What does it mean to lead a creative life? When most of us hear the words “creative” or “artist,” we imagine aloof hipsters in berets and black turtlenecks. A “real” artist, we’ve been told, is someone who makes a living from their art— and takes their work very seriously. The mythology of creativity can be … Continue reading
“People claim to want to do something that matters,” Ryan Holiday, author of Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts once said, “yet they measure themselves against things that don’t, and track their progress not in years but in microseconds. They want to make something timeless, but they focus instead on immediate … Continue reading
When contemplating a piece of work, Julia Cameron advises we’d do better to think whom is this work for? whom will it serve? rather than how will it serve me? Pondering this notion of art as service, I’m reminded of Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s luminous Letters to a Young Poet, a collection of his five … Continue reading
“Maybe I’ll go back to school…” “Maybe I’ll get my teaching credential…” “Maybe I’ll move to San Francisco…” If you’re like me, you know “maybe” intimately like a friend. Though “maybe” introduces a realm of possibility, the conditional form is also non-committal: it negates the responsibility for action. I might write; I might sing. … Continue reading
“For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain”- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow When we’re dissatisfied or unhappy, our first impulse is to struggle. We believe fighting our circumstances will somehow make them better. But struggle is the source of our greatest turmoil. The more we resist-instead of … Continue reading
“To be mature you have to realize what you value most. It is extraordinary to discover that comparatively few people reach this level of maturity. They seem never to have paused to consider what has value for them. They spend great effort and sometimes make great sacrifices for values that, fundamentally, meet no real needs of … Continue reading
Most of us conduct our lives in a certain way simply because we are afraid of failure. We stay in our futile, miserable jobs because to leave would mean to take a risk and possibly invite defeat. We stay with the wrong person, in the wrong city, at the wrong job because to do anything differently … Continue reading
According to Julia Cameron, author of smash hit The Artist’s Way, there are two kinds of people: innovators and conservers. As artists, we are most often innovators: we create and invent, experiment and explore. Those who work with our work-agents, managers, publishers, gallery owners, curators, producers- are conservers. As Cameron maintains, “conservers focus not on the … Continue reading
Many pragmatic, scientific people dismiss the power of positive thinking because they assume positive thinking means thinking only. “So what, I’m just supposed to believe I’m the writer of a national bestseller and then I’ll magically become the writer of a national bestseller?” skeptics scoff, “I call bullshit.” But visualizing what we most passionately yearn for … Continue reading
According to brilliant psychologist and pioneer of the positive psychology movement Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the key to a leading a fulfilling life is striking a balance between action and contemplation: “Inner conflict is the result of competing claims on attention. Too many desires, too many incompatible goals struggle to marshal psychic energy toward their own ends. It … Continue reading
The Blank-Faced Confidante 