The Complete Artist's Way: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice (31 page)

Remember, treating yourself like a precious object will make you strong. When you have been toxified by the fame drug, you need to detox by coddling yourself. What’s in order here is a great deal of gentleness and some behavior that makes you like yourself. Sending postcards is a great trick. Mail one to yourself that says, “You are doing great ...” It is very nice to get fan letters from ourselves.

In the long run, fan letters from ourselves—and our creative self—are what we are really after. Fame is really a shortcut for self-approval. Try approving of yourself just as you are—and spoiling yourself rotten with small kid’s pleasures.

What we are really scared of is that without fame we won’t be loved—as artists or as people. The solution to this fear is concrete, small, loving actions. We must actively, consciously, consistently, and creatively nurture our artist selves.

When the fame drug hits, go to your easel, your typewriter, your camera or clay. Pick up the tools of your work and begin to do just a little creative play.

Soon, very soon, the fame drug should start to lessen its hold. The only cure for the fame drug is creative endeavor. Only when we are being joyfully creative can we release the obsession with others and how they are doing.

COMPETITION

You pick up a magazine—or even your alumni news—and somebody,
somebody you know,
has gone further, faster, toward your dream. Instead of saying, “That proves it can be done,” your fear will say, “He or she will succeed
instead
of me.”

Competition is another spiritual drug. When we focus on competition we poison our own well, impede our own progress. When we are ogling the accomplishments of others, we take our eye away from our own through line. We ask ourselves the wrong questions, and those wrong questions give us the wrong answers.

“Why do I have such rotten luck? Why did he get his movie/article/play out before I got mine out? Is it because of sexism?” “What’s the use? What do I have to offer?” We often ask these questions as we try to talk ourselves out of creating.

Questions like these allow us to ignore more useful questions: “Did I work on my play today? Did I make the deadline to mail it off where it needed to go? Have I done any networking on its behalf?”

These are the real questions, and focusing on them can be hard for us. No wonder it is tempting to take the first emotional drink instead. No wonder so many of us read People magazine (or the
New York Times Book Review,
or
Lears,
or
Mirabella, or Esquire)
and use them to wallow in a lot of unhealthy envy.

We make excuses for our avoidance, excuses focused on others. “Somebody (else) has probably said it, done it, thought it ... and better.... Besides, they had connections, a rich father, they belong to a sought-after minority, they slept their way to the top ...”

Competition lies at the root of much creative blockage. As artists, we must go within. We must attend to what it is our inner guidance is nudging us toward. We cannot afford to worry about what is in or out. If it is too early or late for a piece of work, its time will come again.

As artists, we cannot afford to think about who is getting ahead of us and how they don’t deserve it. The desire to be better than can choke off the simple desire to
be.
As artists we cannot afford this thinking. It leads us away from our own voices and choices and into a defensive game that centers outside of ourselves and our sphere of influence. It asks us to define our own creativity in terms of someone else’s.

This compare-and-contrast school of thinking may have its place for critics, but not for artists in the act of creation. Let the critics spot trends. Let reviewers concern themselves with what is in and what is not. Let us concern ourselves first and foremost with what it is within us that is struggling to be born.

When we compete with others, when we focus our creative concerns on the marketplace, we are really jostling with other artists in a creative footrace. This is the sprint mentality. Looking for the short-term win, ignoring the long-term gain, we short-circuit the possibility of a creative life led by our own lights, not the klieg lights of fashion.

Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.

EDGAR DEGAS

Whenever you are angered about someone else beating you out, remember this: the footrace mentality is
always
the ego’s demand to be not just good but also first and best. It is the ego’s demand that our work be totally original—as if such a thing were possible. All work is influenced by other work. All people are influenced by other people. No man is an island and no piece of art is a continent unto itself.

When we respond to art we are responding to its resonance in terms of our own experience. We seldom see anew in the sense of finding something utterly unfamiliar. Instead, we see
an old
in a new light.

If the demand to be original still troubles you, remember this: each of us is our own country, an interesting place to visit. It is the accurate mapping out of our own creative interests that invites the term
original.
We are the
origin
of our art, its home-land. Viewed this way, originality is the process of remaining true to ourselves.

The spirit of competition—as opposed to the spirit of creation—often urges us to quickly winnow out whatever doesn’t seem like a winning idea. This can be very dangerous. It can interfere with our ability to carry a project to term.

