn now we're filling in the colors where the earlier phases were more free

and open-ended The Inspirations and ideas that appear now are more directly Related to issues at hand we are looking for a shape that fits a specific hole whereas before we were just looking for shapes in some ways the craft phase is one of the least glamorous parts of the artist's job there is creativity involved but it often carries less of the magic of exploration and more of the labor of brick laying this is the point in the journey where some struggle to carry on for now we need to look away from the open field and

turn toward a Winding staircase a 100 stories tall a long precarious climb lies ahead we may be tempted to turn back and Chase the thrill of feeling the light bulb flicker on above our heads but the first two phases have little purpose or meaning on their own art may only exist and the artist may only evolve by completing the work how do we decide which experiment to craft we continue to follow hints of excitement each one of us has to find our own path if several directions seem Captivating consider crafting more than one experiment at

a time working on several often brings about a healthy sense of Detachment when solely focused on one it's easy to get tunnel vision while it may appear a projects moving in the right direction we are too closely entwined with it to truly know stepping away and returning with fresh eyes brings clearer insight into next steps switching to other projects will engage different muscles and patterns of Thinking these May shed light on paths otherwise unseen and this may happen over the course of days weeks months or years even in a single work session moving between multiple

projects can be helpful there are also times when a Single Seed has so much power that you choose to focus on it exclusively and that is your choice to make in the experimentation phase we planted the seed watered it and gave the resulting plant time to grow in The sun we let nature take its course now in this third phase we are bringing ourselves to the project to see what we can offer this is one reason the boundary between the experimentation and the C CFT phases isn't a linear progression we often move back and forth

between the two because sometimes what we add isn't as good as what nature is bringing when we realize this we stop and go back to where nature left off whereas the experimentation phase is About what the seed has to offer now we are applying our filter reviewing the totality of our experience in the world and searching for connections what does this remind us of what can we measure it against what does it relate to that we've noticed over the course of our lives in this phase we begin with a project that is naturally developed we

recognize potential in it and we see what we can add take away or combine to further develop it the craft phase is Not just a building up it is also a breaking down the goal of developing the work can be accomplished through a pruning process of small cut we decide which details and directions might be removed so that more energy and focus can be used to feed the core elements while the craft phase can be difficult that is not always the case there are some artists whose focus is more on formalizing an idea than executing

it and in the case of some projects Outsourcing the craft phase is what's called for many of Andy warhol's paintings were done by other artists and by machines while he supplied the ideas and retained authorship some famous California rock bands of the 60s didn't play on their own albums and some prolific authors just invent characters and story lines and leave it to other writers to fill out the pros when it comes to performing these labor intensive aspects of the process Yourself it is not a question of right or wrong it's project dependent remain open to

doing whatever it takes to make the art as good as it can be whether this means inserting yourself more into into the details of the process or stepping further back from them for some projects an artist may feel it's necessary to be involved in all of the work the physical act of crafting may give them a greater understanding of the art and more direct control over the Details other projects may be better served if the artist acts as a maestro or designer in this phase conducting the work of others crafting can be daunting it's helpful

to think of it as another opportunity for for some artists crafting is their favorite part of the process there is a natural joy and sense of accomplishment in following a set of instructions to create something physical and beautiful the love and care they put into this Phase can be clearly recognized in the final work momentum when treated like the earlier phases With No Boundaries or time constraints the craft phase May extend longer than necessary once enough data is collected and the vision is clear it can be helpful to set deadlines for completion the options are

no longer unlimited the process is less open-ended there may not be a clear Finish Line in Sight but the core elements are there imagine you have a script that has been translated to storyboard going from storyboard to finished film is somewhat of a mechanical process there is Art and inspir ation involved and there are a million choices to be made but the path ahead is clear our creative task now has narrower parameters if we're pleased with the blueprint it could be constructed many different ways as long as we continue referring back to make Sure the

developed project is as good as the original plan there could be several different versions that all ring true the power is held in the underlying structure if the project were a building we're picking which material to clad it in and what type of Windows to install you may have a preference but the building will maintain its Integrity the details matter but they aren't likely to sink the Enterprise in the craft phase deadlines are suggested completion dates Rather than set in stone there is still an element of surprise and exploration throughout our execution and it's possible

to find ourselves at any moment back in the experimentation phase while crafting an artist might succumb to outside pressure to set a fixed release date for their project preparations are made Outsiders are notified then sometimes as we work diligently toward the final stage an entirely new and preferable Direction might appear but The artist is left without the time to pursue it and this leads to a compromised result the artist's goal is not merely to produce but to make the finest work they are capable of the business bus thinks in terms of quarterly earnings and production

schedules the artist thinks in terms of Timeless Excellence while crafting make deadlines for your own motivation not necessarily to be shared with others unless it helps with Accountability once the craft phase is nearing an end then we might start thinking in terms of fixed deadlines crafting contains a paradox to create our best work we are patient and avoid rushing the process while at the same same time we work quickly without delay by remaining too long in this phase many pitfalls may arise one is disconnection if an artist is creating a beautiful work and keeps endlessly

crafting it beyond the need sometimes they suddenly Want to start all over this can be because they have changed or the times have changed art is a reflection of the artists inner and outer World During the period of creation extending the period comp complicates the artist's ability to capture a state of being the result can be a loss of connection and enthusiasm for the work over time another challenge we might call demoitis demoitis happens when the artist has clung too tightly for too long to their first draft the Danger of living with the unfinished project

for too long is that the more often an artist is exposed to a particular draft of a work the more final that form can become in their mind a musician might record a demo of a song very quickly they could listen to it thousands of times and imagine developing it to all it can be yet when it comes time to actually make the best version of the song the demo may be so ingrained in their head that any changes To it seem Blasphemous when we become overly attached to a premature version of the work we

do a disservice to the projects potential to avoid demoitis there is a simple technique unless actively working to make something better avoid listening to it reading it playing it looking at it or showing it to friends work as far forward as you can while crafting and then step away without repetitively consuming The Unfinished work by not accepting the Work in progress as the standard version we leave room for growth change and development to continue keep in mind that it's also possible for something great to be made very quickly an artist might spend 5 minutes sketching

an idea for a project and think very little of it they might sense the seed of something great and then spend hours or years trying to develop it into something more but it is possible that the initial sketch or demo Born in all of 5 minutes was actually the best version the seed's purest expression we may not realize this until after embellishing it or stepping away from it for a while another impediment some come across is that their vision for the work exceeds their ability to manifest it they can hear the drum line but the

rhythm is more complex than their ability to play they can picture the dance but their body can't perform the moves gracefully enough it might Seem as though the next step is an impossible leap in these moments it's easy to feel discouraged we mistake the fantasy version of the work in our minds for what the actual work has the possibility to become there may indeed be times when our mental conception of a piece translates almost directly into the Physical Realm at other times it's an unrealistic idealized version and sometimes our vision for the work is a

goal to work Toward and in the process we come to learn we'll reach a new and unexpected destination falling short of grander Visions might actually put the work exactly where it wants to be do not let the scale of your imagination get in the way of executing a more practical version of your project we may come to realize that this version is better than the initial seemingly impossible Vision when you're on a role in The Craft phase work toward a full first draft maintain The momentum if you reach a section of the work that gives

you trouble instead of letting this blockage stop you work around it although Your Instinct may be to create sequentially bypass the section where you're stuck complete the other parts then come back to it sometimes solutions to these difficult pieces will reveal themselves once the overall context has emerged a bridge is easier to build when it's clear what's on either side of it another benefit is That if you are stuck at a section in the middle it may feel overwhelming to know you're only halfway through the work if you finish the rest of the draft and

return to the portion you skipped it feels more easily achievable when there's only 5 or 10% of a project left to complete with the end in sight it's easier to feel motivated to finish if you're holding a center puzzle piece in your hand and staring at an empty tabletop it's difficult to determine Where to place it if all of the puzzle is complete except for that one piece then you know exactly where it goes the same is generally true of art the more of the work you can see the easier it becomes to gracefully place

the final details clearly where they belong art is choosing to do something skillfully caring about the details bringing all of yourself to make the finest work you can it is beyond ego vanity self- glorification and need for Approval point of view the goal of art isn't to attain Perfection the goal is to share who we are and how we see the world artists allow us to see what we are unable to see but somehow already know it may be a view of the world singularly different from our own or one so close it seems miraculous

as if the artist is looking through our own eyes in either case the artist's perception reminds us of who we are and who we can be one reason art Resonates is because human beings are so similar we're attracted to the shared experience held within the work including the imperfection in it we recognize some part of ourselves and feel understood and connected Carl Rogers said the personal is the universal the personal is what makes art matter our point of view not our drawing skills or musical virtuosity or ability to tell a story consider the difference between

art and most other trades in the Arts our filter is the defining factor of the work in science or technology the aims are different the reason we create art isn't with the intention of making something useful for someone else we create to express who we are who we are and where we are on our journey our point of view doesn't have to be coherent and it's rarely simple we may have different and sometimes contradictory points of view across a variety of topics aiming to narrow it All down to one elegant expression is unrealistic and limiting

whatever our perspective so long as we share it unaltered and undoctored we succeed in Art's fundamental purpose when making art we create a mirror in which someone may see their own hidden reflection a point of view is different from having a point a point is an idea intentionally expressed a point of view is the perspective conscious and unconscious through which the work emerges what Causes us to notice a piece of art is rarely the point being made we are drawn to the way an artist's filter refracts ideas not to the ideas themselves it's of no

use to know your point of view it's already there working in the background ever evolving efforts to portray point of view on purpose often lead to a false representation we hold on to stories about our perspective that are inaccurate and limiting Wayne Dyer said That when you squeeze an orange what comes out is orange juice when you get squeezed whatever comes out is what's inside you and part of that extract is the point of view you don't even know you have it's baked into the art you make and the opinions you share long after a

work is completed we may look back and understand our true point of view in it we don't need to make a point of making a point it will appear when it appears the true point is Already made in the innocent Act of perception and creation knowing this is Liber liberating it lifts some of the pressure we can worry less about understanding why it works or if others will understand where we are coming from we are free to be present and allow the material to come through us and free to stay out of its way when

it does come through much of Art's greatness is felt on a gut level your self-expression allows the audience to have their own Self-expression if your work speaks to them it is of no consequence if you are heard and understood set aside such concerns about whether your work will be comprehended these thoughts can only cause interference for both the art and audience most people aren't interested in being told what to think or feel great art is created through freedom of self-expression and received with freedom of individual Interpretation great art opens a conversation rather than closing it

and often this conversation is started by accident most human beings like to fit in we adapt not only to the evolving flow of material coming through us but the boundaries and templates of the culture around us can great art come from Conformity and what is the purpose of being an artist if we deny our unique personal point of view those of us choosing to live as artists embrace our Filter as a gift to reject it would be tragic the refracted light IT projects is our own singular landscape of artistic possibility how can a piece of

art ever truly be a guilty pleasure The Beatles were inspired by American rock and roll artists like Chuck Berry and the cherel but when they played it was different it wasn't different because they wanted it to be so it was different because they were different and the world responded there are countless Examples of imitation turning into legitimate Innovation having a romanticized vision of of an artist genre or tradition may allow you to create something new because you see it from a different perspective than those closer to it Sergio Leon's spaghetti westons are abstract psychedelic mythology

compared with the American Western of the 1940s and 50s that he hoped to mirror it's impossible to imitate another artist's point of view We can only swim in the same Waters so feel free to copy the works that inspire you on the road to finding your own voice it's a - tested tradition in the culture there's always a dialogue between the past the present and the future even when it's not clear what the influence is as creators and enthusiasts we share and receive points of view in order to participate in and further this exchange when

we hear something new it provides insight into where we've been And where else we could go we may have thought we could could only move forward but when someone turns left it shows we can also go right and then our right turn May perhaps Inspire someone else to explore an entirely New Direction it's a symbiotic Loop the culture informs who you are and who you are informs your work your work then feeds back into the culture this constant March into the unknown would not exist without the simultaneous sharing of millions of Divergent points of view

expressing oneself in the world and creativity are the same it may not be possible to know who you are without somehow expressing it breaking the sameness there are times during the craft phase when you hit a wall and the work isn't getting any better before stepping away from the piece it's worth finding a way to break the sameness and refresh your excitement in the work as if engaging with it for the first time In the recording studio I occasionally suggest exercises to artists with this goal in mind we attempt them without expectations regarding outcome the

intention is simply to rekindle excitement and access new ways of performance several of these exercises follow whether or not you find yourself at an impass perhaps they can Inspire similar experiments in your chosen Field small step to create movement for a musician who Was blocked we offered him a small task write just one line every day it didn't matter how good or bad he felt about the line as long as he committed to writing it if more came through that was fine but not necessary by breaking down what seemed insurmountable into single lines he was

able to reopen the creative Channel and eventually began composing entire songs again this happened much more quickly than expected Ed change the Environment if we're looking for a performance of a different nature it can help to change an element of the environment turning off the lights and playing in the dark can create a shift in Consciousness and break the chain of sameness from performance to Performance other shifts we've experimented with include having a singer hold the microphone instead of standing in front of it and recording early in the morning instead of at night to access

