What Do You (Really) Make, When Your Make Art? Or Anything Else.
The creative spirit is like a wind that blows. It’s an organic process, a creative flow that manifests itself differently through each of us and its direction changes as we move through life. What sparked joy at fifteen, might not inspire you at fifty. And the good news about this is that exciting new interests can pop up out of the blue and at any age.
For example, a friend of mine woke up one morning six months into his retirement from a busy career as an engineer with a head full of poems and the overwhelming urge to put them into books and share them with others. He hadn’t written a line poetry before that and had no previous training.
It just happened spontaneously – what a happy surprise, right?
Does he enjoy the same technical talent with words as he did in his engineering work? Perhaps not, but instead of experience he has freedom and innocence. The enjoyment of playing around with something and honing a new skill. He also finds great joy in sharing his poems with his grandchildren when they visit, another unexpected benefit. Perhaps you’ve found similar? I know I have.
Creativity is a limitless energy that flows on and on, like a river with no beginning and no end. It bubbles up from within us and flows outwards, finding lots of interesting tributaries in its journey from the inner world of ideas and imagination to the outer world of form and creation. And when you discover the wellspring of creativity within, rest assured you’ve made an exciting friend for life, and there’s no telling where that relationship will take you!
Beginners Luck
Since I didn’t know anything, I did everything I wanted.
Sonia Rykiel
Maybe you already play an instrument but feel curious to try your hand at painting? Or perhaps you’re an excellent speaker but haven’t yet tried to write? Don’t hesitate to be bold and experiment in new mediums, or try out new hobbies just for fun. And once you begin, remember not to judge your first attempts as amateur or childish. Instead see them as innocent and charming!
Anyone who has ever taken up a new creative hobby will be familiar with the feeling you get when the thing you make looks nothing like you imagined it would. Perhaps that gap between vision and reality spurs you on to enroll in classes where we can learn the skills necessary to bring our visions to life? Or, perhaps you’ll prefer to simply practice at home in a self guided way until you get it just right.
Either way there’s something so rewarding about getting better at what you do, and honing a creative skill soon becomes its own motivation. In this way, you’re not only motivated by your end goal, which might be to paint something new or win a musical competition for example, you’re motivated by the learning journey itself and the joy of seeing how your talents unfold.
The more you refine yourself as an instrument, the better you’ll get at turning your ideas into reality — and as if by magic, the more bountifully ideas will flow to you. It’s like a marvelous creative circle.
Being A Fabulous Instrument
Being a good instrument for creativity makes us look and feel radiant. And to be in touch with the creative spirit is to be in the flow of life — it feels lovely. And this applies to you even if you aren’t involved in a creative activity, because creativity is life itself. And by that I mean, your approach to life, how you manage your work and home, how you relate with family and friends – it all requires a certain degree of art-fullness that we get better at over time.
Life is a continual process of learning, developing, creating and refining. And as the artist refines his talent through practice, the thing we all refine through life is love. This is, in part, what the poet Hafiz means when he says: ‘Time is the shop where everyone works hard to build enough love to break the shackle.’ (The Gift, Poems of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
The shackle is our sense of separation. And what is time? Time is the way our life unfolds. One hour, one day, one year, one decade. And what are the days for? In our days we fulfill our responsibilities, we do what must be done in each moment; work, family, friends, house holding and leisure. But the story beneath the story, what’s being refined underneath all of these activities, and what time is really for, is widening our understanding and opening to love.
4 Ways To Work With Your Wellspring
- Take time in your day to be still and listen for creative inspiration. Through relaxed inner listening you’ll get a sense of where your interest lies and what wants to be created next.
- Be brave! Take up the pen, garden gloves or chisel. Half the battle is simply getting started and there’s no better time than now and no better person for the job than you.
- Persevere through the ‘I’m terrible at this’ stage and embrace the child like charm of being a beginner. As the saying goes, sometimes you just have to F around and find out.
- Practice little and often with a happy spirit. Enjoy the journey and follow the creative thread to see where it leads you.
Can I Write To You?
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