A competitive focus encourages snap judgments: thumbs up or thumbs down. Does this project deserve to live? (No, our ego will say if it is looking for the fail-safe, surefire project that is a winner at a glance and for good.) Many hits are sure things only in retrospect. Until we know better, we call a great many creative swans ugly ducklings. This is an indignity we offer our brainchildren as they rear their heads in our consciousness. We judge them like beauty-pageant contestants. In a glance we may cut them down. We forget that not all babies are born beautiful, and so we abort the lives of awkward or unseemly projects that may be our finest work, out best creative ugly ducklings. An act of art needs time to mature. Judged early, it may bejudged incorrectly.

Never, ever, judge a fledgling piece of work too quickly. Be willing to paint or write badly while your ego yelps resistance. Your bad writing may be the syntactical breakdown necessary for a shift in your style. Your lousy painting may be pointing you in a new direction. Art needs time to incubate, to sprawl a little, to be ungainly and misshapen and finally emerge as itself. The ego hates this fact. The ego wants instant gratification and the addictive hit of an acknowledged win.

The need to win—now!—is a need to win approval from others. As an antidote, we must learn to approve of ourselves. Showing up for the work is the win that matters.

He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.

LAO-TZU

I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five or six mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day.

BRENDA UELAND

TASKS

1. The Deadlies: Take a piece of paper and cut seven small strips from it. On each strip write one of the following words:
alcohol, drugs, sex, work, money, food, family/friends.
Fold these strips of paper and place them in an envelope. We call these folded slips
the deadlies.
You’ll see why in a minute. Now draw one of the deadlics from the envelope and write five ways in which it has had a negative impact on your life. (If the one you choose seems difficult or inapplicable to you, consider this resistance.) You will do this seven times, each time putting back the previous slip of paper so that you are always drawing from seven possible choices. Yes, you may draw the same deadly repeatedly. Yes, this is significant. Very often, it is the last impact on the final list of an annoying “Oh no, not again” that yields a break, through denial, into clarity.

2. Touchstones: Make a quick list of things you love, happiness touchstones for you. River rocks worn smooth, willow trees, cornflowers, chicory, real Italian bread, homemade vegetable soup, the Bo Deans’ music, black beans and rice, the smell of new-mown grass, blue velvet (the cloth and the song), Aunt Minnie’s crumb pie ...

How often—even before we began—have we declared a task “impossible”? And how often have we construed a picture of ourselves as being inadequate?
...
A great deal depends upon the thought patterns we choose and on the persistence with which we affirm them.

PIERO FERRUCCI

Post this list where it can console you and remind you of your own personal touchstones. You may want to draw one of the items on your list—or acquire it. If you love blue velvet, get a remnant and use it as a runner on a sideboard or dresser, or tack it to the wall and mount images on it. Play a little.

3. The Awful Truth: Answer the following questions.

Tell the truth. What habit do you have that gets in the way of your creativity?

Tell the truth. What do you think might be a problem? It is.

What do you plan to do about the habit or problem?

What is your payoff in holding on to this block?

If you can’t figure out your payoff, ask a trusted friend.

Tell the truth. Which friends make you doubt yourself? (The self-doubt is yours already, but they trigger it.)

Tell the truth. Which friends believe in you and your talent? (The talent is yours, but they make you feel it.)

What is the payoff in keeping your destructive friends? If the answer is, “I like them,” the next question is, “Why?”

Which destructive habits do your destructive friends share with your destructive self?

Which constructive habits do your constructive friends share with your constructive self?

4. Setting a Bottom Line: Working with your answers to the questions above, try setting a bottom line for yourself Begin with five of your most painful behaviors. You can always add more later.

• If you notice that your evenings are typically gobbled by your boss’s extra assignments, then a rule must come into play: no work after six.

• If you wake at six and could write for an hour if you were not interrupted to look for socks and make breakfast and do ironing, the rules might be “No interrupting Mommy before 7:00 A.M.”

• If you are working too many jobs and too many hours, you may need to look at your billing. Are you pricing yourself appropriately? Do some footwork. What are others in your field receiving? Raise your prices and lower your work load.

It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Bottom Line

1. I will no longer work weekends.

2. I will no longer bring work with me on social occasions.

3. I will no longer place my work before my creative commitments. (No more canceling piano lessons or drawing class because of a sudden new deadline from my boss the workaholic.)

4. I will no longer postpone lovemaking to do latenight reading for work.

5. I will no longer accept business calls at home after six.

5. Cherishing:

1. List five small victories.

2. List three nurturing actions you took for your artist.

3. List three actions you could take to comfort your artist.