a greater Degree of variation one vocalist chose to hang upside down while singing change the stakes besides changing the external environment you can also change the inner if a band imagines that this is the last time they'll ever play a particular song They're likely to perform it differently than if it's just another take other times lower Stakes such as doing a rehearsal prior to recording may bring out the best Performance invite an audience when an artist thrives on being in front of a crowd we may bring in several people to watch a session being observed

changes how an artist acts even if the audience consists only of one person who isn't part of the project that can be enough while some artists May overdo a performance for an audience and Others May hold back most tend to be more focused with someone else present even if your art is non-performative such as Writing or cooking it will still likely change with an observer present the goal is to find the specific parameters in each case that bring out your best change the context there are times when a singer doesn't connect with a song like

an actor whose line reading Falls flat it can be helpful to create a new meaning or an additional backstory to a song's lyrics A Love Song might sound different if sung to a long lost soulmate a Partner of 30 years that you don't get along with a person you saw on the street but never spoke to or your mother with one artist I suggested singing a love song written to a woman as a devotional to God instead we can try many different permutations while singing the same song without changing any of the lyrics to see

which version brings out the best performance alter the perspective ATT Technique we sometimes Use in the studio is to turn up the volume on the headphones Extremely Loud when every sound explodes in your ears there's a natural tendency to play much quieter to restore the balance it's a forced perspective change and can bring out a very delicate performance even vocals will be whispered because anything more than that would be overwhelming conversely to coax someone to sing louder with more energy I might ask them to turn the vocal volume down In their headphones so their voice

is drowned out by the music whatever the situation if a task is challenging to accomplish there's often a way to design the surroundings to naturally encourage the performance you're striving for in a concert setting up the lighting so that the performer either sees the crowd and the face is in it or can't see anyone at all will alter the performance if a performer uses inear monitors and all they hear is the music they're playing And not the audience response it will be very different than if the screaming of the crowd is mixed in it's worth

experimenting with different scenarios to observe what they bring out and to find the performance you want write for someone else in the case of a musician who typically writes their own material I'll suggest imagine that a favorite artist asked you to write a song for their next album what would that song sound like by Creating something you'd be EXC excited to hear your favorite artist perform it depersonalizes the process and can allow the writer to break free of themsel a quintessential song of female empowerment you make me feel like a natural woman was written by

Carol King and Jerry Goffin King and then of course artha Franklin sang it I was surprised to learn that Goffin wrote the lyrics and King the music at times I will ask the musician to select an artist Whose lyrics and point of view are very different from their own as a way to avoid the sameness that can occur in a career over time if an artist is normally full of bragado doio we may choose a more vulnerable soft spoken Lyricist if you tend to write in style X it can be interesting to choose an artist

who is the polar opposite of X this doesn't mean the song will be good it's just interesting to see where it leads and sometimes it leads you right Where you're going like the other exercises this can be applied to any craft if you're a painter creating an original new work by your favorite artist can open a channel and lead to interesting results many artists have a perceived idea of what's in their wheelhouse and that's ultimately a limitation so it's helpful to step out of yourself and into someone else's wheelhouse add imagery I was working on

an album and The band was struggling with the keyboard solo the mood wasn't right we wanted something more Grand so instead of a musical reference we created a scene we came up with a description of the aftermath of a battle imagine there's a beautiful Green Hill Covered in trees and Flora just breathtaking and a battle has just ended smoke drifts off the hill and reveals wounded soldiers scattered along it waiting for help to arrive we painted the scene very vividly Then said play the solo life like that and hit record the keyboardist began playing beautifully

since then it's been a technique we've continued to use often we don't even know what the connections are between the image and what we want to hear thinking of a specific image or story or imagining that you're scoring a film and then starting to play will often bring a stronger direction to a Meandering tune limit the Information when a songwriter sends a demo of a track for a band to record in the studio I don't want the musicians to in any way be informed by the musical choices made for the demo so I'll typically have

one musician usually a guitar player listen to it and learn the chords notate them on the lyric sheet and give that to the band the guitar player and the singer May then perform it with no suggestion of Rhythm other than the speed implied by the way they Play it when you're working with great musicians this leaves them free to bring in more of themselves rather than recording a good version of the demo they will use the full range of their creativity and decision-making abilities to take the song somewhere new and often unexpected if the results

aren't great after trying different approaches they can always listen to the demo at that point though that rarely happens the general principle is to be protective And limit people you're working with from experiencing things that could inter fear with their creative process limit the information to the barest of sketches if you want creators to bring all of themselves to something give them the most freedom to create if you give a screenwriter a book an outline or a sentence to turn into a script each will lead to a very different screenplay these exercises are not set

in stone the intention is to establish different Perspectives or conditions and see where you or your collaborators end up consider creating your own versions of these experiments or if using these specific ones feel free to change the parameters as you're working or remove them all together when the time is right the actual exercises are of little importance the purpose is to set up a structure to go beyond your usual method and find new ways forward Completion as the work improves through the craft phase you'll come to the point where all of the options available to

you have been explored sufficiently the seed has achieved its full expression and you've pruned it to your satisfaction nothing is left to add or take away the work's Essence Rings clear there's a sense of fulfillment in these moments from here we advance into the final movement of the creative process in the completion phase We Leave Behind Discovery and building with a beautiful volume of material crafted before us the final form is refined to be released into the world the finishing touches and fine tuning are different for every project they may be as simple as putting

a frame on a painting color correcting a film tweaking a song's Final Mix or rereading a manuscript to make sure the phrasing is just right as with the other stages of the creative act the completion phase isn't a clear line you Cross in a forward journey in the process of preparing your work to share you may realize there's more to be done a revision an addition a deletion or some other change may be called for so you step back to craft or experiment and work your way forward once more we can think of the completion

phase as the last stop on an assembly line the finished piece is examined to ensure it meets your highest standards if it doesn't meet them you send it back to be Improved once it does you sign off on it let it go and begin the next chapter of your life's work work whatever that may be once you feel a project is close to completion it can be helpful to open the work to other perspectives the primary aim is not to receive notes or opinions this is your work your expression you are the only audience that

matters the intention is for you to experience the work a new when playing music for someone else we hear it differently than When we listen to it ourselves it's as if borrowing a second set of ears we're not necessarily looking for an outside perspective we are more interested in widening our own if we write an essay and give it to a friend before even hearing their perspective our relationship to the work changes give it to a mentor and our perspective shifts in a different way we interrogate ourselves when we offer our work up to others

we ask the questions we didn't Ask ourselves when we were making it sharing it in this limited capacity brings our underlying doubts to light if someone chooses to share feedback listen to understand the person not the work people will tell you more about themselves than about the art when giving feedback we each see a unique World occasionally a comment will strike home it will resonate with something we feel either in our awareness or just behind it and we may discover room for Improvement other times a judgment will hit a nerve and we find ourselves defending

the work or losing faith in these moments it may be helpful to step away reset and return with a neutral mind criticism allows us to engage with our work in a new way we may agree or we may double down on our original instincts sometimes a challenge allows us to focus on an aspect of the work and realize it's more important than we previously thought in the Process we access deeper wells of understanding into the work and ourselves as you collect feedback the solutions offered may not always seem helpful before discarding them take a moment

to see if they're pointing to an underlying problem you hadn't noticed for example if there's a suggestion to remove the bridge of a song you might interpret that as it's worth re-examining the bridge and then set about looking at it in the context of The entire piece if you've truly created an Innovative work it's likely to alienate as many people as it attracts the best art divides the audience If Everyone likes it you probably haven't gone far enough in the end you are the only one who has to love it this work is for you

when is the work done there is no formula or method for finding this answer it is an intuition the work is done when you feel it is although we avoid deadlines early in the Process in the complete comption phase a due date could help bring time into focus and support you in completing the work art doesn't get made on the clock but it can get finished on the clock some find this phase to be the most difficult part of the process they resist letting go with a stubborn ferocity up until this point the clay is

still soft everything can change once fixed we lose control this fear of permanence is common Beyond art it is Known as commitment phobia when the last chapter is about to end we may create excuses to put off the completion of the work it can be a sudden loss of faith in the project deciding it's no longer good enough we find flaws that don't really exist we make inconsequential changes we sense the distant Mirage of some better creative option that hasn't been discovered yet and if only we just keep working it might arrive someday when you

believe the work before you you is the Single piece that will forever Define you it's difficult to Let It Go the urge for Perfection is overwhelming it's too much we are frozen and sometimes end up convincing ourselves that discarding the entire work is the only way to move forward the only art the world gets to enjoy is from creators who've overcome these hurdles and released their work perhaps still greater artists existed than the ones we know but they were never able to make this leap releasing a Work into the world becomes easier when we remember

that each piece can never be a total reflection of us only a reflection of who we are in this moment if we wait it's no longer today's reflection in a year we may be guided to create a piece that looks nothing like it there is a timeliness to the work the passing of Seasons could dissipate the value the work holds for us hanging on to your work is like spending years writing the same entry in a diary Moments and opportunities are lost the next works are robbed of being brought to life how many pages will

be left empty because your process was dampened by doubt and deliberation keep this question in the front of your mind it might allow you to move forward more freely in an environment where nothing is permanent we produce static artifacts momentos of spirit we hope they'll live forever holding resonance through each passing decade some might many won't It's impossible to know we can only keep building when you and the work are in sync there's a time to put it out and move on each new project is another opportunity to communicate what's coming through you it's another

chance at bat another opportunity to connect another page filled in the Diary of your inner life concerns about releasing a work into the world may be rooted in deeper anxieties it could be a fear of being judged misunderstood ignored or disliked Will more ideas come will they ever be this good again will anyone even care part of the process of letting go is releasing any thoughts of how you or your peace will be received when making art the audience comes last let's not consider how a piece will be received or our release strategy until the

work is finished and we love it this is different from a work being perfect we can engage with any of the works we've been a part of and recognize things Wrong with them maybe we didn't in the moment we finish them but when looking back we often do there are forever changes to be made there is no right version every work of art is simply an iteration one of the greatest rewards of making art is our ability to share it even if there is no audience to receive it we build the muscle of making something

and putting it out into the world World finishing our work is a good habit to develop it boosts confidence Despite our insecurities the more times we can bring ourselves to release our work the less weight insecurity has avoid overthinking when you're happy with the work and you're moved to share it with a friend it might be time to share it with the world as well this Final Phase is a fertile time to plant a new crop of seeds the excitement of what's coming next can generate at the vital energy needed to bring the current work

to its close you may find it a Struggle to keep yourself focused on the project at hand when new ideas start coming at you this is a good problem to have riding the life force of the project to come often breaks us out of the trance of the present piece we can't wait to finish because there's another idea calling that lights us up is it time for the next project because the clock or calendar says it's time or because the the work itself says it's time the Abundant Mindset a river of material flows through us

when we share our works and our ideas they are replenished if we block the Flow by holding them all inside the river cannot run and new ideas are slow to appear in the Abundant mindset the river never runs dry ideas are always coming through and an artist is free to release them with the faith that more will arrive if we live in a mindset of scarcity we hoard great ideas a comedian may be presented with a Perfect opportunity to tell a favorite new joke they've written but instead we'll hold it back waiting for a more

high-profile occasion when we use our material new content comes through and the more we share the more our skills improve choosing to live in scarcity leads to stagnation if we work on one project forever we never get to make another the fear of drought and the impulse for perfectionism prevent us from moving on and block the rivers flow Each mindset evokes a universal rule whatever we concentrate on we get if the mind creates a world that is limited where we think we don't have enough worthwhile ideas or material we will not see the inspiration the

universe is providing and the river slows in the Abundant world we have a greater capacity to complete and release our work when there are so many ideas available and so much great art to make we are compelled to engage let go and Move forward if there is only one work to do and we intend to retire when it's done there is no impetus to finish if each piece is approached as our life's defining work we revise and overwrite endlessly aiming for the unrealistic ideal of perfection a musician May delay releasing an album for fear they

haven't taken the songs as far as they can go yet an album is only a diary entry of a moment of time a snapshot reflection of who the artist is for that period and no One diary entry is our life story our life's work is far greater than any individual container the works we do are at most chapters there will always be a new chapter and another after that though some might be better than others that is not our concern our objective is to be free to close one chapter and move on to the next

and to continue that process for as long as it pleases us your old work isn't better than your new work and your new work isn't better than The old there will be highs and lows throughout an artist life to assume there was a golden period and your past it is only true if you accept that premise putting your best effort in at each moment in each chapter is all we can ever hope to accomplish there is always more we can improve or another version to be made we could work on something for another two years

and it will be different but there's no way to know if it will be better or worse only Different just as you will be and you may have evolved past the work you spent years laboring on the direct reflection of you has faded the work begins to look like an old photo instead of a mirror image it's dispiriting to complete and share a work you've lost connection with the recognition of abundance fills us with hope that our brightest ideas still await us and our greatest work is yet to come we are able to live in

an energized state of creative momentum free to make Things let them go make the next thing and Let It Go with each chapter we make we gain experience improve at our craft and inch closer to who we are the experimenter and the finisher in their nature many artists lean toward one of two categories experimenters or finishers experimenters are partial to dreaming and play finding it more difficult to complete and release their work finishes are the mirror image a backward reflection they Move quickly to the end point with immediate Clarity they are less interested in exploring

