Have you ever heard people talking about creativity as if something is being send down to the artist from the heavens? While there is a truth in this mystical force being something outside of oneself, it is very rarely that glamourous. I would say that most of the time I don’t even know what I am doing before I see the work coming through me.
What I absolutely do know is that once you are “on it” it seems to be coming from an unlimited source.
I try to do as much of what I love daily so that I can see it turning into a lifestyle serving me further down the road. It isn’t always easy to navigate as the society is set up now. And sometimes I wish I could have been a doctor or something else very steady and defined.
Something I swear by is to never do things “half-heartedly” - there’s a fierce and beautiful poem written by Kahlil Gibran, one of my all-time favourites, that describes exactly that. The first four lines goes like this:
Do not love half lovers
Do not entertain half friends
Do not indulge in works of the half talented
Do not live half a life and do not die a half death
Kahlil Gibran. "Do Not Love Half Lovers." Family Friend Poems, https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/do-not-love-half-lovers-by-kahlil-gibran
A great way to not do something “half” is to make sure that you put your very best into what you love doing. Every day. I do not always have as much time as I would like for my creativity but one thing that really helps me is to arrange my life around art which basically means that I try to make it easy per default to create. For instance: I hang up blank canvas paper on my walls regularly so that when I have a few minutes it is easy for me to sketch something or mix colours. I place my guitar next to my bed in case a tune comes to me in a dream and the same goes for my notebooks that I always carry around with me. Even to the supermarket, yes! In that way I feel that I can do most of what I love daily even when I am busy in other parts of life.
- me mixing colours at the sun rose up this morning.