The Creative Act: A Way of Being
Rating: 4 / 5 stars
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High-Level Thoughts
A tome providing a vastly different perspective into art & creativity. Rick Rubin’s writing is concise and to the point with chapters of less than 10 pages. This book is one where you would want to return to a chapter every so often through a creative project. Rubin tells concepts very well including real-life examples consistently, but some chapters lacked this imagery. Nevertheless, a transformative read overall.
“People will tell you more about themselves than about the art when giving feedback. We each see a unique world.” 🌎
Summary Notes
Tuning In
“The best artists tend to be the ones with the most sensitive antennae to draw in the energy resonating at a particular moment.”
“There’s a time for certain ideas to arrive, and they find a way to express themselves through us.”
The Source of Creativity
“Turning something from an idea into a reality can make it seem smaller. It changes from unearthly to earthly. The imagination has no limits. The physical world does. The work exists in both.”
Awareness
“Though we can’t change what it is that we are noticing, we can change our ability to notice.”
“The ability to look deeply is the root of creativity. To see past the ordinary and mundane and get to what might otherwise be invisible.”
The Vessel and The Filter
“Source makes available. The filter distills. The vessel receives. And often this happens beyond our control.”
Look for Clues
“The more open you are, the more clues you will find and the less effort you’ll need to exert. You may be able to think less and begin to rely on answers arising within you.”
Nature as Teacher
“There’s a reason we are drawn to gazing at the ocean. It is said the ocean provides a closer reflection of who we are than any mirror.”
Nothing is Static
“The person who makes something today isn’t the same person who returns to the work tomorrow.”
Make It Up
“We’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun. Perfectionism gets in the way of fun. A more skillful goal might be to find comfort in the process. To make and put out successive works with ease.”
Collaboration
“The purpose of the work is to awaken something in you first, and then allow something to be awakened in others. And it’s fine if they’re not the same thing.
Rules
“Rules obeyed unconsciously are far stronger than the ones set on purpose. And they are more likely to undermine the work.”
Listening
“Listening is suspending disbelief.”
Patience
“Patience is required for the nuanced development of your craft. Patience is required for taking in information in the most faithful way possible. Patience is required for crafting a work that resonates and contains all that we have to offer.”
“If we remove time from the equation of a work’s development, what we’re left with is patience. Not just for the development of the work, but for the development of the artist as a whole. Even the masterpieces that have been produced on tight timelines are the sum of decades spent patiently laboring on other works.”
Beginner’s Mind
It didn’t accept the narrative of how to properly play this game. It wasn’t held back by limiting beliefs.”
“The great artists throughout history are the ones able to maintain this childlike enthusiasm and exuberance naturally.”
Habits
“Create an environment where you’re free to express what you’re afraid to express.”
Seeds
“The work reveals itself as you go.”
Experimentation
“We just may not have found the right experiment for it. Perhaps we need to step away for a time and shift perspective. We may choose to start over with it, or set it aside for a while and isft through the others.”
“Failure is the information you need to get where you’re going.”
Momentum
“Crafting contains a paradox. To create our best work, we are patient and avoid rushing the process, while at the same time we work quickly without delay.”
“Art is choosing to do something skillfully, caring about the details, bringing all of yourself to make the finest work you can. It is beyond ego, vanity, self-glorification, and need for approval.”
Point of View
“We create to express who we are. Who we are and where we are on our journey.”
Completion
“The work is done when you feel it is.”
“How many pages will be left empty because your process was dampened by doubt and deliberation?”
“Is it time for the next project because the clock or calendar says it’s time, or because the work itself says it’s time?”
The Abundant Mindset
“Each mindset evokes a universal rule: whatever we concentrate on, we get.”
The Experimenter and the Finisher
“Complete as many elements of the project as you can without getting hung up. It’s much easier to circle back once the workload is reduced. Often the knowledge we gain from finishing the other pieces becomes a key to overcoming earlier obstacles.”
Temporary Rules
“Set parameters that force you out of your comfort zone. If you always write on a laptop, try using a yellow legal pad. If you’re right-handed, paint using your left hand.”
“A rule is a way of structuring awareness.”
Success
“Success has nothing to do with variables outside yourself.”
“If we can tune in to the idea of making things and sharing them without being attached to the outcome, the work is more likely to arrive in its truest form.”
Connected Detachment (Possibility)
“I wasn’t expecting that plot twist. I wonder what’s going to happen to our hero next.”
