lextopia

I beg of you all to watch this TED talk. It’s Elizabeth Gilbert, author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE talking about artists. if you’ve ever questioned something that you were making, I guarantee that this will make you feel A LOT less stressed. It’s 19 minutes long.

What she is saying is what i have done naturally my whole life, but couldn’t put into words. The answer is accepting “the source outside of ourselves.” As an artist, and, truly, as a person, I have never felt alone in the traditional sense. I miss my mother, yes, but that’s not what this is about… I have always felt “others” around me, and have never felt like I made anything by myself. I think that’s why I always feel so awkward about accepting accolades. I have never, ever felt like I did a piece of work on my own. I was merely the vessel for many, many, many others’, as well as my own creativity. That’s also, I guess, why I’ve never been “tortured” as an artist. I never question my work because I know it was a collaboration. During the process, I question certain choices and pathways to a final product, but never the final product itself. This is also, I think, what makes me a good producer, writer, and editor - I don’t calculate what a work will be before going out and doing it. I prepare enough so that I will recognize inspirations and signs and narratives and images as being important to my final work when they come, but I don’t predetermine what a piece will be, or try to maneuver events and happenings so that a certain inspiration, sign, narrative or image. I let the moments happen.

From the beginning of my career in media, I noticed a gift for making others–interview subjects–feel at ease. It came so naturally to me. I tossed it away as having come from my training as an actor, but it wasn’t that. It was this acceptance of the forces that flow around us all the time. That acceptance breeds confidence, and confidence lets good work happen. From a very, very early age–I think from birth!–I accepted these forces and snatched them out of the air whenever I wanted. For this reason, also, I have never worried that an idea wouldn’t come to me. What I worry about is whether it will come to me in time for me to meet a deadline. But even then, I have trained myself to recognize when the “mojo,” when the collaborative forces, aren’t there. Sometimes even they need a vacation. So, in those times, I simply wait. Maybe that’s why I became so fast as an editor–with the deadline looming and the “help” not arriving until two days before, I had to JAM if I was going to be on time. I guess I recognized that sometimes this is just what happens, and so I’d better train myself to be able to take advantage of it when it does.

You’ll love the Ruth Stone story, as well as the Tom Waits story. I have felt exactly like both of those folks in Elizabeth’s description. feels good to be in such good company, and to not be insane.