Serving the Unseen Forces of Creation

Waiting for that moment when our creation takes on a life of its own

Listening to the painting

I didn’t write this article, it wrote itself. I started out experimenting, playing with some concepts which took the form of words and sentences. I came back to it periodically and experimented some more, and then the article began to take on a life of its own, it showed me where it needed to go. I then spoke to my friend Mirio who writes at No Free Lunch and he pointed me to some of Stephen King's ponderings which were aligned with mine, and so my job has been merely one of listening for where the piece wanted to go - curating or orchestrating the words into cohesion, rather than being fully in control of the process. Thoughts and discoveries seem to emerge just when needed.

There are times, when we are working on creative projects, that the project itself seems to know where it wants to go. Not that the project has suddenly gained sentience in the sense of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), but that we imbue it with a life of its own. As if it is no longer the sterile object of our creation but a creature with its own will, its own telos. The project tells us where it wants to go. Our role is to listen. We are no longer the creator but a willing servant of what this thing needs. We started off wanting to express ourselves through our creation, and then find it wants to use us to express itself.

Of course, it’s all in our minds, we project some kind of consciousness into the thing we’ve given life, but all the same, this is now the relationship we have with the thing - we are there to serve its aspirations.

Plato’s Forms

As I’m musing on this subject I’m reminded of how Plato envisioned a higher reality with his concept of Forms. The Forms embody perfect and unchangeable representations of idealised abstract entities that exist beyond the tangible world. Our projects guide us to realms beyond our initial intentions, urging us to express their essence as if reaching for the Forms to express the beauty of the divine, something altogether beyond our will and our ego which wants to control and impose itself on our work. We must find the courage to trust the direction our project is taking us, to relinquish our urge to always be in control.

When our creation takes over we become the sculptor, chipping away at our creation to slowly reveal what it intends to be, the form that was there underneath all the time.

The Beatles

It’s fascinating to watch the creative process in Peter Jackson’s Get Back, his documentary created from archive footage of The Beatles in the studios in 1969, writing the songs which ended up being performed in their famous rooftop gig in London’s Saville Row. Watching the film we can bear witness to the genesis of songs like Get Back, Let It Be, Dig a Pony, and Don’t Let Me Down. We can watch the creative process from the vantage point of knowing precisely where the songs need to go, note for note.

We watch John, Paul, George and Ringo as they pull on the threads of where their creations need to go. We are willing them to discover the next part, the ‘right’ sound, the ‘correct’ lyrics. Things begin to fall into place with the timely arrival of keyboardist Billy Preston, who brings layers of sound and rhythm that the songs need, as well as boundless creative energy and enthusiasm which bonds the group as they converge on the final versions of the songs.

We saw the songs taking a life of their own, where the creative process seemed from our perspective to be an unfolding of where the songs needed to go; when they found a thread that took them in the right direction they would pull on it, in service to where it was taking them, surrendering themselves to what their creation required.

Stephen King

Perhaps the idea of our work telling us where it wants to go is more relatable for fiction writers than other creatives - the characters begin creating the story by expressing their will through their own autonomous decisions and actions. The author is bending to the will of her creations.

Author Stephen King, reflecting on his writing process in his book, On Writing, talks about the way he approaches a story without having much of an idea of the story plot. He goes into the story with an open mind, never knowing where the story will lead him, “I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible” he writes. He “distrusts plot” because “our lives are largely plotless”. He feels that stories make themselves and the writer’s job is to “give them a place to grow”. He likens stories to “fossils in the ground” which the writer must excavate, using their tools and abilities, keeping the bones as intact as possible. A plot is like using a jackhammer to dig in the ground, you can move a lot of mud but you’ll break the bones of the story. When the characters and their lives are forced into a plot, the story ends up feeling artificial and laboured. Instead, he brings his characters to life through their speech, and with his narration, the characters move the story to where it needs to go.

Order from chaos

Creativity is the process of finding order within chaos, where the material world is moulded around the abstract, infinite worlds of consciousness, spirit, and the ineffable. At the earlier stages of a project, we are tapping into the vast panacea of the possible but the chaotic range of potential directions can feel overwhelming. This is when we face resistance. We are not necessarily lazy, or unimaginative, we are simply overwhelmed. When our work remains chaotic for too long, or when we become overly judgemental of our progress in wrestling with chaos, we are inclined to quit, but we could be quitting just before the tipping point when order begins to gain a foothold and our creation begins to know where it wants to go. This point is articulated very thoughtfully by artist Titus Meeuws in the video link below:

As Titus describes, in the process of painting, and every process where we are making something, we reach the tipping point where we are no longer looking at strokes of paint on a canvas, but we are looking at a painting, a piece of art.

