Taking Action
For a while now I've been reading and rereading a book called "The Van Gogh Blues - The Creative Person's Path Through Depression". Its the kind of book you finish and then start again cos you're not quite sure if you've really understood it (at least that's how I am). Some bits I don't really agree with and some bits I really do. The author is basically saying that every creative person will struggle with some form of depression in their life. He says that creative people create because they are in search of meaning and when they suffer a 'meaning crisis', either cos of creative inactivity/failure/frustration/fear etc. or the pointlessness of life in general, they become depressed. And to combat this depression, the creator needs an awareness of these crisis and also a 'life plan' or creed to live by, which gives stability. Anyway, it would take me ages to try to describe it all and if you're really interested you can get the book yourself, but it has got me kind of hooked on this thing of creating to make meaning. I had no idea that that was why I did it - if that really is why I do it. Its an interesting thought and I don't quite know how it reconciles with my faith. Today I read the following (sorry its a bit long) and thought it was worth sharing...
"There is no meaning without action...Nothing could be emptier or sadder than to think endlessly about meaning but refrain from making any, to pine for meaning but not to work for it, to expect relief to arrive as you brood and worry.
Loving someone is action. Painting is action. Raising money for your documentary film is action. Thinking about your scientific theory is action. Playing catch with your daughter is action. Singing for 10 000 is action. Singing for one is action. Getting up from where you are sitting and going over to your writing pad and squeezing out five words is action. Not drinking when you are trying not to drink is action. Defending first principles is action. Making amends is action. Revising and submitting short stories from 20 years ago is action. Joining the Resistance is action. Creating is action.
We keep busy, but that is not the same as taking action. We know the difference between busyness and action by the way it feels in our body and by what it does for our heart. It may be that on a given day, making a pot of soup feels like the right action in support of our life plan, say because we are making it for friends out of conscious effort to relate. On another day, making a pot of soup feels like busy work because we know that we are avoiding our creative work and squandering our time. Making a pot of soup, writing a short story, taking a day job, leaving a day job, anything that we do is right action only when it is right action.
To take the action that we want to take, we have to brave anxiety, opt to matter, and engage in the tasks I've been describing. To take even the simplest right action - writing a page of your screenplay, taking your saxophone out of moth balls, tackling the synopsis of your novel - often involves self-repair and transformation. To return to your saxophone after a decade of pining for music or to vacuuming when vacuuming feels beneath your dignity are gigantic actions, heroic actions. An important action does not have to take you half way round the world and may only cost you the expenditure of a few hundred calories, but it may also require incredible courage.
It is especially the act of creation that requires bravery. Our ability to make and maintain meaning is threatened by the intrinsic hardness of creative work. It is odd but true that most creators do not recognise this reality. Instead of crediting creating with being profoundly taxing, they chalk up their difficulties to personal weakness. This can't be their intention, any more than it would be the intention of hiker who comes to the edge of a cliff to blame himself for not being able to fly. The hiker would say to himself, "How can I get down there? By rappelling?By going all the way around, even though it will take me a week?" Creators faced by this cliff, say, "I am an idiot."
Creators blame themselves for the fact that is its hard to write a good novel or validate string theory. They come to the edge of their work and see the cliff, they find themselves in the middle of their work and experience the vertigo of not knowing, and instead of naming the cliff as the obstacle, they berate themselves. Why do they do this unfriendly thing? Because they know that they often do not try hard enough, so they generalise from this secret truth to the falsehood that it is all their fault, that their song or theory would materialise if only they had more guts, more discipline, a larger talent, more staying power.
What they need is more action and less berating. The hiker must do something or remain at the edge of that cliff until he starves to death. Creators must take action in service of their creative work. Rappelling may frighten them. Going around may take a year or a decade. Turning around and going home is no answer, as that is a path without heart. They must go forward, whether that means jumping off the cliff or taking the slow way round, composing a symphony in an hour, like Mozart, or composing a symphony in a decade like Beethoven.
Action is a wonderful tonic...Action heals.Maybe you are in a dead-end job that is making you half-insane as you see your time slip away. Every day you work hard, but on few days do you take action in support of your life plan, your creativity, or your dreams. Of course you are depressed since the facts of existence disappoint you and you are not making much meaning. It will be only action that heals you; the action of taking a night class in Egyptian history, to give your brain something to chew on; the action of starting out every morning on your novel or making it to your studio every evening; the action of loving someone who, quite coincidentally, earns a living at work he or she enjoys, which allows you to quit your day job; the action of launching a new career; the action of sitting yourself down and determining if your day job can be made to feel more meaningful.
Our actions are our accomplishments. It is not satisfying to have a thought pop into our head and not write it down. It is not satisfying to dream of love but never to hold a lover's hand. What if you could do nothing to right wrongs? What if you found a pointed stick but never drew in the dirt? Could a brain kept alive by artificial means be anything less than permanently depressed? Unable to act, it might calculate pi to the thousandth place and still die of a broken heart.
When you don't feel like acting, all hell breaks loose. Then you question your personality, the facts of existence, and the meaning of your life. You come home tired from work, you don't feel up to facing your non-fiction book, you start drinking, you sink. Your musical is stuck, it seems shallow and unmusical, you can't find the energy to revise it, you sink. When you say to yourself, "I can't" you are also saying, "Depression, come right in". You must teach yourself how to act when you don't feel like acting, when its gloomy out, when chaos surrounds you, when your inner life is roiling madly, when you can't imagine acting.
