After spending a very short amount of time writing today I put a podcast on, selected ‘Everywhere’ on the device list, and made work of getting a few things done. I’ve been on a Rick Rubin kick since Christmas, when I received his book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, as a gift. Rubin, and his philosophy of the creative life, is popping up across nearly every platform I frequent and I can see why. Listening, and reading, I find myself nodding yes, yes, yes to so much of what he says.
In an interview back in March 2023, Rubin sat down with Krista Tippet for an On Being podcast interview. The first time you hear his voice, this is what he says…
“Our creativity doesn’t come from our ideas … Everything we do has all of ourselves in it. It can have all of ourselves deeply in it, or it could just be surface level. But either way, we’re inhabiting the things that we’re making. The good ones have our soul. You know, they have a piece of us in them.”
I stopped it right there and let this sink in. Even reading these words now I am nodding my head. When I stepped away from Instagram shortly after Thanksgiving, so a couple of month’s ago now, I hadn’t made a firm commitment to what was next. I had a nebulous idea, but it was one that sounded a little unsettling and not one I had heard of anyone else specifically doing. Did that mean I shouldn’t do it? No, it simply meant I would need to build my own framework and see if it would stand. So, here I am, and so are you-thank you to the brave ones daring to walk this unlevel path with me.
This quote resonates so deeply. After several years of fits and starts on Insta I could feel myself holding back more and more. I discovered a great community of individuals, several who are now IRL friends, and I am grateful for that. Although, another thing I discovered, that I am less grateful for is how distracted and unfocused I had become. It’s amazing how easy it is to lose track of what it is you love to do, or what your work needs to be, when your mind is filled with what other people love-and theirs is always so much better, cleaner, bigger, smaller, faster selling, more well liked, more well crafted, and so it continues, you get the picture. Or lack of one. Theodore Roosevelt said “Comparison is the thief of joy” and Instagram does a phenomenal job of stealing away hours and motivation and replacing them with discontent and desire-that’s what influencers are there for. It has it’s good points but last year my disillusionment came full circle and I knew it was time to go.
Yesterday was launch day for The Writist. I wonder if I had listened to Rubin last week if his words would have had the same impact? This part, “Everything we do has all of ourselves in it. It can have all of ourselves deeply in it, or it could just be surface level” (emphasis mine), hit me on a visceral level. Seriously, I had a physical response, I felt in my core that this was the why of why I am here. I want all of myself deeply in anything I do. I also want to encourage others to dive deeply into their own creative lives, discover, or rediscover, what makes their blood pump faster, their heart light up, to find the strength to give themselves permission to step off the edge of the 'what if’s’ that hold them back and just try! That gets my blood pumping! Declaring publicly that you are choosing a different path is a little scary, and (I am hoping) a whole lot of worth it. I want to be all in, and, if you are here, my guess is you don’t want surface level either.
I am not sure if this is more post or journal entry but I promised I was all in so I’m just going to let it unfold! I try to make a daily habit of writing morning…
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