Creative adjustments
Time for creativity to feel uncomfortable
I am listening to an audiobook called Hidden Potential by Adam Grant. The Libby app will take it away from me tomorrow and return it to the intangible library of virtual media, which is a shame because I’m only an hour in. This is because, like most of us, I multitask while I listen. When the words are enlightening concepts I’d like to digest, rather than easy-going podcasts about gossip and dining out, there’s a lot of rewinding.
It’s ok. I will renew and wait another month and in the mean time think about the seeds Adam Grant has already planted in my mind. One lesson I’ve been mulling over is that growth happens through discomfort. He writes:
“Becoming a creature of discomfort can unlock hidden potential in many different types of learning. Summoning the nerve to face discomfort is a character skill—an especially important form of determination. It takes three kinds of courage: to abandon your tried-and-true methods, to put yourself in the ring before you feel ready, and to make more mistakes than others make attempts. The best way to accelerate growth is to embrace, seek, and amplify discomfort.”
I am quite weak when it comes to discomfort. For this reason, I doubt whether I could handle being a contestant on Survivor. I hate being cold, I think I’m passing out when I feel the first pangs of hunger, and I really don’t like not knowing how to do something. But, according to Grant, jumping into the discomfort of not knowing how might be the most effective way to the other other side.
Lots of things have come easy to my in my life, which could be both a blessing and a curse. If I can do a mediocre job of something right off the bat, there’s not a lot of motivation to work hard at getting better. I can coast by without needing to develop skills like discipline and hard work. So when something isn’t working for me (swim team, singing, my short-lived minor in math, etc.) my go-to response is to quit.
All week I’ve been rereading a particularly disappointing rejection letter that shares a few phrases of constructive feedback from an admirable writer. I was hoping that the email would say some version of “You’re perfect. You are complete. Your growth is finished. We want this essay.” Instead I’m left with notes about what to work on.
It’s taken me six days, but I’m finally coming around to seeing the silver lining. This may be exactly what I need in this chapter of life—constructive criticism and Adam Grant explaining the link between feeling uncomfortable and getting better at something.
It feels like it’s time to work hard for what I want, so I’m making some changes. For one, I’m embracing opportunities to grow through classes and workshops, which I’ve always deemed as both unnecessary (because I’m “good enough”) and terrifying (because I don’t want to expose how I’m actually not where I want to be).
But I’m also curious about the rules I have established in my creative process, rules perhaps designed to avoid discomfort. Rules like:
Finish things as fast as you can
Draw clear boundaries
If it’s not good right now, throw it away
These rules came from an idea I had of what a “good writer/musician/creative” looks like. I.e. immediately perfect and 100% certain about everything.
According to cafeastrology.com my Sun square Saturn causes me to have extremely high standards for myself. That must be why I’d never suggest these rules to another, but will demand that I follow them. In an effort to set myself free and talk myself out of them, I’m going to rewrite them right now with the Disco entourage as my witness.
Finish things fast Give yourself time
Time is a creative ingredient that I always overlook. At some point I decided that “good” creativity is in part defined by speed and the ability to keep up with the schedules other people appear to be keeping. By making very loose calculations based on other bands’ social media accounts, I have in the past put pressure on myself to release X number of things in X amount of time, or tour with X frequency, or grow my followers at X rate.
Responding to this rather than giving myself the freedom of time and the permission to discover a pace that felt good to me has taken almost all the fun out of music. I told myself that if I couldn’t keep up, we weren’t a valid band.
It’s uncomfortable to not know exactly what the plan is, and that’s I suppose why I’ve looked to others for examples. But ignoring what I want and need in favor of someone else’s agenda has not worked so far. It’s just made me feel worse about not being able to be a way that I’m not.
I like to sit with ideas and get to know them. I like to spend a day journaling about how a project feels or what I want from it, and to have a full week to play a two-minute demo over and over again. When I let creative ideas settle into place around me, I’m much happier than when I’m trying to work fast and keep up.
Let there be time, and let it be consistent.
Draw clear boundaries Swim in the fluidity
I have long been afflicted by a creative purity complex, believing that if one distinct project or identity encroached on another the value of both would be diminished.
There were signs of it in middle school. In fifth grade, every new story idea needed its own new notebook. Six pages deep into a hand-written narrative I’d lose steam and set the old notebook aside in favor of fresh, uncontaminated pages.
As I got older, I worried about overlap between various identities I was trying on. I tried to keep the funny separate from the serious, the professional separate from the personal. Later, I looked to define more strict boundaries in music projects. Either we are in a band together, or we are not collaborating. It seemed like the only easy, effortless answer was all or nothing.
I think this comes from the urge to define things—oneself, one’s project, one’s purpose. All these things evolve ad infimum, each new iteration overlapping with the old. It’s tempting to draw neat, sharp lines between one thing and the next, rather than floating around uncomfortably in the grey area.
But everything evolves, year to year and moment to moment. The creative flow should not be contained, so we might as well learn to flow with it.
If it’s not good right now, throw it away Bathe in the mess
People advocate for messy first drafts, which is easier said than done. It’s like making a lasagna just to have it come out looking terrible. You’ve spent the entire evening on it, and now you’re convinced it’s destined to be a disaster. You’re hungry and you’re disheartened. But you probably still want lasagna so if you plan to honor that need—and you should—it’s time to recommit yourself to making this a pasta dish to remember.
I think of a quote I once copied from an interview with Ann Friedman:
“Writing is a vulnerable act, and your words on the page will never match the perfect vision you had in your had. Let that fuel you, though. Don’t let it shut you down.”
Ideas drive us, but they arrive in a language we might not speak yet. Writing the poem or the song or the essay is the process of interpreting the idea’s weird-ass language. Sometimes we get to the end of the work and realize it’s not what we expected. Black and white thinking might have you tossing that out and buying a new notebook. But if the idea was at all exciting to you, then sitting in the mess might be worth it.