The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin

Everyone Is a Creator

To create is to bring something into existence that wasn’t there before.

To live as an artist is a way of being in the world. A way of perceiving. A practice of paying attention.

You exist as a creative being in a creative universe. A singular work of art.

Tuning In

Just as trees grow flowers and fruits, humanity creates works of art. The Golden Gate Bridge, the White Album, Guernica, Hagia Sophia, the Sphinx, the space shuttle, the Autobahn,“Clair de lune,” the Colosseum in Rome, the Phillips screwdriver, the iPad, Philadelphia cheesesteak.

The universe functions like a clock: To everything—There is a season—And a time to every purpose under heaven A time to be born, a time to die A time to plant, a time to reap A time to kill, a time to heal A time to laugh, a time to weep A time to build up, a time to break down A time to dance, a time to mourn A time to cast away stones A time to gather stones together

If you have an idea you’re excited about and you don’t bring it to life, it’s not uncommon for the idea to find its voice through another maker. This isn’t because the other artist stole your idea, but because the idea’s time has come.

The best artists tend to be the ones with the most sensitive antennae to draw in the energy resonating at a particular moment. Many great artists first develop sensitive antennae not to create art but to protect themselves. They have to protect themselves because everything hurts more. They feel everything more deeply.

Often art arrives in movements. Bauhaus architecture, abstract expressionism, French New Wave cinema, Beat poetry, punk rock to name a few from recent history. These movements appear like a wave; some artists are able to read the culture and position themselves to ride that swell. Others might see the wave and choose to swim against the current.

How do we pick up on a signal that can neither be heard nor be defined? The answer is not to look for it. Nor do we attempt to predict or analyze our way into it. Instead, we create an open space that allows it. A space so free of the normal overpacked condition of our minds that it functions as a vacuum. Drawing down the ideas that the universe is making available.

Artists who are able to continually create great works throughout their lives often manage to preserve these childlike qualities. Practicing a way of being that allows you to see the world through uncorrupted, innocent eyes can free you to act in concert with the universe’s timetable.

There’s a time for certain ideas to arrive, and they find a way to express themselves through us.

The Source of Creativity

This is why, when we are struck by a new piece of art, it can resonate on a deeper level. Perhaps this is the familiar, coming back to us in an unfamiliar form. Or maybe it is something unknown that we didn’t realize we were looking for. A missing piece in a puzzle that has no end.

Awareness

The awareness happens first as a pure connection with the object of your attention. If something strikes me as interesting or beautiful, first I live that experience. Only afterward might I attempt to understand it.

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 Unseen

The act of creation is an attempt to enter a mysterious realm. A longing to transcend. What we create allows us to share glimpses of an inner landscape, one that is beyond our understanding. Art is our portal to the unseen world.

The practice of spirituality is a way of looking at a world where you’re not alone. There are deeper meanings behind the surface. The energy around you can be harnessed to elevate your work. You are part of something much larger than can be explained—a world of immense possibilities.

Look for Clues

When something out of the ordinary happens, ask yourself why. What’s the message? What could be the greater meaning?

When my appendix burst, the doctor who diagnosed it insisted that I go to the hospital immediately to have it removed. I was told there were no other options. I found myself in a nearby bookstore. Standing out on a table in the front was a new book by Dr. Andrew Weil. I picked it up and let it fall open. The first passage my eyes went to said: if a doctor wants to remove a part of your body, and they tell you it has no function, don’t believe this. The information I needed was made available to me in that moment. And I still have my appendix.

Practice

Living life as an artist is a practice. You are either engaging in the practice or you’re not. It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. It’s like saying,“I’m not good at being a monk.” You are either living as a monk or you’re not. We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output. The real work of the artist is a way of being in the world.

Submerge (The Great Works)

In service of this robust instinct, consider submerging yourself in the canon of great works. Read the finest literature, watch the masterpieces of cinema, get up close to the most influential paintings, visit architectural landmarks. There’s no standard list; no one has the same measures of greatness. The“canon” is continually changing, across time and space. Nonetheless, exposure to great art provides an invitation. It draws us forward, and opens doors of possibility.

The objective is not to learn to mimic greatness, but to calibrate our internal meter for greatness. So we can better make the thousands of choices that might ultimately lead to our own great work.

Nature as Teacher

The closer we can get to the natural world, the sooner we start to realize we are not separate. And that when we create, we are not just expressing our unique individuality, but our seamless connection to an infinite oneness.

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.

