Just showing up
thoughts on the war of art
I read that 90% of being successful is just showing
up... sounds easy doesn't it? I actually think the statement is true.. but what
it doesn't tell you is how hard showing up actually is. If you haven't read the
Stephen Pressfield book "The War of Art" I'd recommend it. Borders carrys it
usually. It's short and accurate in it's depiction of the struggle we go
through when we try to create.
Pressfield
explores the concept of resistance.. for every positive thing we want to do,
there is a part of us that doesn't want to. Some people I know don't struggle
with this, so if you're one of those people, than just be grateful art is not a
labored thing for you and keep making it. However, if you're like the rest of
us.. read on.
Even though I really really
want to make art (and have to, now as a job, which takes some of the fun out of
it.) Part of me really doesn't want to... right now. Tomorrow, I will work on
it.. or when I get the next big block of free time, or when everyone else gets
here, or whatever the excuse happens to be. In my mind I really want to work on
it, but I have little internal fights with myself everytime I go down to the
basement. Sometimes they are bigger fights and I lose out to washing the dishes
or some such thing. We all have our timewasters and I'm quite capable of losing
an hour to surfing the web while I'm researching a
gadget.
So if I had a choice between
washing the dishes and writing music, why would I wash dishes? I think there
are in each of us 2 opposing desires. One part of us dreams. The other part is
trying to protect us from the unknown. It's easy to be afraid of change. When
we start taking tiny steps towards claiming who we are, part of us is afraid...
we're afraid that we might be bad artists.. afraid we might be wasting our
time... afraid maybe that the changes we wanted might happen and than what
happens? It's always safer to stay behind the curtain and play the "I could
have done that" game. Almost every time you hear someone say that, it's because
they themselves are frustrated
artists.
Sounds kind of weird I know..
But you don't know how many times, I've
seen someone take a step towards a dream.. they bought a guitar or camera or
weight bench and they spent lots of hard earned money on it. They saved for 6
months or a year or blew out their credit cards on it. And than, the shiny new
toy, that represents hope and a different life and a step towards a dream ends
up collecting dust. It just doesn't get used. And there's always a very
reasonable explanation.. "I just haven't had the time", "I need someone to show
me how to work it", "I can't cut my nails for work right now, so when I quit
this job, I can start practicing." They always always mean to get started on it
tomorrow or "as soon as I have more time" or something like that. And they
really mean it. They do.
Even weirder
than that, when we were starting superchick, I asked everybody I knew if they
had heard of anyone suitable for our project. Sure enough, names started coming
in. So I'd call someone and sure enough the person on the other end would get
really excited about what I was saying and they'd tell me something like:
"that's amazing what you're talking about cause I've always wanted to do
something like that and I feel like God has put that dream on my heart." and
we'd set up a time for them to come by and hang out so we could figure out if we
all were trying to go to the same place. Usually a couple days
later.
But than invariably... the night
before we were supposed to hang, I'd get a call, sometimes a message and it
would go like this: "well, I really want to do this but I just talked to my
parents/boyfriend/friend/postman and maybe this isn't a good time for me to do
this, I have to go to college/camp/siberian labor camp this summer, sorry." Now
remember we're not talking about a 5 year commitment, we're talking about coming
to meet the crew and see what it's about. Just to see what it's about.. We're
talking about people who had been so excited 2 days before suddenly were so
afraid that they wouldn't even come and talk about it. weird huh? People ask
us why we chose Melissa and Tricia.. but really, they chose us.. they were the
only 2 brave enough to do it. Melissa didn't even really play anything when we
met her, I taught her to play guitar. Tricia even quit after a disastrous show
opening for Audio A. But than came
back....
So what are we afraid of? Afraid
we might suck maybe.. afraid we might not. I think it was Nelson Mandela who
said:
"it is not that we are afraid that
might be judged and found wanting, but rather that we would be judged and found
to be powerful beyond measure."
Which
leads us back to this icky feeling that perhaps our own fear keeps us grounded
here.. safe, yet yearning to fly. I remember Seal's song crazy had this lyric:
"in a world full of people, only some want to fly, isn't that crazy?" Now I'm
not sure what he meant, but to me, it captures how many of us don't chase our
dreams. But the thing is, everyone wants to fly. Just few actually find the
courage to do it.
