Notes from the first 19 of 78 areas of thought

The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin

Notes

  • creativity is everyone’s birthright, not reserved for artists
  • it just means to bring something into existence that wasn’t there before
  • it’s a practice of paying attention, refining our sensitivity to subtlety
  • if you have an idea you’re excited about, but fail to act and someone else does it, it’s not that they stole your idea, it was just that idea’s time to happen
  • art often arrives in movements – the artists with the best antennae tend to be able to tap into that, and create
  • awareness is not a state you force – it takes little effort, but does take persistence
  • when we cultivate our awareness we are expanding the universe
  • Source makes available. The filter distils. The vessel receives. And often this happens beyond our control.
  • No matter what tools you use to create, the true instrument is you.
  • the act of creation is an attempt to enter a mysterious realm. a longing to transcend.
  • pay particular attention to moments that take your breath away – a sunset, a beautiful eye colour, the elegant design of a complex machine
  • look for clues – be open to what’s happening right now around you
  • imagine the world outside as a conveyor belt with a stream of small packages – the first step is noticing it’s there, and after that you can pick one of them up at any time and examine it
  • awareness takes practice
  • submerge yourself in the cannon of great works – constantly, honing your sensitivity to greatness
  • the objective is not to mimic greatness, but to calibrate our internal meter for greatness
  • of all the great works we can experience, nature is the most absolute and enduring – we don’t need to understand nature to appreciate it; this is true of all things
  • if we focus internally, we’ll find a world as vastly mysterious and interesting as nature itself
  • need to find ways to access the subconscious – improvising lyrics, anger release exercise, dream journal
  • on overcast days it helps to tune into the fact that the sun is still there – the same is true of information in the world; it’s still there, whether or not we’re paying attention
  • setting is important – isolation or in a crowd are two equally valid ways to make a connection
  • one of the nest strategies is to lower the stakes
  • naming blockers can help to move past them – papancha
  • the imperfections you’re tempted to fix might be what makes the work great – and sometimes not