The world needs more of you
The world needs more of you
Why does creativity sometimes feel coldly distant, yet other times like a supernova of self-expression?
Usually, I am fast asleep at the darkest of hours. Except for this night. As I was furiously typing on my phone—it's bright screen illuminating my inspired grin—it became clear my rest would need to wait. I had an epiphany that caused a torrent of thoughts to wash over me, as if a plug was removed from a dam pent up with the mighty pressure of ideas.
Creatively stuck
In moments like these—when I'm aligned with my creative energy—something special happens. Something of joy and purpose. When I write, sentences flow from my fingers. When I speak, words fall out of my mouth. And when I dance, my feet move as if pulled by invisible strings. Magic happens when I'm in the flow.
Flow is the language of the soul, a silent conversation with the universe that transcends the noise of the mind. - Eckhart Tolle
But while I get the occasional teasing glimpse of this divine state, far more often I experience the opposite: Frustration. Internal struggle. Fruitless attempts to force myself into a mould.
It had been just like this before this night. I had been creatively stuck for months. Dissatisfied with the act of writing to the point of distaste. Instead of being an outlet to express myself, it had become painful.
Why does creativity sometimes feel coldly distant, yet other times like a supernova of self-expression?
The artist & the salesman
This night the answer to that question rushed to me. Like toppling the first domino in a line of many, it was the kind of epiphany that causes a chain effect in one's psyche. A chain effect that began when I realised that, since I was a boy, there have been two aspects competing inside of me: An artist and a salesman.
The artist looks within. He is creative and playful like a child. He cares little about what others think. He steps on the stage and forgets the crowd. Surfing the wave of some mysterious current of energy, the artist finds what feels good, rather than what seems logical. He serves a higher purpose, rather than himself.
The salesman, on the other hand, adapts. Like a chameleon, he changes his coat. The way he speaks, the words he says; they are with the receiver in mind. He sways with the trends like a branch in autumn. The salesman filters himself through the lens of what other people might think. Will this be liked? Is this too weirdly myself? Deep down the salesman's voice is the fear that I'm not good enough.
Writing for an audience
This night lying awake in bed, I saw how the salesman had won. I had fallen into the trap of writing for an audience rather than for myself. I schemed about what they would want to read, rather than what I would want to write.
It's fine to want to connect with an audience. And, if you want to connect with an audience… you have to ignore them when you are making the work. Because if you're making the work for the audience, it's no longer a genuine work. It's no longer authentic. The authenticity is what makes it good. You putting yourself into it, flaws and all. Ugly and all. Beautiful and all. Weird and all. All of those things are what makes people connect. So when I say "the audience comes last", I do mean it, but the reason the audience comes last is, the audience has to come last – in service to the audience. If you are making it for the audience, you will undershoot the target. If you are making it for yourself, you'll do the best work.
- Rick Rubin
And that's why I got stuck. Because when you only listen to the voices of others, you drown out your own. You become an average of the common, rather than something unique. And the world is already full of the common. It needs more of you.
Barriers against love
To recognise the need to express yourself is the first step in a long journey of actually doing so. I sure as Hades have a long way to go. To withstand the pressure to 'fit in' requires a detachedness that few possess. Like Odysseus blocked out the siren’s calls by putting wax in his ears, you need to find a way to block out the noise that stops you from being you. Stripping to your essence takes work on the soul.
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
- Rumi
A beautiful mark on the world
When you manage to overcome the barriers inside, the nature of your work changes. You seize to do things for their expected effect and start doing them for the sake of the doing itself. It's like a transfer of energy for which you are the conduit, and your selflessness is the degree to which you let this energy flow into the work.
"You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don't. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.
- Rumi
So whenever I see art in any form, I also see the journey within. The obstacles overcome. The personal battles won. The victories that enabled the soul to shine through the veil of human-being and leave its beautiful mark on the world.
I do not seek, I find
24th of December was my birthday, and my uncle Willem called to congratulate me. My uncle is an artist. The kind that is both uncompromising in art as well as in life. I asked him for advice: How do I get better at expressing myself? I keep searching for this identity, this craft, this context, in which I can finally feel fully at home creatively. But I can't seem to find my stride.
In what I consider as an implied rebuke he told me that Picasso once said "I do not seek, I find". Creativity is not found after a long search for an identity, some future role or craft that fits you perfectly. It is about finding your creative energy in each moment, wherever it takes you.
"I do not seek, I find. It is a risk, a holy adventure. The uncertainty of such ventures can only be taken on by those, who feel safe in insecurity, who are lead in uncertainty, in guidelessness, who let themselves be drawn by the target and do not define the target themselves.
- Pablo Picasso
Willem told me that when he draws, he does so innocently, and that it took him all his life to do so. And finally, that if you work like this —innocently— what starts out like doodling and seems frivolous; grows out to be something that will surprise yourself. One day, he said, you will look at your work and realise you must be an artist now.
It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.
- Picasso
So where does this leave me? I'm not sure. As much as I would have liked, my midnight epiphany wasn't an on-switch for eternal creative joy. I still struggle, rise, and stumble. But while this struggle may sometimes seem endless, I do sense that everytime I get a glimpse under the curtain, something insides me opens up further. Like a rosebud unfurling her tender wings to the warm glow of spring sun.
— Edo