So we're afraid we might
succeed and all these changes we can't control will happen.. we're also afraid
of sucking. It's always safer to be a genius in your own mind rather than a
mediocre artist in reality. Our culture places a huge premium on success and
mocks the failures. We demand instant success. We write a little song and than
instantly the critic on our shoulder starts comparing it to other stuff that we
love and our little creation wilts under the comparison... I think the critic on
my shoulder works for Rolling Stone.. he's pretty harsh. When people start
writing, I always encourage them to write 10 bad songs to get them out of the
way. Very few people start writing good material. We compare our beginning
work to people who are at the top of their game, working with teams of people
who are all the best at what they do. No one who wants to play tennis steps
into the ring with the williams sisters and expects to beat them the first time
they pick up a racket. Why do I expect myself to be better than Trevor Horn
than?
And than there's the time issue.
Who's got time for anything these days? The only people with time are 8 year
olds and prisoners. How can anyone be expected to pursue a dream working 2 jobs
or whatever your situation happens to be? But the truth is, we've all got 15
minutes a day we can carve out for a dream or a change we want to make. I
always tell guitar students, that 15 minutes a day every day is better than 16
hours of practice on the weekends. Cause somehow, that 16 hours never happens,
but 15 minutes a day is achievable. If we get in the habit of giving just 15
minutes a day, you'd be surprised at what happens. It's just a matter of
showing up for those 15 minutes. People always say: "do you know how old I'll
be before I learn to play guitar at that rate?" To which I say "as old as
you're gonna be if you don't learn." which comes from the book "you're only too
old if you don't start right now." Sounds easy doesn't it. Than do
it....
And here's where the hard part
comes. We don't really want to. That's just how it is. Whether it's working
out or practicing or writing or whatever, we just don't want to. (if you do,
than stop reading this and go do it and count your blessings that you're not
working uphill.) It's never easy to make a positive change. Stephen Pressfield
refers to it as "resistance". I think it's even a little more than that. Let's
say it's an internal war between creativity and entropy, between light and dark,
between bad for us and good for us. In the end, I think Satan likes to see us
living lives of quiet desperation, to see us half fulfilled and partying our
dreams away... wondering if this is all there is. And he's quite good at it.
So the thing to take away from all this is; if you're trying to make a positive
change in your life, expect it to be uphill.. expect to have to fight for it.
Plan on it being a long haul marathon where every day, you're going to have to
fight for your 15 minutes.
So why do we
fight for it? Is it worth it?
The funny thing
is, when we actually get started on it, we quit worrying about it and as Stephen
Pressfield says, the muse shows up.. he calls it a muse, I'd say that God is the
God of creativity, the original artist when he created the earth in all of it's
glory. Every glorious sunset I see, I think that he's really the original
artist.. but the point is, when I sit down to create art, if I stay at it,
pretty soon, I get something I like. I haven't made a song that I'm really
really happy with yet, but I think some of them are interesting.. and I enjoy
the process... and the amazing thing, is that other people seem to like them to.
But we don't do it for other people or for success, we have to do it for
ourselves in the end. Because we're not promised success, only the success of
learning to live in courage. Of learning what it is to stretch and grow
ourselves.. to be a different person at the end of the year than we were in the
beginning. To quote a bridge from "Rock Star" off the Last one Picked
album:
it's not about
success
life is not a
test
you just do your
best
to see the view from wings of
courage
to push on through when we're
discouraged
failures are flyers who touch
down
only they know what it's like to leave the
ground.
So we do it, because in the end
it's so satisfying, because it's what we're supposed to be doing, investing our
God given talents. We do it because it's so fulfilling, more so than trying to
fill our lives with noise and videogames and partying or whatever your
dreamkiller is. So I challenge you, all my faithful and lovely readers, to dig
in today.. to show up.. to claim whatever lost dream you've had.. whether that's
working out, writing, shooting or something, your art, your future your new self
awaits you.
And in the spirit of that,
I'm gonna go write some music.
Peace out
y'all,
max
Extra
credit:
Stephen Pressfield, The War of
Art
Julia Camerin: The Artist's way
Posted: Thu - June 3, 2004 at 11:50 AM
