Creativity has always been my weakness. It was something I always wanted to pursue, but never felt I could achieve. The irony is that my childhood was filled with creativity – I was encouraged to sing, write poetry, and pursue hobbies. However what I wasn’t taught, that is vital to creativity, is that it’s okay to fail. Perhaps it’s because I saw the cost of failing early on and the consequence was far too heavy for anyone to pay. One such cost was the price of falling.
When I was young, my mother lost her ability to walk due to an accident after she fell, slipping on ice. You can imagine how difficult it was as my mother raised two daughters, while unable to walk and my father was at work. And unfortunately, creativity required being okay with failing, which was terrifying for me and my family.
Perhaps that’s why it’s been difficult for me to commit to writing since my late teens. But here I am with a hardened resolve to write more without caring about anything else. However, I knew something had to change. So I chose to get help from someone that understood creativity in ways I never have. Elizabeth Gilbert’s book “Big Magic- Creative living beyond fear” seemed fitting. Since fear was my biggest obstacle.
Gilbert’s book was grounding. It felt like a friend was talking to me as she gave the reader advice based on her own journey with creativity.
Especially these 5 main points made me fall in love with Big Magic:
1) Gilbert’s main belief was to approach creativity with no strings attached.
Hearing this from a renowned author was reassuring. Especially during an age where people are monetizing their creativity to achieve success and happiness left and right. But Gilbert describes how she had a 9 to 5 job as she pursued her life as an author because she didn’t want the pressure of paying the bills with her writing. She acknowledged the stress would affect her ability to write if she ever faced writer’s block. She pursued writing solely because it made her happy. Her goal was never to achieve success.
2) She encourages you to embrace your fear, not fight it.
Gilbert explains how fear is a necessity in life but not in creativity. Yet, fear will still be there. So, if you can’t get rid of it, then allow it to join your journey as you pursue your ambitions. I’ve always let fear control me and let it navigate my decisions. Realizing that I’ll never get rid of it but need to work with it, completely changed my perspective.
3) Creativity is its own entity. If you don’t listen to it, someone else will.
One of the anecdotes that has stuck with me, even months after reading this book is about Gilbert’s interesting account with her dear friend, Ann Patchett, also a writer. Gilbert earlier in the book wrote about one of her stories that “got away” since she was unable to give it the attention it needed. When she finally had the time to pursue this inspiration, she no longer had the initial ‘spark’ to write it. The story was labeled as the ‘Amazon jungle’ story that got away. One day Gilbert and Ann were talking about the details of Gilbert’s Amazon jungle story that never came to light. Later both were shocked when Ann said that the new novel she was working on was almost identical to the story Gilbert described. When they both recalled when Gilbert lost her idea and Ann had gained it, the timeline aligned to when Gilbert and Ann met for the first time. In Gilbert’s words, this is when she witnessed ‘Big Magic!’ Gilbert realized that if you don’t listen to the calling of an inspirational thought, someone else will. This anecdote for the first time put fear in me in a positive way, when I realized that if I ignore this spark to write, it will eventually leave me and go to someone that is a more willing participant.
4) Persistence is key.
Something I’m terrible at. I have always been better at short-term goals where I saw an end result or deadline. But there’s no end to writing. It’s an ongoing process and a long-term goal which I suck at. Yet Gilbert, a famous writer confesses how she once made a vow to the universe that she would write forever, no matter the result. And all she wanted was that writing to continue to be interesting and educating to her. It made me rethink why I even started writing. The reason was definitely not lavish like saving the world. It truly only was because I enjoyed writing, the same as Gilbert. That is when I realized my persistence lay in accepting that I only wanted to gain enjoyment through this pursuit. Nothing else.
5) Pain is not the only source of creativity.
There is this misconception that artists need to suffer to receive inspiration and create their best work. However, Gilbert breaks that martyr mentality as she shows that you don’t have to be suffering to produce works of art. The reality is that I do find it easier to write when I’m having a hard time. But it’s also true that I get joy from writing even when I’m not struggling. Though inspiration is harder to find because I found inspiration in my hardships only. I needed to allow myself to find inspiration in my happiness as well.
If you’re struggling with fear and creativity, I highly recommend this book as it grounds you. You realize pursuing creativity is not as scary as it seems. You don’t need to accomplish anything significant or have a life-changing reason such as wanting to help others to pursue creativity. All you need is a small enough reason such as finding something interesting to get started.
