I’m currently rereading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. She is such a wise chatty soul that it’s always enormously enjoyable to curl up and tuck into a few chapters.
If you haven’t come across it, Big Magic is a book about creative living or is it living creatively – is there much of a difference? I guess it depends on whether you’re explaining it to the Tax Man “Oh my accounts? Yes, they’re very much an extension of me living creatively.” (Snark, can you tell it’s tax return season right now??).
Anyhoo, I love that fact that Liz Gilbert does not gussy it up, creativity is a joy and a wonder and for the majority of us it really doesn’t need to be revered or judged. The products of your creativity are to be enjoyed first and foremost by YOU and really if you’re too concerned about what other people are thinking or saying about your efforts, well you’re kind of missing the point.
Here’s an excerpt, she’s currently talking about how the arts don’t really matter, especially when placed into a hierarchy against pretty much every vocation or career there is. Okay, just to clarify, she’s talking about the existence of arts within a low stakes environment, in cultures where creative existence does not come with life or death considerations. And yes, arts and creativity has a huge part to play in protest and change. However for the majority of us living moderate lives, this applies:
There was once this terrific exchange on the tv show 30 Rock that distilled this idea down to its irreducible nucleus. Jack Donaghy was mocking Liz Lemon for her utter uselessness to society as a mere writer, while she tried to defend her fundamental social importance.
Jack: “In a post apocalyptic world, how would society even use you?”
Liz: “Travelling bard!”
Jack, in disgust: “Radiation canary.”
Gilbert goes on to remark how thrilling she finds this idea, that the very fact she gets to spend her life making “objectively useless” things is evidence that she doesn’t live in a post apocalyptic world, thus her life is not merely about survival. That in this civilisation there is still room for beauty, imagination and emotion – all luxuries.
In her view creativity and the arts are the frosting on the cake, a wonderful bonus to existence, and an invitation to play.
Doesn’t that just light you up? That within your busy busy world, if you choose, there is still a part of it that is purely for fun, curiosity and scintillation?
No one’s going to die if you grab the wrong shade of green. Rocks will not be cast if your poem doesn’t rhyme. Dance like there’s nobody watching because there really isn’t anyone paying attention with a gun in their hand (I’m having a vision of a Bob Fosse ‘Jazz Hands’ moment with a couple of glocks being waved around).
Your creative endeavours are purely for your soul’s own love and enjoyment. They don’t have to add anything to the meaningful output of Culture. And yet…channelling your thoughts and feelings into a ‘something’ can help you process your position on a matter… Whoah.
It may well be true that nothing is more telling than the unedited fiction you allow yourself to pour out onto the page.
Switching off the critical brain and letting your hands tell the story can be fascinating.
It can be the subtext of a paper airplane (Dog fights at dawn! Letting the Boss have it! Aack Aack Aack!!) or the dialogue of two players made out of cheddar (Cheese 1 “You’re Awesome!”, Cheese 2 “Why yes I am! Thank you for noticing”), even **shock horror** your weekly newsletter – has anyone else noticed that I write this thing, not because I assume you’re on tenterhooks to devour my ev’ry word but because I just kind of enjoy writing it?!?
It’s not daft or silly to get down on the carpet and play imagination games with your kids. I had a fab conversation with a seven year old the other day about her getting married to a monkey, who incidentally, bashed a coconut on its head and was chased around by a crab. Ridiculous! And yet, so much fun! I was still chuckling about it on the walk home.
If you’re a grown up without a seven year old to hand, you can still bring the sublime and playful into your life. I know I’ve mentioned her before, but there’s a pensioner near me who plays on the swings at the playground at 7am before any of the kids arrive. She’s very matter of fact about the fact that it’s one of the most important activities in her day, and considering the gusto with which she rushes around the playground with, I believe her!
We have the utter privilege of living in a time and place where we can indulge our frivolous nature. We have so much choice available to us. If you wish to live a life that feels magical, glorious, expansive and fabulous, you may. No matter what your version of that looks like, it’s completely within your hands to go out and create it.
Isn’t that exciting? Doesn’t that just give you the tingles?
And yet, so many of us hold ourselves back. Frivolous has such negative connotations doesn’t it? There is a mithering but prevalent belief that as grown ups we have put away childish things (You can thank Corninthians for that) and are now ready for some proper adulting. Urgh. We put in so much effort into making our children sit still and concentrate ready to be boring adults when they’re grown. As grown ups we’re tasked with 7 hours or more at a desk, often staring at a screen. Look at me, now, staring at a screen and I’ve not even got a desk job! If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m enjoying my creative bimble all would be lost!
Ha!
I love to take my clients outside, admittedly that’s much harder with my online ones, but those are precious moments to gather with in person clients. A walk in the woods, or on a windswept hillside, or through a beautiful garden (I’ve been eyeing up some lovely little nooks in the gardens at Chatsworth House for such occasions!).
Taking time to soak up the elements, fascinate the eyeballs and ground into the body. The beauty of it is that as you soak up the creativity of a spider web or the fractal wonder in a seed head you oil the wheels of imagination and empathy in your own cranium. Magic happens this way.
It’s my absolute delight to work this way with clients that are ready to step into that gorgeous next vision of themselves. To gain the confidence to seize their dreams with both hands. If you’re ready to make sparkles in your life, and would like to be guided along, then come chat to me about my 1 to 1 programme Alchemy, we can do it online or in person the choice is yours.
Big love,
Carrie