Category Archives: The work of art

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August 10, 2012

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The work of art

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The Ricky Gervais Factor

Some people will always hate what you do.

Accept that and move on. But what we can also be assured of is that some people will love what you do.

I love Ricky Gervais. But I know more people who hate him than love him. One reason he is successful is because he doesn’t give a damn what people think. Not always a good thing, but you have to hand it to him. When he has ignored those voices and with dozens of awards squeezed onto his mantelpiece, I am sure he isn’t too worried.

If Ricky Gervais set out to please a broad audience he wouldn’t be half as good a comedian as he is. He may have a lot more fans but that’s the question that we all need to ask.

Are we doing what we do for the accolades or for the joy of the work and belief in what we are doing? Continue reading →

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July 29, 2012

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Spirituality, The work of art

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Fear (Fearing the right thing)

Fear consumes so many of us. It kills all the things that we could do that are good. And we want to defeat fear and we want to push through it. But we don’t know how. Most of the time we give up. We end it right there. We stop practicing and we try something else.

But guess what?

Sooner or later fear will kill that too.

If we let it.

The alternative is to not let fear win and stop it dead in it’s tracks. But how?

The answer is simple.

Stop worrying what people will think.

Let’s face it we’re not really frightened of singing a solo in front of a concert hall full of people. We love music. We’re not really afraid of getting up and speaking to a room full of eyes looking back at you expectantly. We love expressing ideas and sharing them. We’re not really afraid of riding a rollercoaster. It’s going to be fun and we know it.

What we are really afraid of is the end. The reaction. We are afraid of people not liking what we wrote or said or played.

Like all artists we are afraid of dying.

Our fear is misdirected. It shouldn’t be in the act of the thing we are excited about. The fear is of the judgement afterwards.

“He was too long.” “She sang off key a little”. “I disagree completely with what she wrote”. “He doesn’t know what he is talking about”. “I could do better than that”.

That’s what we’re really afraid of. Sure some things no matter how much we feel we were made to do them are scary sometimes. That’s natural.

It’s just that the reactions above aren’t real. They aren’t what people are saying. They are what we think people are saying.

You can’t control what everyone thinks. All you can do is pursue your gifts, your passions and those things that persuade you to get up in the morning.

Fear won’t always disappear. We need it to keep growing. This isn’t a contradiction though. It’s a rally cry to realize that fear doesn’t have the hold over us that we think it does because in the end we can’t worry about or control what people will think because people will think what they like.

The real question is, are others opinions a good enough reason to give up?

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July 18, 2012

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The work of art, Writing

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Journaling and Scales. The Art of warming up.

I tweeted earlier that  journaling is to writing what practicing scales is to playing music. Not only does it warm up my fingers but it also warms up my brain. I can just start writing and not worry about the content or the punctuation. I don’t care about spelling or whether I uses the right version of your or you’re (Your probably not going to notice anyway).  It’s just a way of getting started because we all know that starting is the hard part.

But journaling creates something new that engages the brain, that brings about the muse and gives us ideas. It’s a way of getting into the flow. This post started with some random thoughts. The core of this blog was already written before I even started trying properly.

Resistance tells me not to journal because it will distract me from ‘real’ writing. But if I am not ‘real’ writing then I may at least ‘journal’ write. If nothing good comes of it that’s ok. If it is rubbish, it’s ok because I am doing the work. I showed up and I got it done.

Mozart probably didn’t need to practice much. He was born with music growing in his mind. Messi was born with a ball attached to his feet. Most of us aren’t like that and we need to work at it. That doesn’t mean you are weak. It just means you are like nearly almost everyone else.

You want to get readers then you have to write. You want to make a great presentation to a lot of people  then you have to make a  great presentation to 20 people. You want to play at Wimbledon then you have to get out and at least hit some serves. You didn’t hit a serve in? That’s ok. You showed up. And you will again tomorrow too.

Then you will start hitting serves in.

And then you will start hitting aces.

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July 8, 2012

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The work of art

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The War of Art

Currently I am re reading Steven Pressfield’s “The War of Art”.

I have said it before but if you are creative in anyway, be it a writer, painter or actor you need to own this book. Actually, if you are alive you need to own this book. It is for everyone.

It is my writing Bible.

As I thought about starting this blog I wanted to be more persistant in writing. I had become too relaxed and I was putting off the thing that I needed to do.

Not necessarily wanted to, but needed to. And I was getting unhappy.

The main theme of the book is about how to overcome ‘resistance’. Resistance basically defined as anything that stops you from writing, painting, starting your business or going for a run as a part of your marathon training. Fear, procrastination and sex are all forms of resistance but there are millions more that we can’t see.

So buy this book.

Do whatever you need to legally do to get hold of it.

If you don’t it is just resistance telling you aren’t really a writer.

Buying it will be the first part of defeating it for today.

But it will come again tomorrow.

It definitely will.