Creativity-Now!
When I hit the creative blahs- I can be a bit dramatic. It’s over. I’m all washed up. The fount of inspiration has run dry. And the dryness, it’s a desert. You can’t squeeze water from a stone. Underneath it is the fear: What if I never create something new again?
Which is funny, because then I go on to make dinner. I take some tomatoes and onions and half a pound of ground beef, chop, saute, season, simmer and make a tasty chili. But that’s not creating. That’s. . . cooking. Totally different thing.
One of the big misconceptions people have about creativity is that sometimes they’re doing it, and sometimes they aren’t. There’s the shopping and doing the laundry and CREATING on the other side. What if we understood that we were always creating? What if we stopped valuing certain kinds of creative acts over others? Maybe if writing a book was as ordinary as folding the laundry, it would come easy too.
At age 43 I learned to play the accordion. I had a friend who could play, and I would listen thinking ‘I really, really, really wish I could do that.’ Then one day I asked if I could borrow their accordion for a while and they said sure.
Learning something new is a humbling thing, especially when you’re ahem ‘older’ and you’ve got lots of things you can already do. But I watched videos. I tried to get my fingers to do something similar. I gave myself a goal. I wanted to learn one song- the theme to Amelie. I kept trying until I could play a measure, and then a bit more. I whittled away at it until I could play the whole thing. The entire process was very slow and imperfect, but it was wonderful to me because I knew how far I had come.
That was five years ago. I can play many songs now. Some of them are fancy, but many are not. Songs don’t have to be complicated to be good. Your creations don’t have to be ‘better’ or ‘less than’ what anyone else would do. There is no one else like me in the universe. Therefore: no one will squeeze the accordion like I do. In the same way, the chili I cook is unique to me, as is everything else I put my hand to.
Here are a few tips to help you get through the creative blahs.
Baby Steps One thing that stops people from creating something new is not beginning at all. You want to write a novel. Write a paragraph. Don’t let yourself think too far beyond a simple small goal. Even if you’ve never done it before. Think “I don’t know for sure if I can do x, but I’m just going to sit down here for an hour and try.” Do that. Then do it again.
Mess Around: Instead of composing a symphony try fooling around on the keyboard for a while. When you’re just fooling around there’s a lot more room to play. You don’t take yourself so seriously and you can have fun. Then when you get a germ of something you like- notice that. Hey, cool, I just wrote a sentence that interests me. What happens next?
Cut the Comparisons: Nothing kills a creative buzz like noticing your new canvas is not worthy of the Museum of Modern Art. If anything, think of the creators you admire as a kind of cheerleading squad, encouraging you to create the thing that only you can make. Be curious about how it is emerging and notice that it is unique to you. It’s fine to get feedback if you find that helpful, but it’s your baby. You get to dress it up however you want.
Creativity isn’t something you earn by being brilliant. It’s something you practice by being alive. And in that way, it’s already happening, right now. When you realize the creative potential you have is vast, there’s really nothing that’s not possible. So grab your accordion, your ground beef and your tennis racket and let’s see what happens next.