the possibilities and Alternatives that the experimentation and craft phases can suggest each might find it helpful to borrow from the other finishers might benefit from taking more time in the early phases writing beyond the minimum requirement experimenting with other materials considerations and perspectives allowing themselves space For improvisation and surprise in the process experimenters might benefit from taking an aspect of the work through to completion it might be a drawing a song or the chapter of a book even making one foundational decision from which to build can help take the example of an album if you're

a musician struggling with 10 songs narrow your focus to two when we make the task more manageable and focused a change occurs and completing even a small segment builds Confidence going from 2 to three is easier than going from 0 to two and if you happen to get stuck on three then skip it and get four and five done complete as many elements of the project as you can without getting hung up it's much easier to Circle back once the workload is reduced often the knowledge we gain from finishing the other pieces becomes a key

to overcoming earlier obstacles temp temporary rules much of the artistic process Involves ignoring rules letting go of rules undermining rules and rooting out rules that we didn't know we were following there is also a place for imposing rules for using rules as a tool to define a given project when there are no material time and budget constraints you have unlimited options when you accept limitations your range of choices is reduced whether imposed by Design or by necessity it's helpful to see limitations as opportunities think of This as setting a pallet for each project Within These

constraints the problem solving aspects become more specific and the most obvious Solutions may not be available this culling can help give new work its character and set it apart from past efforts with potential for groundbreaking results novel problems lead to original Solutions George perek wrote an entire book without using the most common letter of The French alphabet e it went on to become one of the most celebrated experimental Works in modern literature the painter Eve kleene decided to limit his palette to one color this led him to discover a shade of blue no one had

ever seen before the shade itself was seen by many as effectively becoming the art and was later named International CL blue the director lass Von came up with 10 rules Dogma 95 the vow of Chastity Designed to reduce the artificiality of film making they were as follows shooting must be performed on location without providing props or sets that don't logically exist within that setting deetic sound only sounds must never be produced such as music that does not exist within the scene all shock shots must be handheld movement immobility and stability must be attained by hand

the film must be in color with no special lighting if There's not enough exposure a single lamp may be attached to the camera there can be no Optical work or lens filters no superficial action such as staged murders elaborate stunts Etc geographical alienation is strictly forbidden meaning the film must take place here and now no genre movies Academy 35 mme is the only accepted film format directors must not be credited 3 years after the Manifest Announcement the first official Dogma 95 film was released by Thomas vinterberg titled the celebration feston the film was an instant

critical success winning the jury prize at the 1998 can film festival inspired by von Trier the keyboardist money Mark made a similar set of rules applicable to music to record one of his most highly regarded albums the rules of baseball or basketball Define the game and are rarely altered Innovation exists only Within those rules as artists we get to create a new set of rules each and every time we play after careful consideration we may choose to break them in the midst of a project if a discovery impels us while it's easy to make these

changes there's little use to rules if they are not taken seriously there are no bad rules or good rules only rules that fit the situation and serve the art or those that don't if the goal is to create the most beautiful work possible then Whatever directives are truly in service to that end are the right ones to use the imposition of rules is most valuable for an artist who has already made some work if you're established in a craft or field temporary rules may be useful to break a pattern they can challenge you to become

better to innovate and to bring out a new side of yourself or your work some virtuoso artists choose to switch to less familiar instruments or mediums because the challenge reveals Them as the artist they truly are without the distraction of their technical skill set parameters that Force you out of your comfort zone if you always write on a laptop try using a yellow legal pad if you're right-handed paint using your left hand if you base your Melodies on instrumentals write one Acappella if you film using professional equipment consider making an entire movie with only the

camera in your phone if you Always prepare for acting roles through research try a blind improvisation whatever you choose decide on a framework that breaks your normal Rhythm and see where it leads just by the nature of of the limitations you set the work will be different from what you've done before it is of little importance whether it's better the purpose is self-discovery if you typically write short paragraphs you may decide to Experiment with long paragraphs you may not like the new form as much but you'll probably learn something in the process that will improve

the short paragraphs by breaking the rules you'll come to have a greater understanding of your past choices an issue for some success artists when considering changes in style or method is concern for their following they ask will the audience come along for the ride in exploring New Horizons you may very well lose some Fans new fans may also appear whatever the case the decision to limit your work to The Familiar is a disservice to both yourself and your audience the energy of Wonder and Discovery can get lost when treading the same ground over and over

again a rule is a way of structuring awareness greatness imagine going to live on a Mountaintop by yourself forever you build a home that no one will ever visit still you invest the time and effort to shape the space in Which you'll spend your days the wood the plates the pillows all magnificent curated to your taste this is the essence of great art we make it for no other purpose than creating our version of the beautiful bringing all of our to every project whatever its parameters and constraints consider it an offering a devotional act we

do the best as we see the best with our own taste no one else's we create our art so we may inhabit it ourselves measurement of Greatness is subjective like art itself there is no hard metric we are performing for an audience of one if you think I don't like it but someone else will you not making art for yourself you found yourself in the business of Commerce which is fine it just may not be art there's no bright line between the two the more formulaic your creation is the more it hugs the shore of

what's been popular the less like art it's likely to be and in fact creativity in That Spirit often fails even at its own goals there is no more valid metric to predict what someone else might enjoy than us liking it ourselves fear of criticism attachment to a commercial result competing with past work time and resource constraints the aspiration of wanting to change the world and any story Beyond I want to make the best thing I can make whatever it is are all undermining forces in the Quest for greatness instead of focusing on what Making this

will bring you focus on what you contribute to this art to make it the best it could possibly be with no limitation if you're creating something with a solely functional purpose such as a car designed to reach a certain top speed other intentions May matter if your project is purely artistic then redirect your inner voice to focus on pure creative intent with the objective of Simply doing great work a ripple effect occurs a bar is set for Everything you do which may not only lift your work to new heights but raise the vibration of your

entire life it may even Inspire others to do their best work greatness begets greatness it's infectious success how shall we measure success it isn't popularity money or critical esteem success occurs in the privacy of the Soul it comes in the moment you decide to release the work before exposure to a single opinion when you've Done all you can to bring out the work's greatest potential when you're pleased and ready to let go success has nothing to do with variables outside yourself to move forward is an aspect of success this happens when we finish a work

share it and begin a new project whatever comes after this quiet feeling of accomplishment is subject to market conditions conditions Beyond us our calling is to make beautiful Works to the best of our ability sometimes they Will be applauded or rewarded sometimes not if we second guess our inner knowing to attempt to predict what others may like our best work will never appear popular success is a poor barometer of work and worth in order for a work to connect commercially stars must align and none of them relate to how good the project is it might

be the timing the distribution mechanism the mood of the culture or a connection to current events if a global catastrophe happens On the same day a project comes out the project might be overshadowed if you've made a stylistic change your fans may not initially be receptive to it if a highly anticipated work by another artist is released on the same day your project may not land with the same impact most variables are completely out of our control the only ones we can control are doing our best work sharing it starting the next and not looking

back it's not uncommon to long for Outward success hopeful it will fill a void inside ourselves some imagine achievement as a remedy to fix or heal a sense of not being enough artists who work diligently to accomplish this are rarely prepared for the reality of it most aspects of popularity are not as advertised and the artist is often just as empty as they were before probably more so if you are living in the belief that success will cure your your pain when the treatment comes and doesn't Work it can lead to hopelessness a depression can

accompany the realization that what you've spent most of your life chasing hasn't fixed your insecurities and vulnerabilities more likely with the stakes and consequences now higher it has only Amplified the pressure and we are never taught how to handle this epic disappointment a loyal audience can begin to feel like a prison a musician might begin working in a particular Genre because it's the one they love and might achieve great success with it if their taste changes they may feel chained to the old way because there are now managers publicists agents assistants and others who have

a stake in their commercial success on a personal level they may even tie their own identity to the style of work they've inhabited in the past whenever an instinct toward movement and evolution arises it's wise to listen to It the alternative being trapped by a fear of losing ground is a dead end you may lose your enjoyment and belief in the work because it's no longer true to you as a result the work May ring Hollow and fail to engage the audience anyway consider that it might not have been your initial style that attracted success

but your personal passion within it so if your passion changes course follow it your trust in your instincts and excitement are what resonates with Others the same outcome can be viewed as a great success or a terrible failure depending on the perspective this perception can have a momentum that's carried forth through the writer's career being labeled a failure with a work that was successful by most other metrics can make moving forward that much more difficult to navigate this is why it's grounding to protect your personal understanding of success and to make each new work no

matter where you Stand on the the ladder of public perception like you have nothing to lose if we can tune into the idea of making things and sharing them without being attached to the outcome the work is more likely to arrive in its truest form connected Detachment possibility consider detaching from the story of your life as it's happening the manuscript of the novel you've worked on for years is lost in a fire your romantic relationship breaks up when you Thought it was going well you lose a job you care about as hard as it may

seem seek to experience events like these as if you're watching a movie you're observing a dramatic scene where the protagonist faces a seemingly insurmountable challenge it's you but it's not you instead of sinking into the pain of heartbreak or the stress of being laid off or the grief of loss if practicing Detachment the response might be I wasn't expecting that plot twist I Wonder what's going to happen to our hero next there's always a next scene and that next scene may be one of great Beauty and fulfillment the hard times were the required setup to

allow these new possibilities to come into being the outcome is not the outcome the darkness is not an end point nor is the daylight they live in a continually unfolding mutually dependent cycle neither is bad or good they simply exist this practice of never Assuming an experience you have is the whole story will support you in a life of open possibility and equinity when we obsessively focus on these events they may appear catastrophic but they're just a small aspect of a larger life and the further you zoom back the smaller each experience becomes zoom in

and obsess zoom out and observe we get to choose when we reach an impass we may experience feelings of hopelessness the Ability to stay out of the story Zoom back and see new Pathways into and around a challenge will be of boundless use if we allow this principle to work on us as we work on it our imagination frees us from the web of personal and cultural stories engulfing us art has the power to snap us out of our trans fiction open our minds to what's possible and reconnect with the Eternal energy that moves through

all things the Ecstatic have you ever felt pulled in as if entranced while listening to a piece of music how about while reading a book or gazing at a painting this may be one of the reasons you're drawn to creative work to begin with the memory the recurring experience of sensory Joy it's like biting into a piece of fruit at the peak of its ripeness now think of everything held in a work that comes before the moment of Perfect Balance all the experiments that miss the mark the Ideas that go nowhere the difficult decisions that

are made the tiny adjustments that seem to change everything what is the test an artist uses in those crucial moments during the process how do you know when the work and the working is good how can you tell when you're moving in the right direction what does forward MO look like you could say it's a feeling an inner voice a silent whisper that makes you laugh an energy that enters the room and Possesses the body call it Joy awe or Elation when a sense of Harmony and fulfillment suddenly prevails it is an arising of the

ecstatic the ecstatic is our compass pointing to our true north it arises genuinely in the process of creation you're working and struggling and suddenly you notice a shift a revelation a small tweak is made a new angle is revealed and it takes your breath away it can arise from even the most seemingly mundane detail the change Of a word in a sentence instantly the passage morphs from nonsense to poetry and everything falls into place an artist will be in the throws of creation and the work may seem unremarkable for a while suddenly a shift occurs

or for a moment is revealed and the same peace now seems extraordinary so little was needed to make the leap from mediocrity to Greatness the leap can't always be understood but when it happens it's clear and enlivening this can occur at Any point during a project you may be moving along in the neutral zone for some time you hit a new note and suddenly you feel magnetized you're engaged you lean forward and feel a rush of energy like an answered prayer this feeling is the affirmation that you're on the right path it is a nudge

to keep going a sign that you're working in the direction of greatness that there is deeper truth in what you're doing it's grounded in something worthy this Epiphany is the heart of creativity it's something we feel in our whole body it causes us to snap to attention and Quicken our heartbeat or to laugh in Surprise it gives us a glimpse of a higher ideal opening new possib abilities in us that we didn't know were there it is so invigorating that it makes all of the laborious less interesting parts of the work worth doing we are

mining for these events the moments when the dots connect we Revel In the satisfaction of seeing the whole shape come into clear Focus the nature of the ecstatic is animalistic a visceral body centered reaction not a cerebral one it doesn't have to make sense it is not meant to be understood it is there there to guide us the intellect may help complete the work and it may decipher what is driving our Delight in hindsight but the making of art depends on getting out of our heads part of the beauty of creation is that We can

surprise ourselves and make something greater than we're capable of understanding at the time if we ever can latent ideas and emotions hiding in deeper layers of the psyche may find their way into our lyrics scenes and canvases many artists come to realize long after their work is released that it was actually a shockingly vulnerable and cryptic form of public confession a part of themselves was trying to find resolution or to find a voice the depth Of our work doesn't necessarily matter though when you follow your instinctual bodily reactions you'll often arrive at more profound places

than you otherwise would the ecstatic can be experienced in different ways at times it's a sense of relaxed EXC excitement like when you're asked a question that you don't think you know the answer to yet you find yourself responding perfectly from a deeper sense of knowing a rising of energy in the body May create a calm Invigorating confidence other times it is a moment of astonishment when you feel emotions so powerful that you can't believe they're happening they jolt your reality and push you into a sense of disbelief like realizing you're driving into oncoming traffic

then there's a Third Kind where you're gently transported out of reality without knowing it while listening to a song you may find yourself closing your eyes and being taken somewhere when it ends You're almost bewildered to find yourself back in your body as if Awakening from a spontaneous dream tune in to these feelings in your creative work look for the reactions within of all the experiences that occur during the creative process touching the ecstatic and allowing it to guide our hand are the most profound and precious point of reference every so often you hear a

new recording by an artist you've been Following for a period of time who's breaking strange new ground it feels odd to hear the work at first it seems unfamiliar you have no context for it you may not be sure you like it you may even reject it still you're compelled to listen again and again a new pattern begins to emerge in your brain what was strange becomes a little more familiar you start to see how it connects to what came before it begins to click in your mind whether you like it or not and then

