Accidental Creative

Thanks to Rich for sending me this Onion story of Apple’s “latest and greatest” product. Though the story is tongue-in-cheek, it does beg the question of what happens when we become focused on the wrong objectives and “jump the rails.” Enjoy.

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

It takes intentionality to engage with creative projects on our own time - they don’t just make themselves. In this episode, we talk about some disciplines that can help us creatively engage and get moving on our “pet” projects.

 

 Rails: Play Now | Popup

As we’re building the new AC site, I’ve been trying to find a way to allow community members to introduce themselves to one-another without the typical, “Hi, I’m Bob, I live in Manhattan, I like puppies and rural lightning strikes…”, etc. I came up with the idea of the “7 Word Bio.” (I realize that this may not be entirely original, I don’t know.) Anyway, I am encouraging all of the AC community members to be thinking of their “7 Word Bio” in preparation for the upcoming launch of the site. I think this is a good exercise on a few fronts:

1. It helps us all gain clarity to what we’re REALLY trying to do rather than just giving the factual scoop.
2. It helps us communicate to others what we’re passionate about (process) rather than just fixating on the end result (product).

So, here’s the 7 Word Bio that I’ve been considering:
“Freeing myself and others to be brilliant.”

What is yours? (Rough drafts are fine…)

So I’ve been working on a manifesto for the AC community. It’s mostly a distilled version of some of the basic teachings and principles that we talk about on the podcasts. I’d love your thoughts and input… what’s not here that should be or what’s here that needs to go away? Help me out.

I want to keep it to ten max, so if you’re suggesting an add, how about suggesting a take-away as well?

Here are a few things I’ve recently heard people say about artists who they perceive to be “selling out”:

1. “I can’t believe {insert accomplished artist/designer/philanthropic heart-throb} actually let them use his {insert work} for {insert project}. What a sell-out!” (Subtext: “I am incredibly jealous of {artist} and I wish I had the same opportunities that {artist} has.”)

2. “I will never allow my work to be used or exploited like that.” (Subtext: “No one really cares about what I do enough to see it as useful for their purposes, so I’m going to pretend to take the high-road in order to protect my ego.”)

3. “They just did that for the publicity.” (Subtext: “HEY! Look over here! I’m over here!”)

It’s always intriguing to me how quickly people will put themselves into others’ shoes and make judgments about their creative and career choices, especially given that this is the one thing that most artists consider to be highly subjective when applied to us. In truth, we cannot determine whether or not someone is “selling out” by simply looking at their choices and decisions.

Making the decision to commercialize your work and “selling out” are NOT synonymous. (I had a very interesting conversation with Jerome Sans about this.) Art and commerce cannot exist without one another. This has always been the case. Artists need patrons, and the world needs art.

So what is selling out? How can you know if you are, in fact, doing it?

To me, selling out implies trading off your personal convictions or deeply held beliefs for the sake of personal gain. It has nothing to do with the exchange of art for cash, unless (of course) this is a deeply-held conviction that is being violated for the sake of the transaction. It is devaluing yourself and your worth for the sake of a little financial gain. It is - in some ways - a kind of prostitution.

I’ve met many artists who are so paralyzed by the fear of “selling out”, or are conflicted with self-hatred for making a living at what they do, that they live in a perpetual state of dissonance. I’ve met others who have simply “numbed” themselves and are prostituting themselves creatively because they’ve lost all sense of personal mission and conviction. They are perpetual sell-outs.

When we begin with a proper sense of our own value, (apart from the work we’re creating), we can evaluate each commercial decision in proper perspective. We only “sell out” when we trade off our deeply held convictions for the sake of a little gain. THAT, friends, is not worth it. That is being a “cover band”, and it certainly will not change the world.

To be unique means making decisions in freedom, whether to commercialize or not. Don’t allow others to bully you into thinking that you must starve in order to be significant. Your significance is not based on your work or its perceived success.

Your job, (and mine), is to simply make valuable and meaningful things. Let everyone else scramble to put a dollar sign on it. And at the end of the day, your decision whether or not to sell your work (skills/time/thoughts) should be based solely on the consistency of the offer with your personal convictions and deeply held sense of purpose (vocation.)

I’m currently reading Guy Kawasaki’s new tome about starting a business called Reality Check. In the book, Guy consistently explodes various myths surrounding all things startup, and early on in the book he references a study by Dr. Philip Zimbardo of Stanford and Zeno Franco of Pacific Graduate School of Psychology on “The Banality of Heroism”. In quoting the study, Guys lists five things that heroes do:

1. Maintain constant vigilance for situations that require heroic action.
2. Learn not to fear conflict because you took a stand.
3. Imagine alternative future scenarios beyond the present moment.
4. Resist the urge to rationalize and justify inaction.
5. Trust that people will appreciate heroic (and frequently unpopular) actions.

Guy goes on to say that this is a good checklist for entrepreneurs as well, and I would add that I believe it also makes a good checklist for those who want to create something beautiful and meaningful. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, risk + trust are integral parts of the creative process. It’s impossible for a hero to do something that goes “against the grain” without trusting their instincts and their perspective on what’s really “going down.” In the same way, heroic creating can only occur when we choose to trust our instincts and act on them, leaving the “sorting out” to after the fact.

I know there’s a danger that this implies irresponsible creating and “hair trigger” decisions. That’s not what I’m advocating. But the greater problem, from my experience, is not an over-abundance of self-trust on the part of artists. (I look forward to the day when that’s the issue…) The greater problem is the lack of aggressive pursuit of the ideal because we simply don’t trust that the way we see the world is accurate.

To be a heroic creative means engaging in the struggle, even when no one else sees it.

There is nothing meaningful that comes into being without “birth”, and births are messy. They’re painful, long, intense processes. But as anyone who has children will attest, on the other side of the birth is joy unlike any other. As difficult as the birthing process may be, the rewards are spectacular. (And difficult. And sometimes stinky…)

In a similar way, the creative process is a “birthing” process. We labor, toil, fret, struggle and ultimately release something that is a little bit of ourselves. But is it really us?

In order to create in meaningful way we must trust ourselves and our instincts. Over time, some of us allow organizational dynamics, rejection, others’ success and the like to “round off” our instincts until they are just like everyone else’s. We ignore the little voice inside that clues us in to what we really think. We cease to take the hundreds of little risks that we need to take in order to birth something great.

Do you trust yourself and your instincts? If it came down to it, would you trust your instincts when it matters? Or are you allowing culture, your peers, your manager, your friends, etc., to dictate your instincts? To dictate your personal tastes?

If so, then you’re giving birth to someone else’s baby.

The more we ignore that quiet internal voice, the less we are able to recognize it when it says something really important. If we want to create brilliant things we need to learn to hear that voice, trust it and act on it, even when it means risking failure and rejection. Even if it means having an ugly baby.