artistic

I listened to Rick Rubin's On Being interview several times before I broke down and bought his book, "The Creative Act." I was fully prepared to be disappointed, afraid that it might be a(nother) collection of self-congratulatory success stories and cheap advice from someone whose privilege/talent/luck landed them in the spotlight. But instead, I was immediately taken in. Page 0 starts right off with a refreshing disclaimer:

Nothing in this book
is known to be true.
It's a reflection on what I've noticed--
Not facts so much as thoughts.

Some ideas may resonate...

And they did - at least they did with the particular person who is me, in this particular time and place. Resonance is an underlying theme of the book, which embeds the creative process within a universe teeming with creative energy. The creative act, in Rubin's view, is not about inventing or creating something ex nihilo, but rather about tuning in to a cosmic transmission, faithfully rendering it through our own unique filter, and releasing it back to the world to be received and re-rendered ad infinitum. By this definition we are all artists, and the book begins there:

Regardless of whether or not we're formally making art, we are all living as artists. We perceive, filter, and collect data, then curate an experience for ourselves and others based on this information set.
...
Attuned choice by attuned choice, your entire life is a form of self-expression. You exist as a creative being in a creative universe. A singular work of art.

The view does shift back after that to the more conventional idea of art as a thing made for its own sake (not as a tool or even as a medium of communication) and of an artist as one who intentionally makes that kind of art. Rubin is, after all, a music producer. He gives plenty of concrete advice about what he sees as the four phases of artistic creation - seeding, experimenting, crafting, completion - and the different practices which might be helpful or unhelpful in each one. And he speaks frankly about the precariousness of an artist's life: tuning in to the universe opens us up to both joy and suffering; success in terms of money or fame is unlikely (and when it comes, ambivalent). But even his practical advice has a spiritual undercurrent: when in doubt, step back; trust the process, trust the universe; look to the natural world for inspiration; be true to the work and to yourself.

From his perspective, I am a singular channel in which my specific present - the world around me in its infinite detail - comes in contact with my specific past - the experience my body holds in its memory, genetics, and structure. What is created through this channel is both unique to me and part of the universal force of creation in which I participate. 

I am reminded of Pope Francis's statement in Laudato Si that "there can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology." Which I think is true, but it made me wonder whether the anthropology that the Church offers is in fact "adequate"? In the Christian view, it is because we believe in a God who created humanity in God’s image that we are assured both of our own worth and the worth of human lives that society treats as worthless. Great. But what happens when we draw the circle of worthy life larger, as the climate crisis demands, to include the more-than-human creatures with whom we share this planet? We can't get away from causing death. It is a big step in the right direction to read Genesis as a call to sacred stewardship of the natural world rather than a mandate for absolute domination over it, but that doesn't back us all way out of the human exceptionalism that is sending us hurtling toward our own destruction. "We are not God" insists the Pope, and he means well but remains fully within a hierarchical worldview. What if, though: there is no power-over, only power-with? What if we imagine ourselves as participants in creation rather than results of it? I'm not trying to say that Francis is wrong and Rubin is right - I think they are pulling in the same direction -  but it is Rubin's theology that gives me some hope.

Here are few more nuggets of wisdom that I particularly loved:

...  With your intention set, and the destination unknown, you are free to surrender your conscious mind, dive into the raging stream of creative energy, and watch the unexpected appear, again and again. 
   As each small surprise leads to another, you'll soon find the biggest surprise:
   You learn to trust yourself--in the universe, with the universe, as a unique channel to a higher wisdom. 
   This intelligence is beyond our understanding. Through grace, it is accessible to all.

 (Along the lines of 'raging streams of creative energy', in one recent Facebook rabbit hole running through this article, I ran across this from G. K. Chesterton: "We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy: because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce.") 

...  If we like what we are creating, we don't have to know why. Sometimes the reasons are obvious, sometimes not. And they can change over time. It could be good for any of a thousand different reasons. When we're making things we love, our mission is accomplished. There's nothing at all to figure out.

...  Each of us has our own way of seeing this world. And this can lead to feelings of isolation. Art has an ability to connect us beyond the limitations of language.
   Through this, we get to face our inner world outward, remove the boundaries of separation, and participate in the great remembering of what we came into this life knowing: there is no separation. We are one.

And finally, words I'd like to live by:

"Making the simple complicated is commonplace," Charles Mingus once said. "Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity." 

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