Rick Rubin – The Creative Act (2023)
Het boek heeft niet echt een kop en een staart, het is meer een verzameling aan overwegingen die allen raken aan het ruimste begrip van ‘creativiteit’. De auteur komt uit de muziekwereld, maar diens overpeinzingen kunnen als inspiratie dienen voor iedereen die zich met een vorm van kunst en/of het oplossen van problemen bezig houdt.
Because there’s an endless amount of data available to us, and we have a limited bandwidth to conserve, we might consider carefully curating the quality of what we allow in.
Oscar Wilde said that some things are too important to be taken seriously. Art is one of those things. Setting the bar low, especially to get started, frees you to play, explore, and test without attachment to results.
The imperfections you’re tempted to fix might prove to be what make the work great. And sometimes not. We rarely know what makes a piece great. No one can know. The most plausible reasons are theories at best. Why is beyond our comprehension.
The templates of the past can be an inspiration in the beginning phases, but it’s helpful to think beyond what’s been done before. The world isn’t waiting for more of the same. Often, the most innovative ideas dome from those who master the rules to such a degree that they can see past them of from those who never learned the rules at all.
We tend to believe that the more we know, the more clearly we can see the possibilities available. This is not the case. The impossible only becomes accessible when experience has not taught us limits.
If you know what you want to do and you do it, that’s the work of a craftsman. If you begin with a question and use it to guide an adventure of discovery, that’s the work of the artist.
We can make things, let them go, make the next thing, and let it go. With each chapter we make, we gain experience, improve our craft, and inch closer to who we are.
There is no more valid metric to predict what someone else might enjoy than us liking it ourselves.
“Comparison is the thief of joy”
There is no telling where that next great story, painting, recipe, or business idea is going to come from. Just as a surfer can’t control the waves, artists are at the mercy of the creative rhythms of nature. This is why it’s of such great importance to remain aware and present at all times. Watching and waiting.
The best results are found when we’re impartial and detached from our own strategies. We all benefit when the best idea is chosen, regardless of whether it’s ours or not.
As human beings, we come and go quickly, and we get to make works that stand as monuments to our time here. Enduring affirmations of existence. Michelangelo’s David, the first cave paintings, a child’s finger-paint landscapes – they all echo the same human cry, like graffiti scrawled in a bathroom stall: I was here.