Welcome to November’s Non-Fiction Feature, friend! It is rare that I finish a book and want to reread it immediately. With The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Ruben, I soaked up so many things in the audiobook that I found myself grabbing a physical copy so that I could reread and highlight everything that I may have missed noting down in my audio round. I am very happy to finally share this review with you. Here is what the book is about:
The Creative Act: A Way of Being
By Rick Rubin | Goodreads
From the legendary music producer, a master at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book many years in the making that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us.
“A gorgeous and inspiring work of art on creation, creativity, the work of the artist. It will gladden the hearts of writers and artists everywhere, and get them working again with a new sense of meaning and direction. A stunning accomplishment.” –Anne Lamott
“I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be.” –Rick Rubin
Many famed music producers are known for a particular sound that has its day. Rick Rubin is known for something else: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. He has made a practice of helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable. Over the years, as he has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn’t, he has learned that being an artist isn’t about your specific output, it’s about your relationship to the world. Creativity has a place in everyone’s life, and everyone can make that place larger. In fact, there are few more important responsibilities.
The Creative Act is a beautiful and generous course of study that illuminates the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It distills the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime’s work into a luminous reading experience that puts the power to create moments–and lifetimes–of exhilaration and transcendence within closer reach for all of us.
The Creative Act: A Way of Being Book Review
I pursue creativity in numerous ways. I didn’t used to think that what I did was creative until some years back and since, dabbling in creating, whether through art or staging or writing reviews, has become an even more fulfilling endeavour. I find the timing of reading a book, the place I am at in life and the mindset with which I approach a work are all very important to how that work will be received.
In Rick Rubin, I found a teacher I needed at this point in time. All that he said resonated with me and my journey of creative living. I had been thinking about many of the things he mentioned but I had never holistically put them together for myself.
The Life of the Artist
Rick offered his experiences, his insights, the thoughts that pull us down (what Jon Acuff calls ‘broken soundtracks’ in Soundtracks) and things that artists working with him have found successful. I loved his emphasis on how art is a conversation with nature because we don’t really know how we get the inspiration for it. It is intended for just us though we often get tangled in how it will be perceived when we finish. He gave a clear designation between doubting the work and doubting ourselves. There is a cheat sheet of common broken soundtracks on pg 139 that I found very helpful and bookmarked for future reference.
As I read the chapter on Habits in particular, I was reminded of Stephen King’s memoir, On Writing, Lindsay Sealey’s Made for More (review, interview) and Jessie Kwak’s FromChaos to Creativity (review, interview). I enjoyed Rick’s thoughts on discipline, the creative process, self-awareness and self-doubt.
On pg 137 he says,”The more you reduce your daily life-maintenance tasks, the greater the bandwidth available for creative decisions.” I thought back to the time in my life when I was first brimming with creativity. It was 2020, COVID lockdowns and work from home were the new normal. Daily life maintenance tasks were truly few and far in between because social interactions were limited. It was a hard time but I remember it being an amazing time on Instagram. The community was abuzz with energy to read and take photos of books. As we have all returned back to more pre-pandemic life, some of the time that had been freed up is no longer there. It takes effort to be in the headspace to create some days, and that’s ok. In hindsight, it is quite amazing to have had that time in 2020 to pursue creativity with abundance.
I, the artist, is always on call. The number of times during the day when I think of a book or a theme that I want to explore or something I am curious about – that is all creativity.
Creativity is something you are, not only something you do.
The Creative Act, pg 295
Once you acquiesce to the demands of the creative life, it becomes a part of you. Even in the midst of a project, you still look for new ideas each day. At any moment, you’re prepared to stop what you’re doing to make a note or a drawing, or capture a fleeting thought. It becomes second nature. And we’re always in it every hour of the day.
The Creative Act, pg 296
While The Creative Act acknowledges and encourages their existence, From Chaos to Creativity talked about how to organize these numerous moments of inspiration. Both these books go hand in hand for me!
Success
As I read The Creative Act, I also pondered my relationship with success. Ever since I came into contact with Tara Brach’s work in Radical Acceptance, I have been trying to find the places in my body where emotions and feelings live. Success is so often expressed in numbers but that is an external manifestation. Ricks says that “Success occurs in the privacy of the soul”. I love that and I knew it to be true but I hadn’t made that connection until I read Rick’s words. I love that success is something we feel rather than something outside of us that we can see. “Success has nothing to do with variables outside yourself.”
protect your personal understanding of success. […] make each new work, no matter where you stand on the ladder of public perception, like you have nothing to lose.
