Just showing up
Posted: Thu - June 3, 2004 at 11:50 AM Just showing up
thoughts on "the war of art"
by Max Hsu
I read that 90% of being successful is just showing up... sounds easy
doesn't it? I actually think the statement is true.. but what it
doesn't tell you is how hard showing up actually is. If you haven't
read the Stephen Pressfield book "The War of Art" I'd recommend it.
Borders carrys it usually. It's short and accurate in it's depiction
of the struggle we go through when we try to create.
Pressfield explores the concept of resistance.. for every positive
thing we want to do, there is a part of us that doesn't want to. Some
people I know don't struggle with this, so if you're one of those
people, than just be grateful art is not a labored thing for you and
keep making it. However, if you're like the rest of us.. read on.
Even though I really really want to make art (and have to, now as a
job, which takes some of the fun out of it.) Part of me really doesn't
want to... right now. Tomorrow, I will work on it.. or when I get the
next big block of free time, or when everyone else gets here, or
whatever the excuse happens to be. In my mind I really want to work on
it, but I have little internal fights with myself everytime I go down
to the basement. Sometimes they are bigger fights and I lose out to
washing the dishes or some such thing. We all have our timewasters and
I'm quite capable of losing an hour to surfing the web while I'm
researching a gadget.
So if I had a choice between washing the dishes and writing music, why
would I wash dishes? I think there are in each of us 2 opposing
desires. One part of us dreams. The other part is trying to protect us
from the unknown. It's easy to be afraid of change. When we start
taking tiny steps towards claiming who we are, part of us is afraid...
we're afraid that we might be bad artists.. afraid we might be wasting
our time... afraid maybe that the changes we wanted might happen and
than what happens? It's always safer to stay behind the curtain and
play the "I could have done that" game. Almost every time you hear
someone say that, it's because they themselves are frustrated artists.
Sounds kind of weird I know..
But you don't know how many times, I've seen someone take a step
towards a dream.. they bought a guitar or camera or weight bench and
they spent lots of hard earned money on it. They saved for 6 months or
a year or blew out their credit cards on it. And than, the shiny new
toy, that represents hope and a different life and a step towards a
dream ends up collecting dust. It just doesn't get used. And there's
always a very reasonable explanation.. "I just haven't had the time",
"I need someone to show me how to work it", "I can't cut my nails for
work right now, so when I quit this job, I can start practicing." They
always always mean to get started on it tomorrow or "as soon as I have
more time" or something like that. And they really mean it. They do.
Even weirder than that, when we were starting superchick, I asked
everybody I knew if they had heard of anyone suitable for our project.
Sure enough, names started coming in. So I'd call someone and sure
enough the person on the other end would get really excited about what
I was saying and they'd tell me something like: "that's amazing what
you're talking about cause I've always wanted to do something like
that and I feel like God has put that dream on my heart." and we'd set
up a time for them to come by and hang out so we could figure out if
we all were trying to go to the same place. Usually a couple days
later.
But than invariably... the night before we were supposed to hang, I'd
get a call, sometimes a message and it would go like this: "well, I
really want to do this but I just talked to my
parents/boyfriend/friend/postman and maybe this isn't a good time for
me to do this, I have to go to college/camp/siberian labor camp this
summer, sorry." Now remember we're not talking about a 5 year
commitment, we're talking about coming to meet the crew and see what
it's about. Just to see what it's about.. We're talking about people
who had been so excited 2 days before suddenly were so afraid that
they wouldn't even come and talk about it. weird huh? People ask us
why we chose Melissa and Tricia.. but really, they chose us.. they
were the only 2 brave enough to do it. Melissa didn't even really play
anything when we met her, I taught her to play guitar. Tricia even
quit after a disastrous show opening for Audio A. But than came
back....
So what are we afraid of? Afraid we might suck maybe.. afraid we might
not. I think it was Nelson Mandela who said:
"it is not that we are afraid that might be judged and found wanting,
but rather that we would be judged and found to be powerful beyond
measure."
Which leads us back to this icky feeling that perhaps our own fear
keeps us grounded here.. safe, yet yearning to fly. I remember Seal's
song crazy had this lyric: "in a world full of people, only some want
to fly, isn't that crazy?" Now I'm not sure what he meant, but to me,
it captures how many of us don't chase our dreams. But the thing is,
everyone wants to fly. Just few actually find the courage to do it.