One day you realize you can't live without it when a beloved artist thwarts our expectations or a new artist defies known precedence it can be confusing initially the work may feel unsatisfying or of no interest whatsoever when once we get over the hump of adapting ourselves to the new pallet these can end up being our favorite Works conversely works we like immediately might not have that same power down the road the very same phenomenon can happen While making our own work if you're looking for solutions to a problem or a new project to begin you

may react in a strongly negative way to an option that Springs forth this can be when the idea is so new that you don't have any context for it when when we don't have context new ideas appear foreign or awkward sometimes the ideas that least match our expectations are the most Innovative by definition revolutionary ideas have no context they invent their Own when we initially experience the radically new our first instinct might be to push it away and think this isn't for me and sometimes it may not be other times it could lead to our

most enduring important work be aware aware of strong responses if you're immediately turned off by an experience it's worth examining why powerful reactions often indicate deeper wells of meaning and perhaps by exploring them you'll be led to the next step on your creative path Non-competition art is about the maker its aim to be an expression of who we are this makes competition absurd every artist's playing field is specific to them you creating the work that best represents you another artist is making the work that best represents them the two cannot be measured against one another

art relates to the artist making it and the unique contribution they are bringing to the culture some may argue that competition inspires greatness the Challenge of exceeding what others have accomplished can act as an incentive to push our creative limits in most cases though this energy of competition oscillates at a lower vibration wanting to outperform another artist or make a work better than theirs rarely results in true greatness nor is it a mindset that has a healthy impact on the rest of our lives as Theodore Roosevelt pointed out comparison is the thief of Joy besides

why would we want to create with The purpose of diminishing someone else when another great work inspires us to elevate our own however the energy is different seeing the bar raised in our field can encourage us to reach even higher this energy of rising to meet is quite different from that of conquering when Brian Wilson first heard the Beatles Rubber Soul his mind was blown if I ever do anything in my life I'm going to make that good an album he thought at the time he went on to Explain I was so happy to hear

it that I went and started writing God Only Knows being made Happy by someone else's best best work and then letting it inspire you to rise to the occasion is not competition it's collaboration when Paul McCartney heard the resulting Beach Boys album Pet Sounds he too was blown away and reduced to tears proclaiming God Only Knows was to his ears the best song ever written boyed by The Experience The Beatles Played Pet Sounds over and over while creating another Masterpiece Sergeant Pepper only Hearts Club Band without Pet Sounds Sergeant Pepper never would have happened Beatles

producer George Martin said Peppa was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds this creative back and forth wasn't based on Commercial competition it was based on mutual love and we are all the beneficiaries of this upward spiral toward magnificent no system exists that can rank which work is most Reflective of the maker great art is an invitation called calling to creators everywhere to strive for still higher and deeper levels there is another type of competitiveness that might be seen as an infinite gain a story that can continue to unfold over the course of an artist's life

this is the competition with the self think of self-c competition as a quest for evolution the object is not to beat our other work it's to move things forward and create a Sense of progression growth over superiority our ability and taste May evolve yielding different works over time but none can be evaluated as more or less than another they are different snapshots of who we are and who we were they are all our best work in the moment they were created with each new project we are challenging ourselves to most beautifully reflect what's living in

us at that particular window of time in this Spirit of self-competition task Yourself to go further and push into the unexpected don't stop even at greatness Venture Beyond Essence all the work we do no matter how intricate holds an underlying Essence a core Identity or fundamental structure like a skeleton supporting flesh some might call it an isness if a child draws a picture of a house it may have a window a roof and a door if you take away the window and look at the picture It's it's still a house if you take away the

door it's still a house if you take away the roof and the outer walls and leave the window and the door it is no longer clear whether it's still a house in the same way each piece of art has a unique lifegiving feature that makes it what it is it might be the theme the organizing principle the artist point of view the quality of the performance the materials the mood conveyed or a combination of elements any of these can Play a role in forming the essence if a sculptor makes a work out of stone or

out of clay the experience of that work is very different yet a work of stone and one of clay can have the same Essence the essence is always there and our job in the craft phase is not to obscure it a work's Essence may also change from the time you start until the time you finish as you refine the work add elements and move pieces around and new different Essence May emerge Sometimes you may not yet know the essence when you're engaged in the work you're merely experimenting and playing when you end up with something

you like you may come to realize what the essence is distilling a work to get it as close to its Essence as possible is a useful and informative practice notice how many pieces you can remove before the work you're making ceases to be the work you're making refine it to the point where it is stripped bare in its least DEC deorative form yet still intact with nothing extra sometimes the ornamentation can be of use often not less is generally more if you have two units you want to put together whether it be two sentences or

two parts of a song there can be a tremendous amount of power in doing so without using a transition try finding the simplest most elegant way to put a point across with the least amount of information if there's any question as to whether an Element serves the piece it's probably a good idea to let it go some artists get superstitious about removing aspects of a work as if it will make the project evaporate before their eyes so it's worth remembering that anything taken away can always be put back later if needed Perfection is finally obtained

not when there is no longer anything to add but when there's no longer anything to take away Onan Deupi wind sand and stars in the end the sum total of the essence of our individual Works may serve as a reflection the closer we get to the true essence of each work the sooner they will somehow at some point in time provide clues as to our own Apocrypha every artist has Heroes creators whose work we connect with whose methods we aspire to whose words we cherish these exceptional Talents can seem Beyond human like mythological figures from

a distance what can we know to be true without witnessing a beloved work's actual creation it's impossible to know what truly happened and if we did observe the process with our own eyes our account would be an outside interpretation at best the stories about how Works get made and the rituals of the artists who make them are generally exaggerated and often pure fiction a work of art happens Naturally of its own accord we may wonder where the underlying idea came from and how each individual element was put together to produce such a Masterwork but nobody

knows how or why these things happen often not even the maker in cases when the artist thinks they know their interpretation may not be accurate or the whole story we live in a mysterious world full of uncertainties and we regularly make assumptions to explain them coming to Terms with the complexity of our Human Experience allows us to exit our natural state of confusion to survive generally our explanations are guesses these vague hypotheticals become fixed in our minds as fact we are interpretation machines and this process of labeling and detaching is efficient but not accurate we

are the unreliable narrators of our own experience so when an artist creates a work that comes together by an unseen hand and the process is later analyzed What we get is more storytelling this is art history art reality is forever unknown these stories may be interesting and fun to think about but to believe a specific method is responsible for the quality of a work is misleading especially if it causes you to repeat that process in hopes of achieving a similar result legendary figures in art and history are sometimes held up as deities it is counterproductive

to measure ourselves Against them because they never existed as such they are beings with typical human vulnerabilities and flaws just like us each artist works with their own balance of strengths and weaknesses and there is no rule that more praiseworthy strengths or romanticize self-destruction equals better art expressing yourself is all that matters all art is a form of poetry it's always changing never fixed we may think we know what a piece we made means yet Over time that interpretation may change the Creator stops being the Creator once they finish the work they then become the

viewer and the viewer can bring as much of their own meaning to a piece as the Creator we will never know a work's true meaning it's helpful to remember that there are forces at work beyond our comprehension let's make art and let others make the stories we are dealing in a magic realm nobody knows why or how it Works tuning out undermining voices we may take years even decades to create our first project it typically develops in a vacuum in an ordinary way in a conversation mostly with ourselves after we share it outside influences can

emerge an audience appears whether it consists of friends or large groups of strangers individuals and companies with business interests can sign on and as we begin to work on our next project loud outer voices may speak at us from the Sidelines influencing Us in different creative directions demanding the work now without concern for Quality as these voices enter an artist's head concern for deadlines deals sales media attention Public Image staff overhead growing the audience keeping the existing fan base they can undermine our Focus the intention of our art can shift from self-expression to self- sustainment

from creative choices to business decisions the key to navigating This phase of an artistic journey is learning to tune out to prevent external pressures from entering our inner process and interfering with the pure creative state it helps to recall the clear mindset that produced the first work and allowed success to happen originally set aside not just business concerns but the needs and thoughts of these outside voices keep them out of your Consciousness while in pursuit of your best work when you're able to focus Purely on creativity and work in a Sacred Space everyone benefits and

all other priorities are served at any stage in a career the critic in your head may make its voice heard repeating that you're not talented enough your idea isn't good enough art isn't a worthwhile investment of your time the result won't be well received you're a failure or there may be a contrary voice that tells you that everything you do is perfect and you Will be the greatest phenomenon the world has ever seen more often than not these are outer voices that were absorbed early in life perhaps a critical or doting parent teacher or Mentor

these Vo voices are not our own we have internalized someone else's judgment so it can be met with the same indifference as the other random chatter any pressure you feel around the work from the inside or outside is a signal for Self-examination the artist's goal is to keep themselves pure and unattached to avoid letting stress responsibility fear and dependence on a particular outcome distract and if it does it's never too late to reset the first step of clearing is acknowledgement notice yourself feeling the weight of self-criticism or the pressure to live up to expectations and

remember that commercial success is completely out of your control all that Matters is that you are making something you love to the best of your ability Here and Now working to free yourself from inner voices is a kind of meditation set aside all concerns for a stretch of time and say I'm only going to to focus on this one practice making great work if any distractions come along during that period don't ignore them or focus on them don't give them any energy at all let them pass like clouds parting around a mountain Regularly engaging in

this practice builds the muscle of focused intention which you can use in everything you do self-awareness as as children few of us are taught to understand and prioritize our feelings for the most part the educational system doesn't ask us to access our sensitivity but to be obedient to do what is expected our natural independent spirit is tamed free thought is constrained there is a set of Rules and expectations put upon us that is not about exploring who we are or what we're capable of the system is not here for our benefit it holds us back

as individuals to support its own continued existence this is particularly undermining to Independent thinking and free expression as artists our mission is not to fit in or conform to popular thinking our purpose is to value and develop our understanding of ourselves and the world around us to be self-aware Is to have the ability to tune in to what we think how we feel and how much we feel it without interference to notice how we notice the outside world a well-tuned ability to expand and refine our self-awareness is the key to making revelatory works sometimes there

are many versions of pretty good how do we know when we arrive at greatness self-awareness allows us to listen to what's going on in the body and notice the energetic changes that either pull Us forward or push us away sometimes they are subtle other times intense our definition of self-awareness as artists relates directly to the way we tune into our inner experience not the way we are externally perceived the more we identify with ourself as it exists Through The Eyes of others the more disconnected we become and the less energy we have to draw from

we extend our reach for a higher Consciousness Releasing attachment to our perceived self and limitations we are seeking not to Define ourselves but to expand ourselves to tune in to our limitlessness nature and connection to all that is self-awareness is a Transcendence an abandonment of ego a letting go this notion may seem elusive because in the same breath it includes tuning in to the self and surrendering the self yet these are not as contradictory as they may seem as Artists we are on a continual quest to get closer to the universe by getting closer to

self moving ever nearer to the point where we can no longer tell where one begins and the other ends we're on a distant metaphysical Journey from the here to the now it's helpful to work as if the project you're engaged in is bigger than you right before our eyes artists occasionally experience a sense of stagnation a block this isn't Because the flow of creativity has stopped it can't this generative energy is ceaseless it may just be that we are choosing not to engage with it think of an artistic impass as another type of creation a

block of your own making a decision conscious or unconscious not to participate in the Stream of productive energy that is available to us at all times when we feel constricted we might begin to create an opening through surrender if we let go of our analytical Thoughts the flow might be able to find a path through us more easily we can be and do rather than think and try create in the present rather than anticipating the future each time we surrender we may come to find that the answer we seek is right before our eyes a

new idea arises an object in the room inspires feelings in the body amplify this is worth considering in difficult moments when we appear to be stuck to have lost our way to have Nothing left to give what if this is all a story be mindful not to abandon a project prematurely because you have given in to All or Nothing thinking I have witnessed several artists start projects and throw them away for this very reason it's easy to create a piece recognize a flaw and want to discard the entire work this reflex happens in all areas

of life when you look at the work practice truly seeing what's there without a negativity bias be open to Seeing both strength and weakness instead of focusing on the weakness and allowing it to overwhelm the strength you might come to realize 80% of the work is quite good and if the other 20% fits in just the right way the work becomes magnificent this is far better than trashing the work because one small part isn't a perfect fit when you acknowledge a weakness always consider how it could either be removed or improved before discarding the entire

