Creative Rebellion Essays: Creativity = Why write a book?
Books have always been my solace, inspiration and source of mentorship. Photo by JC Caldwell
When I walk into a bookstore or library, I’m often overwhelmed by the sheer number of books that are available. Thousands upon thousands. And these are only the books that actually made it through the process of publishing, marketing and press and actually got placed into a bookstore or online distribution. For every book published, there are thousands more, half-written, languishing in laptops or in dusty desk drawers.
“Here’s the reality about making a living as a writer or artist, from an article in the Los Angeles Review of Books:
The chances of your book becoming a New York Times bestseller in 2012: 0.002 percent.
The chances that a living artist in the United States would receive a solo exhibition at MoMA in 2015: 0.0006 percent.”
Excerpt from The Art of Creative Rebellion
This immediately begs the question, Does the world need another book? I mean who am I to add to this immense collection? And if I do get a book out into the world, who is going to see it when there is so much to choose from?
Add to this the fact that our attention spans are decreasing due to social media, mobile phones, embarrassing riches of great TV, film, video games and podcasts and it makes you wonder if this is a fool’s errand.
It might just be.
But that shouldn’t stop you from creating anyway. Your job as a creative person is to just make and release to the universe your expression. Billions of people were born and died before you and billions, perhaps trillions will manifest after you exit this existence. So, on a macro-scale, there is no competition.
But you have already won the lotto. You exist. And the chances of your birth are so ridiculously minute as to be ludicrous. Almost zero. So compared to that, if your goal is to get published, get shown in a gallery, get a show on a network, climb Killamanjaro, start a business – well, I’d say your odds are pretty great by comparison.
So, it just doesn’t matter – don’t worry about things you can’t control. As a creative person (in other words, a human being), it’s your right and, I would argue purpose, to simply create and release. The actual reward of any creative endeavor is in the process of making. Being present in that moment is the benefit; the book, painting, design, new business, film, TV show, podcast, etc is just an artifact of the process. And if someone happens to like the thing you made, then bonus points.
Today is the launch of my book, The Art of Creative Rebellion. And when I started writing it, as I was beginning to sketch it out, I had to ask myself what the point of it was. For me. And the audience. Why should this book exist?
The genesis for the book came from my wife, who noticed that after a panel discussion at South by Southwest in 2018 that people were asking if I had book recommendations or if I had written a book. After the event, my wife said to me,
Why don’t you write a book for a young creative trying to make it in the corporate world? Why don’t you write the book you wished you’d been given when you were starting out?
But I still needed a purpose for the book. And I realized over time that the point was to help to alleviate creative anguish.
The book would be my gift to the world to help alleviate unnecessary suffering.
It’s a modest offering to those who recall that there was a time in childhood when drawing, writing, dancing, singing, and expressing oneself was matter-of-course; it was a state of natural being. The book is meant as a catalyst to reignite the embers that are always there, gently glowing in the darkened basement furnace of our souls, that can and should be activated to burn brightly in the course of our days.
Yes, we all have to deal with reality and the demands of work, family, traffic, bills, politics, mental and physical health challenges, climate change and just getting up in the morning. But it’s my contention that adding creative practice to this laundry list actually alleviates stress and provides power and purpose that both threads through the hard parts and elevates us to a higher perspective – we remember who we truly are and what we are here to do.
This is creative rebellion.
I love bookstores and libraries. They, along with the Internet, are the repository of our collective knowledge as human beings, living on an incredibly beautiful planet that is hurling through the infinite vastness of space at 30 kilometers per second or 67 thousand miles an hour. We are here just for a moment.
The time is now. Now is always the time. It’s time to create. Give your gift to the world.
John
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If you like what you are reading, please order The Art of Creative Rebellion, in stores TODAY January 21st.