So we're afraid we might succeed and all these changes we can't
control will happen.. we're also afraid of sucking. It's always safer
to be a genius in your own mind rather than a mediocre artist in
reality. Our culture places a huge premium on success and mocks the
failures. We demand instant success. We write a little song and than
instantly the critic on our shoulder starts comparing it to other
stuff that we love and our little creation wilts under the
comparison... I think the critic on my shoulder works for Rolling
Stone.. he's pretty harsh. When people start writing, I always
encourage them to write 10 bad songs to get them out of the way. Very
few people start writing good material. We compare our beginning work
to people who are at the top of their game, working with teams of
people who are all the best at what they do. No one who wants to play
tennis steps into the ring with the williams sisters and expects to
beat them the first time they pick up a racket. Why do I expect myself
to be better than Trevor Horn than?
And than there's the time issue. Who's got time for anything these
days? The only people with time are 8 year olds and prisoners. How can
anyone be expected to pursue a dream working 2 jobs or whatever your
situation happens to be? But the truth is, we've all got 15 minutes a
day we can carve out for a dream or a change we want to make. I always
tell guitar students, that 15 minutes a day every day is better than
16 hours of practice on the weekends. Cause somehow, that 16 hours
never happens, but 15 minutes a day is achievable. If we get in the
habit of giving just 15 minutes a day, you'd be surprised at what
happens. It's just a matter of showing up for those 15 minutes. People
always say: "do you know how old I'll be before I learn to play guitar
at that rate?" To which I say "as old as you're gonna be if you don't
learn." which comes from the book "you're only too old if you don't
start right now." Sounds easy doesn't it. Than do it....
And here's where the hard part comes. We don't really want to. That's
just how it is. Whether it's working out or practicing or writing or
whatever, we just don't want to. (if you do, than stop reading this
and go do it and count your blessings that you're not working uphill.)
It's never easy to make a positive change. Stephen Pressfield refers
to it as "resistance". I think it's even a little more than that.
Let's say it's an internal war between creativity and entropy, between
light and dark, between bad for us and good for us. In the end, I
think Satan likes to see us living lives of quiet desperation, to see
us half fulfilled and partying our dreams away... wondering if this is
all there is. And he's quite good at it. So the thing to take away
from all this is; if you're trying to make a positive change in your
life, expect it to be uphill.. expect to have to fight for it. Plan on
it being a long haul marathon where every day, you're going to have to
fight for your 15 minutes.
So why do we fight for it? Is it worth it?
The funny thing is, when we actually get started on it, we quit
worrying about it and as Stephen Pressfield says, the muse shows up..
he calls it a muse, I'd say that God is the God of creativity, the
original artist when he created the earth in all of it's glory. Every
glorious sunset I see, I think that he's really the original artist..
but the point is, when I sit down to create art, if I stay at it,
pretty soon, I get something I like. I haven't made a song that I'm
really really happy with yet, but I think some of them are
interesting.. and I enjoy the process... and the amazing thing, is
that other people seem to like them to. But we don't do it for other
people or for success, we have to do it for ourselves in the end.
Because we're not promised success, only the success of learning to
live in courage. Of learning what it is to stretch and grow
ourselves.. to be a different person at the end of the year than we
were in the beginning. To quote a bridge from "Rock Star" off the Last
one Picked album:
it's not about success
life is not a test
you just do your best
to see the view from wings of courage
to push on through when we're discouraged
failures are flyers who touch down
only they know what it's like to leave the ground.
So we do it, because in the end it's so satisfying, because it's what
we're supposed to be doing, investing our God given talents. We do it
because it's so fulfilling, more so than trying to fill our lives with
noise and videogames and partying or whatever your dreamkiller is. So
I challenge you, all my faithful and lovely readers, to dig in today..
to show up.. to claim whatever lost dream you've had.. whether that's
working out, writing, shooting or something, your art, your future
your new self awaits you.
And in the spirit of that, I'm gonna go write some music.
Peace out y'all,
max
Extra credit:
Stephen Pressfield, The War of Art
Julia Camerin: The Artist's way |