The Creative Act, – pg 222
Sometimes when I post something to Instagram, I worry how it will be received. I borrowed some thoughts from Rick to include into my pre-share routine, just before I press the button. Whatever I create, it meets my highest standard. I did it for myself and I love it. That is all that matters. Loving my creations unconditionally is something I am embracing with more ease every day. The idea that every work of art is simply an iteration speaks to a growth mindset of how we are always improving. Rick compares the art we make to a diary entry: it represents who we are at the time we make it, a snapshot of our lives and inner states.
The person who makes something today isn’t the same person who returns to the work tomorrow.
The Creative Act, pg 57
Self-belief and that the best work is still ahead of us is a mantra of staying in the craft. To continue to create. Looking back through my Instagram, I have found recent posts about friendship, reading from the library and The Blood that Binds some of my best works. They are fundamentally very different. I marvel at the things I make and am curious of what else I will create. I love what the journey is revealing and all the ways in which I am growing.
Collaboration and Non-Competition
There were a few chapters on collaboration and competition. Though most of my work is done in isolation, on the blog, I collaborate with readers as well as writers. As a host, I check all pieces, particularly guest posts for their qualities.
Rick offered tips on how to give feedback as well as receive feedback. I was doing some of this already but his reminder that sometimes, the best feedback is not making any changes, is one that I keep in the forefront of my mind. If it is not my piece to write, then I try my best not to influence it and its structure too much. I have guidelines, but I don’t see them as hard rules that cannot be broken. An example is Christopher Meyer’s post – it does not follow the header format of most guest posts and in my editing phase, all I asked for was photos to enhance the piece. 🙂
I get hung up
The beginning of August had a huge list of pending reviews: The Creative Act, Wuthering Heights, Hello Beautiful and The African Samurai. While I was not lacking notes and thoughts on each of the books, I found myself unable to make time to write about them. For some, I felt I would not be able to do justice to all that I have read and thought, for others, it felt like the time with them would end. I promised myself I would write about every book I read and all four of them are too amazing for me to not write about. As of today,
“Complete as many elements of the project as you can without getting hung up.” So, I started with a list of the different pieces of each review and also noting down what was stopping me. I estimated how much time each would take, the kind of expectations I had of myself, the resources (my journal notes) that would help me if I drew up blank. Starting is often so hard but even after starting, continuing has its own hurdles. Rick suggests taking a non-linear approach, which I have tried and I enjoy in reviewing.
Another one of his reminders that I had already incorporated in life: success is in the action, not the outcome. Writing something is success.
Favorite chapters from The Creative Act
The Creative Act is composed of 78 short chapters. Of them, I found the following most insightful, and if I ever need a condensed version of the book, I would pick these up. Here are the questions Rick answers in each:
- Beginning a work, completing a work, and sharing a work – these are key moments where many of us become stuck. How do we move forward, considering the stories we tell ourselves? – Chapter: Making it up
- How do we know when an idea is flourishing? – Chapter: Experimentation
- How do we decide which experiment to craft? – Chapter: Crafting
- Before stepping away from the piece, it’s worth finding a way to break the sameness and refresh your experiment in the work, as if engaging with it for the first time. Chapter: Breaking the Sameness
- When is the work done? Chapter: Completion
- How do we know when we arrive at greatness? Chapter: Self-Awareness
- How do we decide which direction to take? how can we know which choice will lead us to the best possible version of the work? Chapter: How to Choose
Discussion Questions for The Creative Act
- What is your craft?
- Is there a chapter that particularly resonated with you and why?
- Did you implement something from this book?
- Did you find something you already knew to be true?
- How do you get unstuck?
The Creative Act is the perfect combination of buddhist teaching and creative living. If you enjoy zen writing with abstract ideas, you might like this book. It has a philosophical feel. Just like From Chaos to Creativity helped me recognize I have a system for creative living, The Creative Act helped me see process, the hurdles and the brilliance in being a creative. I look forward to coming back to this book again. I will end this review with a reminder from the book:
No matter what tools you use to create, the true instrument is you.
The Creative Act, pg 29
And through you, the universe that surrounds us all comes into focus.
Add it to your Goodreads shelf if you are intrigued.
Wow, I definitely need to pick up a copy of this one! Thanks for the thoughtful review!!
I hope you enjoy this one! Thank you so much for reading. 🙂