Just now, I came across this short clip on Instagram, that caught my ear.
This very short clip highlights the need that we have for creative endeavours – that art isn’t always appreciated or thought about… until it becomes vital, until that time when we are in the greatest need for connection. And something about the simplicity of the message & the sincerity of its delivery has really hit home with me.
So you have to ask yourself: Do you think human creativity matters? Well, hmm. Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry. Right? They have a life to live, and they’re not really that concerned with Allen Ginsberg’s poems or anybody’s poems, until their father dies, they go to a funeral, you lose a child,somebody breaks your heart, they don’t love you anymore, and all of a sudden, you’re desperate for making sense out of this life, and, “Has anybody ever felt this bad before? How did they come out of this cloud?”
Or the inverse — something great. You meet somebody and your heart explodes. You love them so much, you can’t even see straight. You know, you’re dizzy. “Did anybody feel like this before? What is happening to me?” And that’s when art’s not a luxury, it’s actually sustenance. We need it.
ETHAN HAWKE, TED TALK
Confident that this was part of a longer conversation, I looked up the original video – a Ted Talk, shot in 2020. It’s only 9 minutes long, yet I’ve found it to be very thought provoking.
When the thought moves from anecdote to reflection, I begin to feel a touch uncomfortable. At the point that he begins to think on why we are here, how we can thrive as well as survive – how to create something we need to know ourselves, I feel almost weepy – partially from guilt but mostly because it feels like a truth we are for some reason collectively denying.
The thoughts that he articulates are ones that I’ve had about myself and my potentiality for creation, yet set aside. ‘Nothing I can create will be perfect, so leave it for others’ has been an inadvertent motto; a boundary that I’ve imposed on myself. Certainly, it’s the antithesis of how I was raised.
But this restriction is one that I rarely breach and deep down have bitterly resented. Striving for perfection when I have attempted anything creative in the last few years has left me a tightly wound stress ball. Whatever protection from failure this has offered me, it’s an approach that so far has kept me small. Safe, but small.
And – now in my 40’s – it’s time to make the change I want to see in my orbit – to embrace the mess and joy of trying and maybe fouling the ‘thing’ up, but loving the process. Sure, I need to work to eat and I like a tidy house – but that can’t be definitional. It absolutely shouldn’t be my life.
So, for today at least, I’m going to spend 10-15 minutes doing something musical, then take 10-15 minutes to try sketch something. Heck, I’ll even spend a little chunk of time writing this up (look! I’d doing it!!!) for – as much as I diminish and dismiss it – my writing can be a creative outlet too! And then, if I’m really brave, tomorrow I’ll do something creative too, even if it’s messy or weird or dark.
The video clip opens with ‘You know, a lot of people really struggle to give themselves permission to be creative.’
Today, I’m giving myself permission. I hope you do too.
We know this — the time of our life is so short, and how we spend it — are we spending it doing what’s important to us? Most of us not. I mean, it’s hard. The pull of habit is so huge, and that’s what makes kids so beautifully creative, is that they don’t have any habits,and they don’t care if they’re any good or not, right?They’re not building a sandcastle going, “I think I’m going to be a really good sandcastle builder.” They just throw themselves at whatever project you put in front of them — dancing, doing a painting, building something: any opportunity they have, they try to use it to impress upon you their individuality. It’s so beautiful.
It’s a thing that worries me sometimes whenever you talk about creativity, because it can have this kind of feel that it’s just nice, you know, or it’s warm or it’s something pleasant. It’s not. It’s vital. It’s the way we heal each other. In singing our song, in telling our story,in inviting you to say, “Hey, listen to me, and I’ll listen to you,” we’re starting a dialogue. And when you do that, this healing happens, and we come out of our corners,and we start to witness each other’s common humanity. We start to assert it. And when we do that, really good things happen.
So, if you want to help your community, if you want to help your family, if you want to help your friends, you have to express yourself. And to express yourself, you have to know yourself. It’s actually super easy. You just have to follow your love. There is no path. There’s no path till you walk it, and you have to be willing to play the fool. So don’t read the book that you should read,read the book you want to read. Don’t listen to the music that you used to like. Take some time to listen to some new music. Take some time to talk to somebody that you don’t normally talk to. I guarantee, if you do that, you will feel foolish. That’s the point. Play the fool
ETHAN HAWKE
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