Point of Reference
“Be aware of strong responses. If you’re immediately turned off by an experience, it’s worth examining why. Powerful reactions often indicate deeper wells of meaning. And perhaps by exploring them, you’ll be led to the next step on your creative path.”
Non-competition
“Think of self-competition as a quest for evolution. The object is not to beat our other work. It’s to move things forward and create a sense of progression.”
Essence
“Try to find the simplest, most elegant way to put a point across, with the least amount of information.”
“Perfection is finally obtained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there’s no longer anything to take away..” – Antoine de Saint-Expurery, Wind, Sand, and Stars
Apocrypha
“We will never know a work’s true meaning. It’s helpful to remember that there are forces at work beyond our comprehension. Let’s make art, and let others make stories.”
Tuning Out (Undermining Voices)
“The intention of our art can shift from self-expression to self-sustainment. From creative choices to business decisions.”
“I’m only going to focus on this one practice: making great work.”
Self Awareness
“It’s helpful to work as if the project you’re engaged in is bigger than you.”
Right Before Our Eyes
“If you are open and stay tuned to what’s happening, the answers will be revealed.”
Expect a Surprise
“Living in discovery is at all times preferable to living through assumptions.”
Great Expectations
“With the understanding that the process will get you where you’re going. Wherever that reveals itself to be. And the magical nature of the unfolding never ceases to take our breath away.”
“Sometimes the mistakes are what make a work great. Humanity breathes in mistakes.”
Openness
“Many people may seem walled off. But sometimes walls can provide different ways of seeing over and around obstacles.”
Surrounding the Lightning Bolt
“Do what you can with what you have. Nothing more is needed.”
24/7 (Staying In It)
“Maybe the best idea is the one you’re going to come up with this evening.”
Spontaneity (Special Moments)
“Sometimes, it can be the most ordinary moment that creates an extraordinary piece of art.”
How to Choose
“We can hack into this principle to improve our creations through A/B testing. It is difficult to assess a work or a choice on its own without another point of reference. If you place two options side by side and make a direct comparison, our preferences become clear.”
Shades and Degrees
“When the work has five mistakes, it’s not yet completed. When it has eight mistakes, it might be.”
Implications (Purpose)
“Think to yourself: I’m just here to create.”
Freedom
“It’s best to wait until a work is complete to discover what it is saying. Holding your work hostage to meaning is a limitation.”
“What we say, what we sing, what we paint—we get to choose. We have no responsibility to anything other than the art itself. The art is the final word.”
Translation
“As Arn Anderson once noted: ‘I’m both a professor and student, because if you’re no longer a student, you don’t have the right to call yourself a professor.’”
Clean Slate
“What allows this to happen is the passing of time. Time is where learning occurs. Unlearning as well.”
The Energy (In the Work)
“The best work is the work you are excited about.”
Ending to Start Anew (Regeneration)
“Sharing art is the price of making it. Exposing your vulnerability is the fee.”
“A work of art is not an end point in itself. It’s a station on a journey. A chapter in our lives. We acknowledge these transitions by documenting each of them.”
Play
“Take art seriously without going about it in a serious way.”
“Whether the work comes easily through play or with difficulty through struggle, the quality of the finished piece is unaffected.”
The Art Habit (Sangha)
“Success is harder to come by when your life depends on it.”
“Being part of an artistic community can be one of the greatest joys of life.”
The Prism of Self
“Any framework, method, or label you impose on yourself is just as likely to be a limitation as an opening.”
Cooperation
“If one collaborator likes Choice A and another prefers Choice B, then the solution is not to choose A or B. It’s to keep working until a Choice C is developed that both artists feel is superior. Choice C may incorporate elements of A, of B, of both, or of neither.”
“The synergy of a group is as important–if not more important– than the talent of the individuals.”
The Sincerity Dilemma
“If we get out of the way and let the art do its work, it may yield the sincerity we seek. And sincerity may look nothing like we expected.”
“Anything that allows the audience to access how you see the world is accurate, even if the information is wrong.”
The Gatekeeper
“Being an artist means to be continually asking, ‘How can it be better?’ whatever it is. It may be your art and it may be your life.”
Why Make Art?
“The reason we’re alive is to express ourselves in the world. And creating art may be the most effective and beautiful method of doing so. Art goes beyond language, beyond lives. It’s a universal way to send messages between each other and through time.”
Harmony
“However you frame yourself as an artist, the frame is too small.”
What We Tell Ourselves
“The universe never explains why.”
