Accidental Creative

In the “Battle Lines” series we’ve been examining some of the common battle fronts in our creative lives. One of the places I’ve seen many artists get “taken out” in the battle for long-term creative health is on the front of “Identity vs. Masks.”

Thomas Merton, one of my favorite authors once said this about identity:

“There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular - and too lazy to think of anything better. Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success and they are in such a haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. And when the madness is upon them they argue that their very haste is a species of integrity.”

Many of us move through life wearing someone else’s clothes. We produce someone else’s art. We make someone else’s music. We write someone else’s words.  We replay someone else’s arguments. We don’t have the courage and the conviction to stand on our own and speak our own thoughts and craft our own work. We don’t have the courage to say “I don’t know” and to make it up as we go. We are wearing a mask.

The pressure to wear a mask is palpable in western society. We value celebrity and success and, as a result, we ascribe worth to people based upon how “received” their work is or how “popular” it is. (Which is typically, by the way, arbitrarily decided by a few people in an office on the coast.) Or, on the other side, we celebrate people who publicly scoff at celebrity and work out their “anti-pop-culture” art in an effort to show how they are not a part of the “machine.” 

The  problem is that in these scenarios both the “pop” artist and the “anti-pop” artist are wearing masks. They are behaving in accordance with, or responding against, someone else’s expectations. They are not creating out of a sense of identity, they are creating in order to please or defy someone else. 

There is nothing wrong with creating to please. Most of us who hang around this site are create-on-demand pros, meaning that we create everyday to please other people. It’s our job. The problem emerges when we begin to identify ourselves by our work to the extent that we’re no longer sure of who we are or what we care about. We are wearing masks because we’re not so certain that who we are will be received. We reactively hide so as not to be found out.

The best antidote for all of this is - wait for it - unnecessary creating time. It’s critical that we have time to create for ourselves (and no one else) in which we can take on projects that fuel us, give us life and the opportunity to explore new means of expression. We discover ourselves and our unique “voice” as we act. We need to build intentional, structured time into our lives to express ourselves in new ways and to take creative risks where there’s a safety net.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

1. Do I seem to be stuck in a rut, doing well at work but not necessarily gratified by the creative work I’m doing?

2. Does how my work is received by others significantly affect my moods and ability to engage creatively?

3. Do I get defensive when others critique my work, or am I able to listen to their feedback and apply possible learnings without feeling the need to “position” myself?

4. Do I feel a need to always be right?

Remember - “cover bands don’t change the world.” It’s important that we take the steps to unlocking our individual creative passion and finding our unique voice. It doesn’t mean that we’re all going to be rock stars (thank God), it simply means that we all have something beautiful to contribute if we’re authentic, engaged and diligent. Work hard, be real.