Book by Rick Rubin, with Neil Strauss
While some of us may strive to avoid the dangers of positive thinking if any, a consensus seems to be growing that an improvement in the national temperament would be welcome. This book offers an interesting alternative to internet bickering and similar modern maladies and its relentlessly positive message may help everyone.
We all have a creative streak. “Creativity is not a rare ability, but a fundamental aspect of being human.” Better yet, the entire universe is ready to cooperate in our artistic endeavors. All one needs to do is tap into the Source—the endless supply of creative energy and cosmic “data” that we can absorb and convert into whatever “art floats our boat”. The possibilities can range from composing a musical or literary masterpiece to frying a chicken leg or even designing the space shuttle. These activities can be a work of art as much as a science.
Harvesting this magical data can be a blissful process. Forests and quiet seascapes “are fine locations to receive direct transmissions from the universe”. There are tips on expanding awareness, including “looking toward sunlight before screen-light,” taking a cold shower and opening a book “to a random page and reading the first line your eyes find”—a strategy well known to motel-room readers of Gideon’s Bibles.
Genesis 1:2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Be a gentle soul, without a trace of the drill sergeant. “Do what you can with what you have.” The world of reason might seem to be narrow and filled with dead ends, while for spiritual truths “no proof is needed.”
Those who consume classic literature every day instead of journalism will have a more honed sensitivity for recognizing that creativity is not a rare ability but something available to all and fundamental to life. The entire universe is ready to cooperate. Those exhausted with preachy celebrities will be deeply pleased by advice to avoid infatuation with political pronouncements. Wanting to change people’s minds about an issue or have an effect on society may interfere with the quality and purity of any work. Charles Dickens carried a compass to make sure that he always slept facing north, which he believed kept him in creative alignment with the earth’s electrical energy. It’s as if he was from outer space.
The artistic life isn’t always easy, of course, the chances of selling an on-spec screenplay are frightfully close to zero. New novelists (and plenty of published ones) routinely discover that. A hope-blinded composer might spend tortured months, if not years, on a symphonic work that garners only five hits on YouTube. Commercial success is “a poor barometer” of a project’s worth. You are the audience that matters. The universe never explains WHY—it’s up to us. That’s a bit fluffy, but far preferable to yet another Twitter Twerp declaring the only acceptable pronoun to use when addressing a spayed cat.
“The Creative Act” can be considered a work of transcendent literature, one that suggests the universe still smiles upon us despite any indications to the contrary. This gives us an extreme potentiality.
11/26/2023