Recently, my family and I went to see an Omnimax movie about beavers. (Gee…we like to live on the dangerous side, huh?) I’ve heard the old cliche “busy as a beaver” at least a thousand times in my life, but I don’t think I ever really connected with what it meant.
Over the course of its life, a beaver will affect the environment around it more than any other creature except man. Simply through the process of building dams, which it uses for housing and sustenance, a beaver can (and often does) turn a river into a meadow, or a swamp into farmland. This is not the beaver’s intent - it is simply doing what it does and the ensuing environmental change is simply a result of its unassuming activity.
Let’s talk about creativity for a moment. So many of us want to go straight to results. We want to know how something is going to pay off NOW. But how many of us, like the beaver, would be willing to work a little bit each day on something not knowing whether we will even see the results of our labor in our lifetime? How many of us are willing to be discplined each day in our approach to our “craft”, whatever that might be, so that over time we might see huge results?
Here are a few questions to ponder:
* Do you create 90-100% of your art for someone else? Do you ever create anything for yourself?
* Do you have consistent time each day in which you are honing your skills?
* Do you have any projects in your life right now that do not have an immediate payoff?
Creativity is a practice, not a technique. It requires an extended period of discipline and daily practice in order to see results. However, if we are willing to focus and set aside time each day to work on the things that are important to us, we might just find over time that we will change the entire world around us simply by being who we are.
This week, try to set aside a bit of time each day to make something without purpose. Make something for yourself. Whatever your craft, do it for the sheer thrill of doing it. Try to reconnect with why you love to make things. That is the beginning of anything worthwhile.
In this interview, 
August 28th, 2006 at 6:59 pm