The first part of the painting is only input, experimenting with one’s skills and abilities to explore possibility and potential. But then, beyond the tipping point, the process changes and the painting begins to tell the artist where it wants to go. There is, in the imagination of the artist, an initial idea which gives birth to the painting process, but this idea is merely an expectation, the painting isn’t what was imagined in our head, it’s what happens on the canvas. We are serving it with the skills and methods we’ve learned over time.

Titus reminds us that we must remember not to give up before we reach the tipping point.

Listening to the painting

As I was drafting this article, and thinking about the creative process as a listening, I happened upon a LinkedIn Post from Paul King, whose work is at Simple Living Kiwi Artist, where he shared his experience of a painting entitled ‘Leaving the dwelling on the path’.

Leaving the dwelling on the path by Paul King

This beautiful piece started life as Paul’s experiment of painting water but took a completely different direction upon hearing the sad news of the recent death of a friend. Paul comments that he may have once painted something he meant to, but most times the paintings just go their own way. The work is an evolution and in my view a perfect eulogy to his friend.

Letting go

Opening ourselves up to the natural flow of things, the natural and patient unfolding of our projects seems to involve a willingness to let go of control. It is not always easy in a world which demands certainty and makes a virtue of being in control. It requires a mind that pursues a rough direction of travel and which is willing to be directed by the discoveries along the journey, rather than sticking to a pre-determined map.

“To give your sheep or a cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.”

Shunryu Suzuki

A planned city or ‘new town’ tends to lack the essence of one that has grown organically over time. When looking at ambitious designs such as Saudi Arabia’s futuristic ‘The Line’ project or the utopian ‘Venus Project’ which offers blueprints for cities that are in harmony with nature, they feel eerily unnatural and forced. Perhaps I’m overly romanticising the idea, but to me, a city discovers what it needs to be as it organically grows over time, this is how community emerges, the social history that brings the city to life, and life to the city. We must be wary of our hubristic desire to control such things.

Finding emergence in this Ordinary Mastery project

Any project, any path of mastery, is an act of faith. This Ordinary Mastery project is like that, it started as a spark of excitement, an act of faith, something I felt compelled to begin, and now it feels like it is telling me where it wants to go. It is helping me to notice things I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed, it is influencing my attention so that little conversations or minor discoveries have more meaning, and are more relatable. It is becoming a container for all of my other interests, a place to put things, as divergent aspects of my life seem to be converging around this project, being drawn into its service of where it wants to go. I’m not a slave to it but a dutiful servant, or a curator.

The project is directing me towards refreshing some of my coding skills so I can create a separate website for it, with a login, and a dashboard. This wants to be a place where creatives, artisans, athletes and entrepreneurs can intermingle around a shared appreciation of the principles of mastery, a desire for connection, and a commitment to help others discover, explore and utilise their gifts. I’ve found myself bursting with ideas for where this project wants to go, still somewhat chaotic but beyond the tipping point mentioned by Titus Meeuws.

Another idea the project is drawing me to is the desire to set up retreats for those pursuing a path of mastery. I want to facilitate real ‘in-person’ connections where people can come to learn the principles of mastery while enjoying the space and inspiration to indulge in their creative work or practices. This is all aspirational and a little fantastical as I don’t currently have the resources to pursue it, but it is interesting to note what emerges, what I’m drawn to, and what feels compelling as if it were a calling. I don’t know how to make this happen but if as a sculptor, I begin to chip away at the edges, listening for where it wants to go, something tangible may emerge through the conversations it is creating.

In the meantime, I’m loving the creative process of building all the materials for the Ordinary Masterclasses which will be kicking off early next year. New ideas and discoveries seem to be flowing as I’m trying to put myself fully in service of where the project wants to go. If you are a creative writer, artist, or musician - or just an ordinary person who is interested in applying the principles of mastery to your life or career, then you may wish to attend the first online Ordinary Masterclasses in early 2024. See the details in the linked article below.

Ordinary Masterclasses

A final discovery

This morning, in another happenstance, just before I was about to publish this piece, my photographer friend, Chris Thomas, shared with me an AI tool to ‘magically’ enhance images, which resulted in the image thumbnail for this piece.