Releasing your inner art
Meeting the muse half way
What wonderful art is inside you? How many great symphonies unperformed? How many daring landscapes unpainted? How many Beautiful and thoughtful novels lay maoldering in the lower right hand desk drawer of your mind?
Why don’t you let them out? Why are you keeping this immense beauty from the rest of us? You do us a disservice. I’m going to ask you today to start working on that art.
First, let’s talk about why you are not working on your art.
Why?
Because you’re not an artist?
Because you’re afraid?
Because you’re waiting for inspiration?
Because you’re too busy?
Don’t tell us that you are not an artist. Do the voices in your head say things like, “I’m not a writer…I’ve never published a book…” or “What I do isn’t art, it’s a hobby, I’m not good enough…” or “I’ve seen the real artists and they are amazing…”
“I’m not an artist!”
My friend, I’m not telling you to quit your job, sell your family and move to cabin in the pines or some lonely garret to scribble out the next Moby Dick.
First, don’t narrowly define art. I know engineers that cannot write a sensible paragraph but they can make art with formulae. We don’t get to define your art, you do.
Your art is that thing that you have always wanting to create. Your art is that creative project that you have been thinking about for years. It hides in the creative part of your consciousness nagging at you. Maybe you’ve started this project before. Maybe more than once, but the muse failed you and you could not overcome the artistic resistance.
Your art could be next great American novel. It could be a great symphony composed for tapping on plastic soda bottles. It could be the fantastical construct of mathematical or fractal beauty. It could be carving gargoyles from the rocks in your front yard. Whatever it is, it is yours and you know what it is and you need to set it free.
My point is that you are the one who defines your art and it has nothing to do the approval, permission or acceptance of others. As soon as you realize that, you are an artist. You don’t create this art for me, or for them. You create this art for you. For the simple joy of creation. For the necessary act of setting it free. You are the artist.
But you’re afraid. What are you afraid of? You’re afraid that you’re not good enough. You’re afraid that you’ll fail. You’re afraid that you’ll succeed.
Mostly you’re afraid to let this art free, because as long as it is still an idea, it has potential. When you let it free it will lose that potential and become something else. You will have lost the dream of one day creating that wonderful thing. The loss of that potential scares you. When you let your dream become a reality, maybe that reality won’t be so great and now you don’t even have your dream to comfort you.
You must get over that. An unrealized dream is a sad and empty thing. Let it free. Don’t worry about what form it takes when the birth event finally happens. Remember you are creating for yourself, no one else. Let the creative act happen.
What you will discover when you get this creative act out of you is that it is not the only one you have. It is only a seed, only a hint of the creative acts stacked up inside you that will come cascading through once this seed is nurtured. In fact, this one thing may be a throw-away act that no one sees, but its sisters and brothers soon to follow will be richer and fuller in manifestation.
Act without fear. Let it free and see what happens. Letting the creative act free will not empty you. Letting the creative act free will fill you.
But you’re waiting for inspiration.
Isn’t lightening supposed to strike? Aren’t you supposed to be torn upright from sleep with the perfect idea to then rush to your desk to pound out that inspiration Kerouac-like in one great Diaspora of creation?
That could happen. Most likely it won’t. It is most likely that you will have to meet the muse half way. You’ll need to lean in. Inspiration will find you while you are working. The process of starting, of doing creates the hooks and threads for inspiration to weave its beautiful tapestry.
What does this mean? It means you need to start the creation. If it is that sculpture in your front yard then the best thing to do is to pick up your mallet and begin to create. Don’t stop. Pound the stone every day. Inspiration will find you, but usually only if you are working.
But, you’re too busy aren’t you.
How is it that when we are creating our life’s schedule we don’t leave time for art? Why are you prioritizing your art below cleaning the toilets and yoga class? Surely this core piece of your soul’s labor should be given a spot on a higher step?
Carve out five, ten, twenty, thirty minutes every day for your art. Sit down and do it. Some days will be great. Some days will be awful. All days will move your creative act further on in its conception. Make it part of your life.
Any artist will tell you that their great works stand on the shoulders on many hours of futile efforts and lesser works. But, those are the stepping stones to the great works. Take those steps. Every day.
My friends, here is my task for you this week. This week I ask you, for me and all the rest of us, start the process of letting your art free.
Think of that creative act that lurks in your soul and begin work on it this week.
Don’t plan it. Don’t design it. Begin working on it. Every day.
Get a calendar. Schedule that time to create every day. Do it. Every day do the time and at the end cross off that day as complete. Keep at it for days, weeks, years. You will find a great cathedral of creative works building before you.
Don’t concern yourself about whether it is good or necessary or measures up. Let it free and it will find its own way. This is not about money or fame. This is about turning on a dormant part of your personal fulfillment.
Dance as if no one is watching. Carve as if no one will see. Write as if no one will read. The creative act will empty and fill you simultaneously.
Do it now.