As per my meal-time routine, I browsed for a quick podcast episode before I started making breakfast today. I needed a shorter episode of around 15 minutes, perfect for the exact duration I need to fix my breakfast. I don’t prefer starting long-form episodes in the morning; a prompt and (more or less) complete train of thought is what I prefer in that short time. I chose this latest 15-minute NPR Life Kit episode called 4 tools to help unblock your creativity. Always interested in such topics. I started the podcast as I brewed my tea, but was thrown off by the peculiar voice of the guest. Frankly, her wheezing voice was a little discomforting to listen to, merely 20 minutes into the day. I figured she probably had some breathing issues, or she was just old. I almost reached my phone to look for an alternative. But something stopped me. I felt I was being disrespectful to the woman. How is this a justified reason for not hearing her out? She supposed to be this great writer, I’m sure she has great stories to share — how can I detach myself from a new experience just 2 minutes in? This didn’t seem fair to me; being so spoilt for choice, scrolling past such copious amounts of free audio wisdom.
One would think having greater choice would make it easier to know exactly what one wants.
Nope, abundance of choice is probably why you’re so indecisive. I suddenly flashed-back to those one too many instances where guests on TSATU mentioned that they as kids in the 70s/80s read anything they found and listened to any music they came across, because resources were so scarce. I decided to pretend that this was the only podcast I had access to right now, and that I either stick with this or make my breakfast in silence. Didn’t particularly feel like being still, so I chose to stick with the podcast. Those 15 minutes of listening to her unique perspective on how she approaches her creativity is what triggered this blogpost. I’m glad I decided to stick around.
The guest, Julia Cameron, started the conversation with describing the time she was struggling with alcoholism and went through a rehabilitation program. Even after getting better, she was continuously scared of falling back into her old patterns. At the facility she was told that if she really wanted to get rid of alcohol for good, she must pray to be kept away from it. But she didn’t particularly believe in a morphic god for her to pray to. They then asked if she believed in something, anything at all. She narrated a quote from a poet she admired, and said that those lines of poetry was what she believed in — she believed in the creative power. That is what she has been “praying” to ever since. Even wrote a book about how prayer can help your creativity. How weirdly fascinating. Weird in a good way. I haven’t seen creativity in such a spiritual light ever. Perhaps I should get my hands on that book.
She started keeping a signboard on her writing desk that said “God, take care of the quality; I will take care of the quantity”. Now remember, she doesn't mean god in the conventional theological sense. She talked about how we can find our own versions of god and our own way of praying to that god. Writing is a supposed to be a skill cultivated over time upon thorough practice, and this spiritual idea juxtaposed against my matter-of-factly thoughts about refining one’s writing seemed amusingly bizarre to me. Doesn’t make it less interesting. Whatever works for you, works for you. Your process is your own. The idea, however unusual, is captivating enough; believing in something doesn’t have to be necessarily religious.
Finding your belief and prayer still works even if you’re agnostic. She herself didn’t believe in the conventional god but put her faith in something, which drove her to get better. Believing in something is such a fascinating concept, and a consequential one. I often wonder if faith is really as important as we make it to be. I guess it makes sense though, if you really think about it. You’ve got to believe in something to live in this world. Staying alive just because you’ve been born, without having anything to look forward to — doesn’t sound like a very exciting life. Entrepreneurs believe in their ideas, some others believe in money, some in the power to rule the world, scientists might believe in the niche they dedicate their lives working on, monks believe in attaining nirvana, musicians believe in the power of music, our species believes in constructs like money and nations. Of course your belief doesn’t have to reflect in your profession or play out on a grand scale; you can believe in something privately too. An average human being can believe in their work, in their God, in their favourite sports club, in friendships. But it seems like in order to have a “meaningful” life (of course a constructed meaning, not an inherent one — but that’s a discussion for another day) one must believe in something that keeps one alive and drives one forward on the journey of life.
What do I believe in? What do you?
She also touched upon another fascinating point — how she doesn’t believe in the apocryphal art emerges from pain. She, on the contrary, believes that creativity flourishes in happiness. This has always been supremely interesting idea to me. I kind of believed it to be true, largely. But I haven’t given enough thought about it. Oh wait, I kinda wrote a poem once, on similar thoughts.
We have listened to and deeply enjoyed music from people who come from broken pasts and write songs evoking great pain.
Do we appreciate happier songs with the same intensity?
Do we give enough credit to people who write good, cheerful songs? There exist many such greatly acclaimed artists in the pop music space, but I’m guessing pop music probably has a bit of bad rap among “the aficionados”.
While talking about how happiness, belief and prayer cultivate creativity, she also mentioned about the importance of a gratitude prayer. The cognizance of gratitude in your life powers you immensely. It can be as trivial a thing as “I am grateful for my curly hair”, but it makes you a much more aware and intentional being. We gotta be more mindful about what we are doing with our time everyday.
We can’t leave our precious time in this world to mere happenstance.
I mean, if that’s your way of life — to go with the flow — that’s perfectly alright. One doesn’t need to transform into a goal-crazed maniac. But the important thing is that you are conscious of the choice you made for yourself. The way you live your life should be a intentional choice and not just what randomly happens to you. Don’t forget to have some play time too — “mindless” fun activities that are just wholesome for your being. Doing something not for achieving some end goal, but just for the sake of having fun or spending some leisure time can be really helpful in getting your juices flowing.
Lastly, the most important thing she mentioned, and what triggered this whole rambling, is the importance of having a ritual for ensuring your creativity has ample time to play out. She talked about this habit called ‘morning pages’ that she is famously known for. This involves writing three pages of whatever comes to your mind first thing in the morning. Anything and everything — just three pages of it. The order of thoughts doesn’t have to matter. Even thoughts like “I forgot to call my sister yesterday” counts. Forming this ritual of writing three pages in the morning everyday will untangle your thoughts more and more with time. The interviewer asked what came to my mind too — how would spewing out, say, negative thoughts first thing in the morning be helpful? Thoughts that get accumulated in our sleep, during our dreams, or perhaps some thoughts that we are carrying with us from the previous day — some of these are bound be to be negative, are we sure writing them all down won’t just bum us out? Julia replied that it is actually helpful to lay all your positive as well as negative thoughts out on a paper -- and that way you know exactly what you want and what you don’t want from your day. Reminded me of when they say that often at cash counters you find a mirror facing you, which is supposed to avoid any conflict between the customer and cashier, because you would not like to see yourself in an ugly angry avatar.
These three pages can hold that mirror for you first thing in the morning, and lay out in front of you exactly what is going on in your head.
You now have a better picture of your mental state for the day and can set your expectations and actions for that day accordingly. And as many guests on TSATU also say, cultivating a daily writing habit no matter the quality is what will make you a writer. To quote Amit Varma, “quantity will take care of the quality”. Also paraphrasing Naval, building a habit is difficult, but that is what frees you from the shackles of calendars and alarms, allowing you to take control of your own life.
I ended up writing three pages, out of which this blogpost was extracted.
And to think I had almost decided to switch off the episode.