It isn't that you must stay in a whir of motion. But you must learn to take the right action at the right split second. The split second when you are about to say, "I can't create today", is one of those split seconds. The split second when you hear yourself say, "I am a loser and the world sucks," is one of those split seconds. Take yourself by the shirt and pull yourself in the direction of action. Maybe you'll go kicking and screaming, maybe you'll experience vertigo and a panic attack, maybe you'll feel sick to your stomach. But you will thank yourself later."
Loving someone is action. Painting is action. Raising money for your documentary film is action. Thinking about your scientific theory is action. Playing catch with your daughter is action. Singing for 10 000 is action. Singing for one is action. Getting up from where you are sitting and going over to your writing pad and squeezing out five words is action. Not drinking when you are trying not to drink is action. Defending first principles is action. Making amends is action. Revising and submitting short stories from 20 years ago is action. Joining the Resistance is action. Creating is action.
We keep busy, but that is not the same as taking action. We know the difference between busyness and action by the way it feels in our body and by what it does for our heart. It may be that on a given day, making a pot of soup feels like the right action in support of our life plan, say because we are making it for friends out of conscious effort to relate. On another day, making a pot of soup feels like busy work because we know that we are avoiding our creative work and squandering our time. Making a pot of soup, writing a short story, taking a day job, leaving a day job, anything that we do is right action only when it is right action.
To take the action that we want to take, we have to brave anxiety, opt to matter, and engage in the tasks I've been describing. To take even the simplest right action - writing a page of your screenplay, taking your saxophone out of moth balls, tackling the synopsis of your novel - often involves self-repair and transformation. To return to your saxophone after a decade of pining for music or to vacuuming when vacuuming feels beneath your dignity are gigantic actions, heroic actions. An important action does not have to take you half way round the world and may only cost you the expenditure of a few hundred calories, but it may also require incredible courage.
It is especially the act of creation that requires bravery. Our ability to make and maintain meaning is threatened by the intrinsic hardness of creative work. It is odd but true that most creators do not recognise this reality. Instead of crediting creating with being profoundly taxing, they chalk up their difficulties to personal weakness. This can't be their intention, any more than it would be the intention of hiker who comes to the edge of a cliff to blame himself for not being able to fly. The hiker would say to himself, "How can I get down there? By rappelling?By going all the way around, even though it will take me a week?" Creators faced by this cliff, say, "I am an idiot."
Creators blame themselves for the fact that is its hard to write a good novel or validate string theory. They come to the edge of their work and see the cliff, they find themselves in the middle of their work and experience the vertigo of not knowing, and instead of naming the cliff as the obstacle, they berate themselves. Why do they do this unfriendly thing? Because they know that they often do not try hard enough, so they generalise from this secret truth to the falsehood that it is all their fault, that their song or theory would materialise if only they had more guts, more discipline, a larger talent, more staying power.
What they need is more action and less berating. The hiker must do something or remain at the edge of that cliff until he starves to death. Creators must take action in service of their creative work. Rappelling may frighten them. Going around may take a year or a decade. Turning around and going home is no answer, as that is a path without heart. They must go forward, whether that means jumping off the cliff or taking the slow way round, composing a symphony in an hour, like Mozart, or composing a symphony in a decade like Beethoven.
Action is a wonderful tonic...Action heals.Maybe you are in a dead-end job that is making you half-insane as you see your time slip away. Every day you work hard, but on few days do you take action in support of your life plan, your creativity, or your dreams. Of course you are depressed since the facts of existence disappoint you and you are not making much meaning. It will be only action that heals you; the action of taking a night class in Egyptian history, to give your brain something to chew on; the action of starting out every morning on your novel or making it to your studio every evening; the action of loving someone who, quite coincidentally, earns a living at work he or she enjoys, which allows you to quit your day job; the action of launching a new career; the action of sitting yourself down and determining if your day job can be made to feel more meaningful.
Our actions are our accomplishments. It is not satisfying to have a thought pop into our head and not write it down. It is not satisfying to dream of love but never to hold a lover's hand. What if you could do nothing to right wrongs? What if you found a pointed stick but never drew in the dirt? Could a brain kept alive by artificial means be anything less than permanently depressed? Unable to act, it might calculate pi to the thousandth place and still die of a broken heart.
When you don't feel like acting, all hell breaks loose. Then you question your personality, the facts of existence, and the meaning of your life. You come home tired from work, you don't feel up to facing your non-fiction book, you start drinking, you sink. Your musical is stuck, it seems shallow and unmusical, you can't find the energy to revise it, you sink. When you say to yourself, "I can't" you are also saying, "Depression, come right in". You must teach yourself how to act when you don't feel like acting, when its gloomy out, when chaos surrounds you, when your inner life is roiling madly, when you can't imagine acting.
It isn't that you must stay in a whir of motion. But you must learn to take the right action at the right split second. The split second when you are about to say, "I can't create today", is one of those split seconds. The split second when you hear yourself say, "I am a loser and the world sucks," is one of those split seconds. Take yourself by the shirt and pull yourself in the direction of action. Maybe you'll go kicking and screaming, maybe you'll experience vertigo and a panic attack, maybe you'll feel sick to your stomach. But you will thank yourself later."
1 comment:
I like this.
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