Piece what if the source of creativity is always there knocking patiently on the doors of our perception waiting for us to unbolt the locks if you are open and stay tuned to what's happening the answers will be revealed a whisper out of time it is common for an artist to question the weight of their ideas a 5-year long creative process might have begun with with a fleeting moment in a dream or a remark overheard in a parking Lot in hindsight this tiny seed that led us down a winding path may seem insignificant we might wonder

if it's big enough or if the direction is important enough to keep traveling when Gathering seeds to begin our work we may be tempted to look for a grand sign before committing ourselves a clap of Thunder to assure us that we found the right path we may discard ideas that don't seem of great importance or magnitude but the size does not matter Volume does not equal value we can't weigh Source material based on the initial impact it makes on arrival sometimes the smallest seed grows into the biggest tree the most innocent idea can lead to

the most consequential writing trivial insights can open the doors to vast new Worlds the most delicate message could be of the greatest importance even if the seed is nothing more than what we notice a a momentary perception an unexpected Thought even the echo of a memory it's enough most often the hints of inspiration and direction from Source are small they appear as Tiny signals traveling through the void of space quiet and subtle like a whisper to hear Whispers The Mind must also be quiet we pay close attention on all fronts our antenna sensitively tuned boosting

our receptivity May require a relaxing of effort if we're trying to solve a problem trying can get in the way Splashing in a pond stirs up clouds of dirt in the clear water in relaxing the mind we may have greater Clarity to hear the whisper when it comes in addition to meditation we might softly hold on to a question and go for a walk swim or drive the question isn't being worked on just loosely held in Awareness we are posing it gently gently to the universe and opening ourselves to receive an answer sometimes the words

seem to arise from the outside and other times the Inside whatever route the information arrives through we allow it to come by Grace not effort The Whisper cannot be wrestled into existence only welcomed with an open State of Mind expect a surprise if we're paying attention we may notice that some of our most interesting artistic choices come about by accident springing from moments of communion with the work when the self Disappears sometimes they feel like mistakes these mistakes are the subconscious engaged in problem solving they're a kind of creative Freudian slip where a deeper part

of you overrides your conscious intention and offers An Elegant solution when asked how it happened you may say that you don't know it just came through you in the moment in time we grow accustomed to experiencing moments that are difficult to explain moments where you give the Art exactly what it needs without intending to where a solution seems as if it appeared without your intervention at all in time we learn to count on the hand of the unknown for some artists being surprised is a rare experience but it's possible to cultivate this gift through invitation

one way is through letting go of control release all expectations about what the work will be approach the process with humility and the unexpected will visit more often Many of us are taught to create through sheer will if we choose surrender the ideas that want to come through us will not be blocked it's similar to writing a book by following a detailed outline set aside the outline write with no map and see what happens the premise you start with could develop into something more something you couldn't have planned and would never have Arisen if you

were locked into following a particular script with your intention set and the Destination Unknown you are free to surrender your conscious mind dive into the Raging stream of Creative Energy and watch the unexpected appear again and again as each small surprise leads to another you'll soon find the biggest surprise you learn to trust yourself in the universe with the universe as a unique channel to a higher wisdom this intelligence is beyond our understanding through Grace it is accessible to all living in Discovery is at all times Preferable to living through assumptions Great Expectations when beginning

a new project we're often met with anxiety it visits almost all of us no matter how experienced success ful or well prepared we might be in facing the void there is a tension of opposit there is an excitement for the possibility something great may be realized and a dread it might not and the result is out of our control the weight of our expectations Can grow heavy as does the fear that we are not up to the task at hand what if we can't pull it off this time what helps to keep these worries at

Bay and move forward is a trust in the process when we sit down to work remember that the outcome is out of our control if we are willing to take each step into the unknown with grit and determination carrying with us all of our collected knowledge we will ultimately get to where we're going this destination may Not be one we've chosen in advance it will likely be more interesting this isn't a matter of blind belief in yourself it's a matter of experimental Faith you work not as an evangelist expecting Miracles but as a scientist testing

and adjusting and testing again experimenting and building on the results faith is rewarded perhaps even more than Talent OR ability after all how can we offer the art what it needs without blind trust we are required to Believe in something that doesn't exist in order to allow it to come into being when we don't yet know where we're going we don't wait we move forward in the dark if nothing we attempt yields progress we rely on belief and will we may take several steps backward in the sequence to move ahead if we try 10 experiments

and none of them work we have a choice we can take it personally and think of ourselves as a failure and question our ability to solve the Problem or we can recognize we've ruled out 10 ways that don't work bringing us that much closer to a solution for the artist whose job is testing possibilities success is as much ruling out a solution as finding one that works in the process of experimentation we allow ourselves to make mistakes to go too far to go even further to be inept there is no failure as every step we

take is necessary to reach our destination including the missteps each Experiment is valuable in its own way if we learn something from it even if we can't comprehend its worth we are still practicing our craft moving ever so much closer to Mastery with unshakable faith we work under the assumption that the problem is already solved the answer is out there perhaps it's obvious we just haven't come across it yet over time as you complete more projects this faith in experimentation grows you're able to hold high expectations move forward with Patience and Trust the mysterious unfolding

before you with the understanding that the process will get you where you're going wherever that reveals itself to be and the Magical nature of the unfolding never ceases to take our breath away sometimes the mistakes are what makes a work great Humanity breathes in mistakes openness our minds seek rules and limits in attempting to navigate a large Uncertain world we develop beliefs that give us a coherent framework reduced options and a false sense of certainty before civilization the natural world was far more dangerous in order for humans to survive we had to assess situations and

pass information quickly this survival Instinct persists today with the overwhelming amount of information available to us we are more Reliant than ever on categorization labeling and shortcut few have the time And expert es to evaluate each new Choice with a completely open unbiased mind there is also a sense of security in shrinking our world to make it more manageable the artist does not value safety and smallness reducing our pallet to fit the perimeter of limited beliefs suppresses the work new creative possibilities and sources of inspiration are blocked from view if an artist keeps playing the

same note eventually the audience loses interest there's a Dullness in sameness at a certain point in the Creator's Journey the mind can become more resistant to new methods or new styles of expression a once useful routine might over time turn into a narrow fixed way of working to break out of this mindset our charge is to soften to become more porous and to let more light in to keep the artistic output evolving continually replenish the vessel from which it comes and actively stretch your point of view invite Beliefs that are different from the ones you

hold and try to see beyond your own filter purposely experiment past the boundaries of your taste examine approaches you may dismiss as to high brow or low brow what can we learn from these extremes what are the unexpected surprises what closed door might open in your work consider expanding this practice to relationships as well when a collaborator feedback or method seems questionable and conflicts with your Default setting reframe this as an exciting opportunity do all you can to see from their perspective and understand their point of view instead of Defending Your Own in addition to

solving the problem at hand you may uncover something new about yourself and become aware of the limits boxing you in the heart of open-mindedness is curiosity curiosity doesn't take Sid or insist on a single way of doing things it explores all perspectives always open To new ways always seeking to arrive at original insights craving constant expansion it looks upon the outer limits of the mind with Wonder it pushes to expose falsely set boundaries and break through to New Frontiers when we encounter an artistic problem the reason it's a problem is typically because it conflicts with

our accepted beliefs of what is and isn't possible or our expectations for what is expected to happen a song may begin to Veer away from our assumed genre a painter might run out of a certain type of paint a film director might experience a malfunction with a piece of equipment on set when something doesn't go according to plan we have a choice to either resist it or incorporate it instead of shutting the project down or expressing frustration we might consider what else can be done with the material materials at hand what Solutions can be improvised

how can the flow be Redirected there may be a beneficial purpose behind the issue at hand the universe could be leading us to an even better solution there's no way to know we can only flow with the challenges as they come and keep an open mind with no baggage no previous story to live up to we simply begin from a neutral Place allow the process to unfold and welcome the winds of change to guide the way many people may seem walled off but sometimes walls can provide different Ways of seeing over and around obstacles surrounding

the lightning bolt an explosion of information arrives in inspired moments how can we avoid becoming fixated on these bolts of lightning some artists live as stormchasers awaiting spontaneous strikes longing for the thrill a more constructive strategy is to focus Less on the lightning bolt and more on the spaces surrounding it the space before because lightning does not strike unless The right preconditions are met and the space after because the electricity dissipates if you do not capture it and use it when we are struck by an epiphany our experience of what's possible has been expanded in

that instant we are broken open we've entered a new reality even when we leave that heightened State the experience sometimes remains in US other times it's fleeting if lightning should strike and this information is channeled Through The Ether to us what follows is a great deal of practical work while we can't command a lightning Bolt's arrival we can control the space around it we accomplish this by preparing beforehand and honoring Our obligation to it afterward if lightning doesn't strike our work need not be delayed some stormchasers believe that inspiration precedes creation this is not always

the case working without lightning bolts is simply Working like Carpenters we show up each day and do our job sculptors need clay sweep the studio floor and lock up for the night graphic designers sit at their workstations select images choose fonts create layouts and hit save artists are ultimately crafts people sometimes our ideas come through bolts of lightning other times only through effort experiment and craft as we work we may notice connections and become surprised by The Wonder of what's revealed through The doing itself in a way these small aha moments are also bolts of

lightning less Vivid they still illuminate our way a lightning bolt may just be a temporary phenomenon a momentary expression of cosmic potential not every inspired idea is destined to become a great work of art sometimes times lightning arrives and we have no use for it a moment of inspiration May excite us to begin a long exploration to discover its practical form only to arrive at a dead End the only way to find out is to engage wholeheartedly in the work without diligence inspiration alone rarely yields work of much consequence in some projects inspiration can be

minimal and effort takes over in others inspiration can strike and the effort needed to manifest its potential can't be summoned making great art may not always require great effort but without it you'll never know if inspiration calls We Ride the Lightning until the Energy is exhausted the ride may not last long but we are grateful for the opportunity if inspiration does not come to lead the way we show up anyway do what you can with what you have nothing more is needed 247 staying in it the artist's job is never truly finished in many occupations

when we go home we leave our work behind at the office the artist is always on call even After we get up from hours engaged in our craft the clock is still running this is because the artist's job is of two kinds the work of doing the work of being creativity is something you are not only something you do it's a way of moving through the world every minute every day if you're not driven to an unrealistic standard of dedication it may not be the path for you so much of the artist's work is about

balance so it's ironic that this way of life leaves Little room for it once you acques to the demands of the creative life it becomes a part of you even in the midst of a project you still look for new ideas each day at any moment you're prepared to stop what you're doing to make a note or a drawing or capture a fleeting thought it becomes second nature and we're always in it every hour of the day staying in it means a commitment to remain open to what's around you paying attention and Listening looking for

connections and relationships in the outside world searching for beauty seeking stories noticing what you find interesting what makes you lean forward and knowing all of this is available to use next time you sit down to work where the raw data gets put into form there is no telling where that next great story painting recipe or business idea is going to come from just as a surfer can't control the waves artists are at the mercy of the Creative rhythms of nature this is why it's of such great importance to remain aware and present at all times

watching and waiting maybe the best idea is the one you're going to come up with this evening spontaneity special moments the song that Springs to mind fully formed the impulsive windings of a Jackson Pollock the spontaneous dance move that fills the floor artists May prize spontaneous Works thinking there Is some higher Purity or specialness held in Works channeled instead of carefully planned but can you tell the difference between art that sprang to mind and art that was crafted with forethought and what does this difference matter art made accidentally has no more or less weight than

art created through sweat and struggle whether it took months or minutes does not matter quality isn't based on the amount of time invested so long as what Emerges is pleasing to us the work has fulfilled its purpose the story of spontaneity can be misleading we don't see all the practice and preparation that goes into priming an artist for the spontaneous event to come through every work contains a lifetime of experience great artists often labor to make their work appear effortless sometimes they might spend years meticulously crafting and refining a composition to appear as if it

was made in a day or in a moment There are others who romanticize planning and preparation to them a spontaneous work has less validity it seems more like a product of an artist's Good Fortune than Talent consider neutrality just do the work and see what comes if you like a result accept it graciously whether it arrives in a sudden flash or after long bouts of difficult skilled labor for some artists the work comes easily Bob Dylan could write a song in minutes while Leonard Cohen sometimes took years and we may love the songs equally there's

no pattern or logic to this enigmatic process not all projects are the same no two people are the same the project is the guide we follow and each comes with its own conditions and requirements if you are an artist whose process is intellectually based it may be of benefit to play with spontaneity as a tool a window to Discovery and an access point to new parts of yourself Attachment to any specific creative process can seal the door through which spontaneity enters even if for a short time it may be of benefit to leave this door

cracked open we can make an experiment of surrender to allow the surprise of Discovery to come if you sit down to write with no preparation or forethought you might bypass the conscious mind and draw from the unconscious you may find that what emerges holds a charge that cannot be Duplicated through rational means this approach is at the heart of some forms of jazz when musicians are improvising a piece preconceived ideas of what to play can prevent the performance from taking flight the goal is to be in it and allow the music to essentially play itself

accepting the risks the performances will be good on a good night and bad on a bad night and perhaps the best jazz musicians are the ones who have the ability to create special moments on a Fairly consistent basis even spontaneity gets better with practice you may worry that a great idea could get lost or overlooked in the spontaneity of a moment to guard against that when I'm working with an artist I make an endless amount of notes when outside observers come into the studio they often can't believe how clinical the process looks they imagine a

big music party but we're constantly generating detailed notes on Focus points and experiments to test for Almost everything that's said someone is writing it down 2 weeks later there will come a time when someone will ask a question like what was that lyric we loved what was the previous version of that element like like which take was the best for the Phill going into the second chorus and we go back to the notes there's a great volume of material constantly being generated and we're so in the moment that it's impossible to remember everything even something

that Happened seconds ago by the time we get to the end of the song I'm absorbed in listening and those thoughts are gone faithful note taking by a connected Observer helps prevent special moments from getting lost in the churn of excitement sometimes it can be the most ordinary moment that creates an extraordinary piece of art how to choose every piece of art consists of a Series of choices like a tree with many branches our work begins with a seed which Sprouts a trunk of the core idea as it grows each decision we make becomes a

branch splitting off in a New Direction growing finer and finer in detail as we move further out at each Fork we can go in any number of directions and our choice will alter the final result often radically how do we decide which direction to take how can we know which choice will lead us to the Best possible version of the work the answer is rooted in a universal principle of relationships we can only tell where something is in relation to something else and we can only assess an object or principle if we have something to

compare and contrast it to otherwise it's an absolute Beyond evaluation we can hack into this principle to improve our Creations through AB testing it is difficult to assess a work or a choice on its own without another point of Reference if you place two options side by side and make a direct comparison our preferences become clear we limit our options for each test to two choices wherever possible any more Cloud the process when cooking a dish we might taste two different varieties of the same ingredient before deciding which to use two actors reading the same

monologue two shades of a color or two different floor plans of an apartment we place them next to each other step back And directly compare more often than not there will be a clear draw toward one if there isn't we quiet ourselves to see which has a subtle pull following the natural feedback in the body we move toward the option that hints at the ecstatic whenever possible make the ab test blind conceal as many details as possible about each option to remove any biases undermining fair comparison for example some musicians have a preference for either

analog or digital recording It is worth recording using both methods then devising a way to listen to each without any indication of which is which some sometimes the artists are surprised by their preference if you're at an impass in an AB test consider the coin toss method decide which option will be heads and which will be Tails then flip the coin when the coin is spinning in the air you'll likely notice a quiet preference or wish for one of the two to come up which are you rooting for this Is the option to go with

it's the one the heart desires the test is over before the coin ever lands when testing don't over intellectualize your choice of criteria you're looking for that first instinct the knee-jerk reaction before any thought the instinctual tug tends to be the purest whereas the second more reason thought tends to be processed and distorted through analysis the goal is to turn off the conscious mind and follow our impulses children Are exceptionally good at this they may move through several different spontaneous expressions of emotion in a single minute it without judgment or attachment as we grow older

we're taught to hide or bury these reactions this mutes our inner sensitivity if we were to learn anything it would be to free ourselves from any beliefs or baggage or Dogma that gets in the way of us acting according to our true nature the closer we get to a childlike state of free Self-expression the purer our test and the better our art once a work is complete no amount of testing can guarantee we've made the best possible version these qualities are not measurable we test to identify which is the best version from the options at

hand no matter what route you take if you complete the journey you will reach the same destination this destination is a work we feel energized to share one we look back on and wonder in amazement how It could have come from us shades and degrees in the creation of art proportions can be deceptive two seeds of inspiration might seem indistinguishable but one may yield volumes and the other little to nothing what begins as a lightning bolt may not produce a work that reflects its initial magnitude whereas a humble spark May grow into an epic Masterpiece

in crafting the amount of time we put in And the results we get are rarely in balance a large movement May materialize all at once other times a tiny detail may take days and there's no predicting how much of a role either will play in the final outcome another surprising facet of the process is how the tiniest of details can clearly Define a work they can determine whether a piece is stimulating or languid finished or unfinished we make one dab of the brush one tweak in the mix and suddenly the Work jumps from being halfway

done to complete complete when it happens this seems miraculous what ultimately makes a work great is the sum total of the tiniest details from start to finish everything has Shades and degrees there is no fixed scale there can't be because sometimes the smallest elements are the ones that weigh the most when the work has five mistakes it's not yet completed when it has eight mistakes it might Be imp ations purpose you may sometimes wonder why am I doing this what's it all for questions such as these come early and often for some others seem to

go their whole lives without ever troubling themselves with these thoughts maybe they know that the maker and the explainer are always two different people even when they're the same person in the end these questions are of little importance there doesn't need to be a purpose guiding what we Choose to make when examined more closely we might find this grandiose idea useless it implies we know more than we can know if we like what we are creating we don't have to know why sometimes the reasons are obvious sometimes not and they can change over time it

could be good for any of a thousand different reasons when we're making things we love our mission is accomplished there's nothing at all to figure out think to yourself I'm just Here to create Freedom does the artist have a social responsibility some might agree with this notion and want to encourage artists to create accordingly those who hold this belief may not have a clear understanding of the function of Art in society and its integral social value the work of art serves its purpose independent of the Creator's interest in Social respons responsibility wanting to change people's

minds about an issue or Have an effect on society May interfere with the quality and purity of the work this doesn't mean that our work can't have those qualities but we generally don't get there by planning them in the creative process it's often more difficult to accomplish a goal by aiming at it deciding what to say in advance doesn't allow whatever's best to come meaning is assigned once an inspired idea is followed through it's best to wait until a work is Complete to discover what it is saying holding your work Hostage to meaning is a

limitation works that attempt to overtly preach a message often don't connect as hoped while a piece not intended to address a societal ill may become an Anthem for a revolutionary cause art is far more powerful than our plans for it art can't be irresponsible it speaks to all aspects of The Human Experience there are sides of our elves that aren't welcome in polite Society Thoughts and feelings too dark to share when we recognize them expressed in art we feel less alone more real more human this is the therapeutic power of making and consuming art art

is above and beyond judgment it either speaks to you or it doesn't the artist's only responsibility is to the work itself there are no other requirements you're free to create what you will you don't have to stand for your work nor does your work have to stand for anything but Itself you are not a symbol of it nor is it necessarily symbolic of you it will be interpreted and reinterpreted in the eyes and ears of those who know almost nothing about you if there were anything you might stand for it would be to defend this

creative autonomy not just from outside senses but from the voices in your head that have internalized what's considered acceptable the word world is only as free as it allows its artist to be what we say what we sing What we paint we get to choose we have no responsibility to anything other than the art itself the art is the final word the possessed artists are often portrayed in films and books as tortured Geniuses starving self-destructive dancing on the brink of Madness this has instilled the belief that to make art one has to be broken or

that the force of art is so powerful that it breaks its maker neither generalization is true these misconceptions have a Disheartening effect on the wouldbe artist some creators may live with a profound Darkness others stride forward with ease and exuberance between lies a wide range of artistic temperament for those called to Art who do struggle with an overwhelming sensitivity the creative process can have a therapeutic power it offers a sense of deep connection a safe place to voice the Unspeakable and bear their soul in these cases art does not unravel the maker but makes them

whole Although the character of the tortured artist tends to live more in mythology than in reality this does not mean that art comes easily it requires the obsessive desire to create great things this Pursuit doesn't have to be agonizing it can be enlivening it's up to you whether you have a powerful passion or a tortured compulsion neither makes the art any better or worse if you are able to choose between these paths consider selecting the more sustainable One an artist earns the title simply through self-expression as they work in their own way at their own

pace what works for you believing there's a songwriter who wrote all of her music in the same messy room in an old office building it hasn't been touched in 30 years and she refuses to let it be cleaned the secret is in that room she says she believes it and it works for her Charles Dickens carried a compass to make sure he always slept Facing north he believed that alignment with the electrical currents of the earth supported his creativity Dr Seuss had a bookcase with a false door hiding hundreds of unusual hats he and his

editor would each pick a hat and stare at each other until inspiration came these stories may or may not be completely true it doesn't matter if a ritual or Superstition has a positive effect on an artist's work then it's worth pursuing artists have created in Every way possible at the extremes of Chaos and Order and at the meeting point of different methods at once there is no right time right strategy or right equipment it may be helpful to receive advice from more experienced artists but but as information not as prescription it can open you to

another point of view and broaden your idea of what's possible established artists generally draw from their personal experience and recommend the solutions that worked for them these Tend to be specific to their Journey not yours it's worth remembering that their way is not the way your path is unique for only you to follow there is no single root to great art this doesn't mean ignore the wisdom of others receive wisdom skillfully try it on for size and see how it fits incorporate what's useful let go of the rest and no matter how credible The Source

test and tune into yourself to discover what works for you the only practice that matters is The one you consistently do not the practice of any other artist find your most generative method apply it and then let it go when it is no longer of use there is no wrong way to make art adaptation something peculiar happens when we practice with a piece of music we're learning for example we might play it over and over it gets a little easier a little harder a little easier then we stop and come back a day or two

later And suddenly it flows from us far more naturally our fingers seem to have more agility a difficult knot has untied itself this phenomenon is different from most forms of learning it's not reading information and remembering it it's more mysterious than that you wake up one morning transported to this new reality where you suddenly have more skill than you did before you went to sleep the body has changed adapting to the task it was Presented and rising to perform it practice gets us part of the way there then it takes time for practice to be

absorbed into the body we might call this the recovery phase in weightlifting the practice breaks down muscle and Recovery builds it back stronger than before the passive element of practice is as important as the active one it's commonly thought that achieving artistic Mastery means working tirelessly this is true but it's only half of it there may Be benefit in taking breaks in stepping away and returning at a later Point whether when practicing your instrument or over the course of your life's work recovery at the opportune time will cause greater leaps in Improvement this cycle of

practice and adaptation creates multifaceted growth You're Building concentration and focus and training your brain to learn more effectively more easily as a result other skills are lifted as well teaching Yourself to play piano will likely improve your hearing and you may well get better at math this adaptation process plays a still bigger role one Beyond learning it's an aspect of the universe manifesting through us a will to life an idea gathers Energy building charge yearning to be embraced we can hear it see it imagine it but it may be an inch further away than we

can currently reach as we Trace back over it again and again more And more detail comes into focus and we become holy cons assumed our capacity grows and stretches to touch the idea that source is offering up we accept this responsibility with gratitude cherish it and protect it acknowledging with humility that it comes from Beyond us more important than us and not just for us we are in its service this is why we are here it is the impulse through which Humanity evolves we adapt and grow in order to receive these inherent Abilities made it

possible for humans and for all life over eons to survive and thrive in an everchanging world and to play our predestined role in advancing the cycle of creation supporting the birth of other new and more complex forms if we choose to participate translation art is an act of decoding we receive intelligence from source and interpret it through the language of our chosen craft in all fields there are different degrees of Fluency our level of skill influences our ability to best articulate this translation in the same way vocabulary affects communication this is not a direct correlation

it's a fluid relationship when learning a new language you may be able to ask a question speak a beautifully memorized phrase or accidentally say something humorous at the same time you may feel unable to share bigger ideas more nuanced feelings and express the full Extent of who you are the more we develop expand and sharpen our skills the more fluent we become we can experience greater freedom and less sameness in the act of making and vastly improve our ability to manifest the best version of our ideas in the physical world for the sake of both

the work and our own enjoyment it's of Great Value to continue honing our craft every artist at every juncture in in the process can get better through practice study and Research the gifts of art are more learned and developed than innate we can always improve as an Anderson once noted I'm both a professor and student because if you're no longer a student you don't have the right to call yourself a professor if you feel unable to hit a note or Faithfully paint an image it's helpful to remember that the challenge is not that you can't

do it but that you haven't done it yet avoid thinking in impossibilities if there's a skill or Piece of knowledge you need for a particular project you can do the homwork and work toward it over time you can train for anything while this framework will broaden your ability it won't guarantee you become a great artist a guitarist could play the most complex solo and while technically impressive it might not connect emotionally while an amateur could perform a simplistic three Chord Song and move you to tears At the same time there's no need to fear learning

too much Theory it won't undermine the pure expression of your voice if you don't let it having the knowledge won't hurt the work how you use the knowledge may you have new tools you don't have to use them learning provides more ways to reliably convey your ideas from our enlarged menu we can still choose the simplest most elegant option painters like Barnett Newman pet mandrian and Joseph Alber were Classically trained and they chose to spend their careers exploring simple monochromatic geometric shapes consider your craft as an energy alive in you it's just as much a

part of the cycle of evolution as other living things are it wants to grow it wants to flower to hone your craft is to honor creation it doesn't matter if you become the best in your field by practicing to improve you are fulfilling your ultimate purpose On This Planet Clean Slate after spending thousands of hours working on a piece it's difficult to judge it from a neutral place when someone experiences the work for the first time after only 2 minutes they may see it more clearly than you do in time almost every artist finds themselves

too close to the things they make after endlessly working on the same piece perspective is lost we develop a kind of blindness doubt and disorientation may Creep in judgment is impaired if we train ourselves to step away from the work to truly detach from it to distract ourselves completely to dive fully into something else after being away for a long enough period of time when we come back we just may be able to see it as if for the first time this is the practice of cleaning the Slate the ability to create as an artist

and experience the work as a firsttime viewer dropping baggage from the past of what you Thought you wanted the work to be the mission is to be in the present moment with the work here is one concrete example of keeping a clean slate the final stage of the recording process is the mix this is where a sound engineer balances the levels of different instruments to best present the material when listening to a mix in progress I make a list of notes maybe the vocal in the bridge isn't loud enough the drum Phill in the transition

To the last chorus wants to have more importance or we may need to duck a certain instrument in the intro to make space for another event a common practice is to make those changes tick each item off the checklist and then play back the song with the list in mind okay are the vocals in the bridge louder as I requested yes check does the drum fill in the transition seem more important an yes check you're anticipating each part selectively Paying attention to see if your changes were made rather than listening to the song as a

whole and seeing if it's actually better than it was before the ego comes in saying I wanted this to happen I got what I wanted so it's a problem solved but this isn't necessarily true yes the changes were made but did they improve the work or have they set off a domino effect that created other problems at this stage in the process every Element of a work is interdependent so even a small change can have unexpected ramifications when the mix is updated to reflect your list you may falsely assume you've made progress the key is

to give the notes to someone else to implement when you can then discard the list and never refer to it again when the revised mix is played listen as if for the first time and begin a new list of notes from scratch this usually helps to hear things as They truly are and guide your progress to arrive at the best version a way to practice keeping a clean slate is to avoid looking at the work too often if you finish a section or come to a sticking point consider putting the project away and not engaging

with it for a period of time let it sit for a minute a week or longer while you go get lost meditation is a valuable tool for hitting the reset button you may also try vigorous exercise a Scenic Adventure Or immersing yourself in an unrelated creative Endeavor when you return with a clear perspective you will more likely have the discernment to see what the project wants and needs what allows this to happen is the passing of time time is where learning occurs unlearning as well context imagine a flower in an Open Meadow now take the

same flower and slip it into the barrel of a rifle or place it on a gravestone notice in each case How you feel the significance changes in new surroundings the same object can take on considerably different meanings the context changes the content in your work consider the implications of this principle if you're painting a portrait the background is part of the context changing ing the background sheds new light on the foreground a dark setting sends a different message than a light one a dense environment feels different than a sparse one the frame the room the

Painting is hung in the artwork next to it all these elements affect the perception of the work some artists choose to control all these factors thoroughly others leave them to chance and some create art that is completely context dependent Andy warhol's Brillo boxes for example in a grocery store they're disposable packaging for useful kitchen items in a museum they rare objects of Fascination and Intrigue when sequencing a Collection of songs placing a quiet one next to a loud one affects the way a listener hears them both after the quiet song the loud one seems more

bombastic one musician I'm told would add his newest track to a playlist along with the most beloved songs of all time to see if his work stood up in in this context if not he would set it aside and keep working toward greatness the social norms of any time and place are another contextual box that art lives in the Same story of a relationship between two people could play out in Detroit or in Bley in Ancient Rome or in a different dimension in each case the story may take on new meaning publish the work one

particular year as opposed to another and the meaning can change again current events cultural Trends other works released concurrently all affect a Project's reception time is another form of context when a piece isn't living up to your expectations consider changing The context look past the principal element examine the variables around it play with different combinations place it next to other works surprise yourself a few common options are soft loud fast slow high low close far bright dark large small curved straight rough smooth before after inside outside same different a new context May create a work

more powerful than the one you anticipated one you never could have imagined before changing one seemingly Inconsequential element the energy in the work what motivates us to work so diligently what drives us to finish certain pieces and not others we would like to think that it's our enthusiasm a feeling that Wells up when in the throws of self-expression this energy is not generated by us we are caught by it we picked it up from the work it contains the charge a contagious Vitality that Pulls us forward Works hinting at greatness contain a charge we can

feel like static before a lightning storm they consume their maker occupying waking thoughts and dreams sometimes they become the artists reason for living the energy feels similar to another force of Creation in the world love a kinetic draw beyond our rational comprehension early in a project excitement is the inner Vault meter to watch to help choose which seed to Develop when you're handling a seed and the needle jumps it indicates that the work is worthy of your attention your devotion it holds the potential to sustain your interest and make the effort worthwhile as you experiment

and craft more energetic charges are set off as further decisions are made you catch yourself losing track of time forgetting to eat withdrawing from the outside world other times the process is a grind Minutes pass slowly and you count down the days until the work is complete a prisoner etching marks on a cell wall remember that the energy in the work isn't always excess ible to you at times you take a wrong turn and the charge is lost or you're so deep in the details that you can't see the bigger picture even with the greatest

work it's natural for excitement to wax and wne if the work is thrilling one day and isn't for a long while after you may have Experienced a false indicator when the moments of Joy seem like a distant memory and the work feels like an obligation to a past idea this could mean you've either gone too far or that particular seed wasn't actually ready to germinate yet if the energy is depleted either back up a few steps to tap back into the charge or find a new seed generating excitement one of the skills an artist develops

is the ability to recognize when either they or the Work have nothing left to give each other all living things are interconnected depending on one another to survive a work of art is no different it generates excitement in you this command commands your attention and your attention is exactly what's required for it to grow it's a harmonic mutually dependent relationship the Creator and the creation rely on each other to thrive the call of the artist is to follow the excitement where there's Excitement there's energy and where there is energy there is light the best work

is the work you're excited about ending to start a new regeneration car Yong was obsessed with building a round Tower to live think and create in the shape was important because he saw life in the round as something forever coming into being and passing on we are part of a constant interconnected cycle of birth death and regeneration our bodies Decay into the Earth to bring forth new life our energetic mind is returned to the the universe to be repurposed art exists in this same cycle of death and rebirth we participate in this by completing one

project so that we can start a new as in life each ending invites a fresh beginning when consumed with a single work to the degree that we believe it's our life's Mission there's no room for the next one to develop while the artist's goal is greatness it's also to Move forward in service to the next project we finished the current one in service to the current project we finish it so it can be set free into the world sharing art is the price of making it exposing your vulnerability is the fee out of this experience

comes regeneration finding freshness within yourself for the next project and all the ones to follow every artist creates a dynamic history a Living Museum of finished objects one work after another Begun completed released begun completed released over and over again each a timestamp commemorating a moment of Passage a moment filled with energy now forever embodied in a work of art a work of art is not an end point in itself it's a station on a journey a chapter in our lives we acknowledge these transitions by documenting each of them playmaking art is a serious matter

harnessing Creative Energy from Source shepherding ideas into the physical Plane participating in the cosmic cycle of creation the opposite is also true making art is pure play Within every artist there's a child emptying a box of crayons onto the floor searching for just the right color to draw the sky it might be Violet Olive or burnt orange as artists we strive to preserve this playfulness throughout the gravity of the enterprise we Embrace both the seriousness of the commitment and the playfulness of being completely free in The making take art seriously without going about it in

a serious way seriousness Saddles the work with a burden it misses the playful side of Being Human the chaotic exuberance of being present in the world the likeness of pure enjoyment for enjoyment sake in play there are no Stakes No Boundaries no right or wrong no quoters for productivity it's an uninhibited state where your spirit can run free the best ideas arise most often and easily Through this relaxed State putting importance on the work too soon stirs up instincts of caution instead we want to break free of the shackles of reality and avoid all forms

of creative restraint feel free to experiment make messes Embrace Randomness when playtime is over our adult aspect might come into analyze what did the kids make today I wonder if it's any good and what it could mean each day is about showing up building Things breaking them down experimenting and surprising ourselves if a 4-year-old loses interest in an activity they don't try to complete it or Force themselves to have fun with it they just shift gears to a new Quest another form of play some aspects of the work can get tedious in those moments can

you re-engage with the spirit of the process from early on once in the studio with an artist we were working on an uptempo track we decided to try it acoustically Which led us to add an interesting overdub then we muted everything except the overdub and heard it on its own which led us in a whole new Direction each different iteration led to a new version none of it planned or attached to a preconceived notion in the end a beautiful recording emerged that was nothing like the original vision of the song and was only possible by

allowing what was present to suggest a new possibility rather than following a plan A path was taken blindly this can happen every day find a clue follow a lead remain unattached to what came before and avoid getting stuck with a decision you made 5 minutes ago think back to when you were a hopeful beginner when the tools of your craft were exotic and new remember the fascination of learning the joys of your first steps forward this might be the best way to retain the energy that drives the work and to fall in love with The

practice again and again whether the work comes easily through play or with difficulty through struggle the quality of the finished piece is unaffected the art habit sangar if you're looking for the work to support you you may be asking too much of it we create in service to Art not for what we can get from art you may yearn for success as a way to leave an unfulfilling job and support yourself Through your passion this is a reasonable goal however if the choice is between making great art and supporting yourself the art comes first consider

another way to make a living success is harder to come by when your life depends on it art is an unstable career path for most Financial reward often comes in waves if at all some artists might have a vision for what they want to create but may feel restrained because they don't believe it will pay the bills it's Okay to have a job that supports your art habit doing both is a better way of keeping the work pure there are jobs that demand your time but little else you can protect the art you make by

choosing an occupation that gives you mental space to formulate and develop your Creative Vision of the world content can come from jobs that have nothing to do with your passion great ideas often originate from unexpected places many memorable songs have been Written by people in occupations they didn't like another choice is to seek a living in the field you're passionate about it may be a gallery a bookstore a music studio or a film set if no jobs are available close to the action ask if you can Moonlight as an intern by choosing to be near

what you love you're offered a glimpse behind the scenes of The Craft you can observe the daily life of professional creators and understand the Industry and its infrastructure from the inside After experiencing how it operates you will come to know whether this path is worthy of your devotion even if it means taking a pay cut initially choosing this type of work could lead to unexpected opportunities later you can also pursue an unrelated career that provides security while keeping art as a hobby a hobby that's the most important thing in your life all paths are of

equal Merit whatever You choose it's helpful to have fellow Travelers around you they don't have to be like you just likeminded in some way creativity is contagious when we spend time with other artistic people we absorb and exchange a way of thinking a way of looking at the world this group can be called a Sanga each person in this relationship begins seeing with a different imaginative eye it doesn't matter if their art form is the same as or different from yours it's Nourishing to be in a community of people who are enthusiastic about art who

you can have long discussions with and with whom you can trade feedback on the world work being part of an artistic Community can be one of the great joys of Life the prism of self defining one's true self is not so simple it may be impossible we inhabit many different versions of a changing self the suggestion to be yourself may Be too General to be of much use there's being yourself as an artist being yourself with your family being yourself at work being yourself with friends being yourself in times of Crisis or in times of

peace and being yourself for yourself when by yourself in addition to these environmental variations we are also always changing within our moods our energy level the stories we tell ourselves our prior experiences how hungry or tired we are all these Variants create a new way of being in each moment depending on who we're with where we are and how safe or challenged we feel we are changing all the time moving between different aspects of self we may have one aspect that wants to be more bold or subversive which wrestles with our more agreeable conflict avoidant

self there may be a dreamer aspect aspiring to inhabit vast magnificent Worlds at odds with our pragmatic side that questions our Ability to make our dreams real there is a constant negotiation occurring between these various aspects and each time we tune into a particular one different choices result changing the outcome of our work in a prism a single beam of light enters and is broken into an array of colors the self too is a prism neutral events enter and are transformed into a spectrum of feelings thoughts and Sensations all this information is processed distinctively by

each aspect Of self refracting life's light in its own way and emitting different shades of art for this reason not every work can reflect all of ourselves perhaps it's never possible no matter how hard we try instead we might embrace the prism of self and keep allowing reality to bend uniquely through us like a kaleidoscope we can adjust the aperture on our vision and change the results we may aim to work from one particular aspect like taking on a character and create Something from our darkest self or our most spiritual self those two Works won't

be the same but they both come from us and they would both be true colors the more we accept our prism likee nature the more free we become to create in different colors and the more we trust the inconsistent instincts we hold while making art we don't have to know why something is good or wonder if it's the right decision or if it reflects us accurately it is simply the Light our prism emits naturally at this moment in time any framework method or label you impose on yourself is just as likely to be a limitation

as an opening let it be first Do no harm this Credo is the well-known guiding principle of the physician's oath consider it a universal precept if asked to participate in a fellow creators project proceed delicately in its rough form an early iteration of a work May hold an extraordinary magic above all this is to Be protected when working alongside others keep the oath front of Mind simple recognition of the strengths may be enough to move the project forward a friend played me his current work asking for input to my ear there was nothing to be

added or changed in the Final Mix I suggested skip the typical refining of balances and sounds that standard would only water down a masterpiece sometimes the most valuable touch a collaborator can can have is no Touch at all cooperation the prism of self reflects an aspect of our being into our work when more than one prism is applied unexpected possibilities can be unlocked whether the perspectives contrast or complement each other they combine to create a new vision let's call this cooperation like awareness cooperation is a practice the more skillfully we participate in the process the

more Comfortable it becomes cooperation is comparable to the way a Jazz Ensemble improvises a handful of collaborators each with their own original point of view work together to create a new ho acting and reacting intuitively in the moment you can lead the play or allow yourself to be led enjoying the surprise of the unexpected you can Solo or lay out completely as best serves the work each time we cooperate we're exposed to different ways of working and problem Solving which can inform our creative process going forward cooperation is not to be mistaken for competition it

is not a power struggle to get your way or to be proven right competition serves the ego cooperation supports the highest outcome think of cooperation as giving or getting a boost to see over a high wall there's no power struggle in this act you are simply finding the best route to A New Perspective it is a disservice to the project to weigh our Contribution to it believing an idea is best because it's ours is an error of inexperience the ego demands personal authorship inflating itself at the expense of the art it can reject new methods

that appear counterintuitive and protect familiar ones the best results are found when we're impartial and detached from our own strategies we we all benefit when the best idea is chosen regardless of whether it's ours or not when I work with artists we make an Agreement we continue the process until reaching the point where we are all happy with the work this is the ultimate goal of cooperation if one person loves it but another does not there's usually an underlying issue worth paying attention to it likely means we haven't gone far enough and the work hasn't

reached its full potential if one collaborator likes Choice a and another prefers Choice B then the solution is not to choose a or b it's to keep Working until a choice C is developed that both artists feel is superior Choice C May incorporate elements of a of B of both or of neither the moment one collaborator gives in and settles on a less preferential option for the sake of moving forward everyone loses great decisions aren't made in a spirit of sacrifice they're made by by the mutual recognition of the best solution available if you already

like the work in its current form there's nothing to Be lost by trying to better it until everyone loves it you are not compromising you are working together to surpass the current iteration we might not create equally with every partner there can be incredibly talented people joining forces yet for whatever reason they don't resonate with each other or perhaps a participant doesn't work in the spirit of cooperation and instead sets a tone of competition and persuasion if you never see eye to eye With a collaborator and after many iterations of the work can't arrive at

something special it might not be the right match at the same time there may also be a misalignment if you always see eye to eye with a collaborator we are not looking for someone who thinks like us works like us and shares our taste if you and a collaborator agree on everything then one of you may be unnecessary imagine shining a beam of light through two filters of identical Color whether apart or together they produce the same Hue whereas overlapping two contrasting filters produces a new shade in many of the greatest bands collectives and collaborations

a degree of polarity between members was part of the formula for greatness the magic comes from a dynamic tension between different points of view creating Works more distinctive than a lone voice wood healthy tension in a collaboration is not uncommon friction allows the fire to Come as long as we're not attached to having it be our way we welcome this friction it's bringing us closer to the best version of the work at hand some collaborations operate more like dictatorships than democracies this system can work as well in these cases everyone agrees to line up behind

one person's vision and do all they can to manifest it whether the final decision is made by a single leader or a collective it's still a collaborative Act the participants are offering up their best work in the spirit of cooperation communication is the core of skillful cooperation when giving feedback don't make it personal always comment on the work itself and not the individual who made it if a participant takes a critique personally they tend to shut down be as specific as possible with your feedback zoom in to discuss the details of what you're seeing and

feeling the more clinical the feedback The better it will be received saying I think the colors in these two areas don't interact well together is more helpful than I don't like the colors though you may have a specific fix in mind hold back from sharing it immediately the recipient may be able to come up with a better solution on their own when on the receiving end of feedback our task is to set aside ego and work to fully understand the critique offered when one participant Suggests a specific detail that could be improved we might mistakenly

think that the entire work is being called into question our ego can perceive assistance as interference it helps to keep in mind that language is an imperfect means of communication an idea is altered and diluted through its mistranslation into words those words are then further distorted through our filter as we take them in leaving us in a world of ambiguity it requires patience and Diligence to get past the story of what you think you're hearing and get close to understanding what's actually being said when receiving feedback a useful practice is to repeat back the information

you may find that what you heard isn't what was said and what was said may not even be what was actually meant ask questions to gain clarity when collaborators patiently explain what aspects of the work they're focusing on we may recognize that our Visions are Not in opposition we're just using different language or noticing different elements when sharing observations specificity creates space it dissipates the level of emotional charge and enables us to work together in service of the peace the Synergy of a group is as important if not more important than the talent of the

individuals the sincerity dilemma most artists overvalue sincerity they strive to create art that expresses their truth the truest version Of themselves sincerity however is an elusive characteristic it is different from other goals we may have where greatness is a target worthy of our aim setting our sights on sincerity may be counterproductive the more we stretch to reach it the farther away it recedes when a work presents itself as sincere it can be seen as sacarin sweetness made small a hollow rhyme in a greeting card in art sincerity is a byproduct it cannot be the primary

aim we like to Think of ourselves as consistent rational beings possessing certain attributes and not others yet a person who is completely consistent who possesses no contradictions comes across as less real wooden plastic the most truthful and irrational aspects of ourselves are often hidden and our access to them lies through the creation of art each work tells us who we are often in ways the audience understands before we do creativity is an Exploratory process to find the concealed material within we won't always Discover it if we do it may not make sense a seed could

draw us because it contains something we don't understand and this vague attraction will be as close to knowing as we ever get some aspects of the self don't like to be approached head on they prefer to arrive indirectly in their own way as sudden glimpses caught in accidental moments like sunlight glinting off the Surface of a wave these apparitions don't fit into words that can easily be expressed in ordinary language they're extraordinary beyond the mundane a poem can convey information that can't be transmitted through Pros or conversation and all art is poetry art goes deeper

than thought deeper than the stories about yourself it breaks through inner walls and accesses what's behind if we get out of the way and let the art do its work it may yield the sincerity we Seek and sincerity may look nothing like we expected the gatekeeper no matter where your ideas come from or what they look like they all eventually pass through a particular aspect of yourself the editor the gatekeeper this is who will determine the final expression of the work regardless of how many selves were involved in its construction the editor's role is to

gather and sift Amplifying what's vital and whittling away the excess culling the work down to the best version of itself sometimes the editor will find holes and send us out to gather data to fill them other times there exists a wealth of information and the editor will remove what's unneeded to reveal the finished work editing is a demonstration of taste it isn't expressed through pointing to items we like the music that pleases our ear or the films we revisit our taste is Revealed in how our work is curated what's included what's not and how the

pieces are put together you may be drawn to different rhythms colors and patterns though they might not live together harmoniously the pieces must fit together in the container the container is the organizing principle of the work it dictates which elements do and don't belong the same furniture that suits a palace may not make sense in a monastery the editor is required to set ego aside Ego pridefully attaches to individual elements of a work the editor's role is to remain unattached and see beyond these passions to find unity and balance tented artists who are unskilled editors

can do subpar work and fail to live up to their gifts promise avoid confusing the editor's cold Detachment with the inner critic the critic doubts the work undermines it zooms in and picks it apart the editor steps back views the work holistically and supports its full Potential the editor is the professional in the poet as we move closer to the completion of a project it can be helpful to drastically cut the work back to only what's necessary to conduct a ruthless edit much of the creative process thus far has been additive so think of this

as the subtractive part of the project it typically occurs after all the building has been completed and the options exhausted often editing is thought of as trimming cutting away the Fat in the ruthless edit this is not the case we are deciding what absolutely has to be there in order for the work to still be itself what is completely necessary we are not aiming to reduce the work to its final length we are working to reduce it Beyond its final length even if trimming away 5% will leave the work at the scale you intend for

it we may cut deeper and leave only half or a third if you're working on a 10- song album and you've recorded 20 Songs you're not aiming to reduce it to 10 you're shrinking it to five to only the tracks you can't live without out if you've written a book that's over 300 Pages try to reduce it to less than a 100 without losing its Essence in addition to getting to the heart of the work through this brutal edit we change our relationship to it we come to understand its underlying structure and realize what truly

matters to disconnect from the attachment of making it and see It for what it is what effect does each component have does it amplify the essence does it distract from the essence does it contribute to the balance does it contribute to the structure is it absolutely necessary with the extra layers removed you may stand back and notice that the work is successful as it is in its simplest form or you may feel that you want to restore certain elements as long as you're maintaining The Integrity of the work it's a matter of personal preference it's

worth taking a moment to notice if any of your ADB backs actually enhance the work we're not looking for more for the sake of more we're only looking for more for the sake of better the goal is to get the work to the point that when you see it you know it couldn't have been arranged any other way there's a sense of balance of Elegance it is not easy leaving behind elements you've put so much time And Care into some artists fall in love with all the crafted material to the point where they resist letting

go of an element even if the whole is better without it making the simple complicated is commonplace Charles minger once said making the complicated simple awesomely simple that's creativity being an artist means to be continually asking how can it be better whatever it is it may be your art and it may be your Life why make art as you deepen your participation in the creative act you may come across a paradox ultimately the act of self expression isn't really about you most who choose the artist's path don't have a choice we feel compelled to engage

as if by some Primal Instinct the same force that calls Turtles toward the sea after hatching in the sand we follow this instinct to deny it is dispiriting as if we are in violation of nature if We zoom out we see this blind impulse is always there guiding our aim Beyond ourselves in the moment when we feel the work is taking shape there's a dynamic surge followed by an urge to share in the hopes of replicating that mysterious emotional charge in others this is the call to self-express our creative purpose it's not necessarily to understand

ourselves or be understood we share our filter our way of seeing in order to spark an echo in others art is A reverberation of an impermanent life as human beings we come and go quickly and we get to make works that stand as monuments to our time here enduring affirmations of existence Michelangelo's David the first cave paintings a child's fingerpaint Landscapes they all Echo the same human cry like graffiti scrolled in a bathroom stall I was here when you contribute your point of view to the world others can see it it's refracted through their filter

and distributed Again this process is continu ous and ongoing taken all together it creates what we experience as reality every work no matter how trivial it may seem plays a role in this greater cycle the world continually unfolds nature renews itself art evolves each of us has our own way of seeing this world and this can lead to feelings of isolation art has an ability to connect us beyond the limitations of language through this we get to face our inner World outward remove the boundaries of separation and participate in the great remembering of what we

came into this life knowing there is no separation We Are One the reason we're alive is to express ourselves in the world and creating art may be the most effective and beautiful method of doing so art goes beyond language Beyond lives it's a universal way to send messages between each other and Through Time Harmony the invisible threads of mathematics are laced through all natural beauty we can find the same ratios at work in the spirals of sea shells and galaxies in flower petals DNA molecules hurricanes and the design of the human face certain proportions create

a sense of holy balance our point of reference for beauty is nature when we come upon these ratios when making art they soothe us our Creations are Inspired by the relationships that we are most AED by the parnon the Great Pyramid Leonardo's Vitruvian Man brancusi's bird in space Bach's Goldberg Variations Beethoven's Fifth Symphony these works all rely on the same geometry found in nature the universe holds a sense of Harmony a beautifully deep interdependent system when you step back from a project you've been working on for some time and recognize a new symmetry you never

knew Was possible you will likely feel a calm satisfaction an excitement that contains at its core a sense of peace order appears a harmonic resonance is palpable you're a participant in this intricate mechanism in music the rules of Harmony are laid out in formulas each note has a vibrational wavelength and every wavelength has a specific relationship to the others following mathematical principles one can calculate harmonic pairings of these waves all elements Have wavelengths objects colors ideas when we combine them a new vibration is generated sometimes that vibration is harmonious and other times it's dissonant we

don't need to understand the math to create powerful work from these vibrations for some understanding the mathematics undermines their natural intuitive sense we tune into ourselves to feel Harmony we use the intellect in an attempt to explain it only after the fact for those who Don't come to this knowing naturally it can be developed given time through practiced Attunement you can grow alert to these natural resonances more acutely sensing what's in balance and recognizing the Divine proportions when your cre creating or completing a work there's a clearer recognition a harmonic ring there's a sense of

Accord a coherence the individual elements merge and become one a great work doesn't have to be in harmony sometimes the point of The art is to show imbalance or to create a sense of unease in a song when you hear a dissonant Harmony suddenly fall in tune there's a pleasing effect that's why the discordant Choice may be of interest it creates tension and release drawing our attention to the harmony we may not have otherwise noticed as we move deeper into alignment with fundamental harmonic principles in our craft we might be able to recognize them everywhere

we look by working in The specific our tastes become more refined in the general as well when we are unable to recognize the Harmony in the universe around us it's probably because we're not taking in enough data if we zoom out or zoom in Far Enough enough the integrated nature of all there is becomes clear just as each small stroke on a canvas can't step aside to see the whole painting we're unable to take in the great hole of relationships and counterbalance that Surrounds Us in all directions our inability to comprehend the inner workings of

the universe may actually bring us more in tune with its infinitude the magic is not in the analyzing or the understanding the magic lives in The Wonder of what we do not know however you frame yourself as an artist the frame is too small what we tell ourselves we have stories about Ourselves and those are not who we are we have stories about the work and those are not what the work is all our efforts to make sense of ourselves and our art are a smoke screen an obfuscation they don't illuminate what is they mislead

us we have no way of knowing what is insignificant and what is essential or what our contributions mean we tell ourselves varying stories of who we are and how the work gets made but none of them matter all that matters is the work Itself the art that actually gets made and how it's perceived you are you the work is the work each person in the audience is themselves uniquely so none of it can truly be understood let alone distill to simple equations or common language billions of data points are available at any given moment and

we collect only a small number with this Glimpse through a keyhole we assemble an interpretation and add another story to our collection with each story We Tell Ourselves we negate possibility reality is diminished rooms of the self Are Walled off truth collapses to fit a fictional organizing principle we've adopted as artists we're called to let go of these stories again and again and blindly put our faith in the Curious energy drawing us down the path the artwork is the point where all the elements come together the universe the prism of self the magic and discipline

Of transmuting idea to flesh and if these lead you into contradiction into territories that seem unbridgeable or unknowable that doesn't mean they aren't harmonious even in perceived chaos there is order and pattern a cosmic undercurrent running through all things which no story is immense enough to contain the universe never explains why