Memories and the Subconscious

Memories can also be thought of as dreamlike. They’re more a romantic story than a faithful document of a life event. And there’s good content to be found in these dreamy recollections we have of past experiences.

Self-Doubt

Flaws are human, and the attraction of art is the humanity held in it. If we were machinelike, the art wouldn’t resonate. It would be soulless. With life comes pain, insecurity, and fear.

The making of art is not a competitive act. Our work is representative of the self. You would be amiss to say,“I’m not up to the challenge.” Yes, you may need to deepen your craft to fully realize your vision. If you’re not up to it, no one else can do it. Only you can. You’re the only one with your voice.

There are singers considered among the best in the world who can’t bring themselves to listen to their own voice. And these are not rare exceptions.

If a creator is so afraid of judgment that they’re unable to move forward, it might be that the desire to share the work isn’t as strong as the desire to protect themselves. Perhaps art isn’t their role. Their temperament might serve a different pursuit. This path is not for everyone. Adversity is part of the process.

We are not obligated to follow this calling because we have a talent or skill. It’s worth remembering that we are blessed to get to create. It’s a privilege. We’re choosing it. We’re not being ordered to do this. If we’d rather not do it, let’s not do it.‍

‍Make It Up

Consider moving forward with the more accurate point of view that it’s a small work, a beginning. The mission is to complete the project so you can move on to the next. That next one is a stepping-stone to the following work. And so it continues in productive rhythm for the entirety of your creative life.

It’s helpful to see the piece we’re working on as an experiment. One in which we can’t predict the outcome. Whatever the result, we will receive useful information that will benefit the next experiment.

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.

Gratitude can also help. Realizing you are fortunate to be in a position that allows you to create, and in some cases get paid to do what you love, might tip the balance in favor of the work.

One legendary singer, despite performing for over five decades, was never able to eliminate his stage fright. Despite a terror so strong it made him sick to his stomach, he still stepped into the spotlight each night and performed a spellbinding show. By accepting self-doubt, rather than trying to eliminate or repress it, we lessen its energy and interference.

If you have an imperfect version of a work you really love, you may find that when it finally seems perfect, you don’t love it in the same way. This is a sign the imperfect version was actually the one. The work is not about perfection.

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 Leaning Tower of Pisa was an architectural error, which builders further exacerbated by trying to fix. Now, hundreds of years later, it’s one of the most visited buildings in the world precisely because of this mistake.

In Japanese pottery, there’s an artful form of repair called kintsugi. When a piece of ceramic pottery breaks, rather than trying to restore it to its original condition, the artisan accentuates the fault by using gold to fill the crack. This beautifully draws attention to where the work was broken, creating a golden vein. Instead of the flaw diminishing the work, it becomes a focal point, an area of both physical and aesthetic strength. The scar also tells the story of the piece, chronicling its past experience.

Collaboration

The more we pay attention, the more we begin to realize that all the work we ever do is a collaboration.

It’s a collaboration with the art that’s come before you and the art that will come after. It’s also a collaboration with the world you’re living in. With the experiences you’ve had. With the tools you use. With the audience. And with who you are today.

The inspired-artist aspect of your self may be in conflict with the craftsperson aspect, disappointed that the craftsperson is unable to create the physical embodiment of the inspired artist’s vision. This is a common conflict for creators, since there is no direct conversion from abstract thought to the material world. The work is always an interpretation.

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. We can only hope that the magnitude of the charge we experience reverberates as powerfully for others as it does for us.

Intention

The old man looked at him and said,“I think I’m going to keep doing it the way I always have. I really have to think about each movement and there’s a great deal of care that goes into doing it right. I’d imagine if I were to use the pulley, it would become easy and I might even start thinking about something else while doing it. If I put so little care and time into it, what might the water taste like? It couldn’t possibly taste as good.”

Our thoughts, feelings, processes, and unconscious beliefs have an energy that is hidden in the work. This unseen, unmeasurable force gives each piece its magnetism. A completed project is only made up of our intention and our experiments around it. Remove intention and all that’s left is the ornamental shell.

Not all projects take time, but they do take a lifetime. In calligraphy, the work is created in one movement of the brush. All the intention is in that single concentrated movement. The line is a reflection of the energy transfer from the artist’s being, including the entire history of their experiences, thoughts, and apprehensions, into the hand. The creative energy exists in the journey to the making, not in the act of constructing.

Our work embodies a higher purpose. Whether we know it or not, we’re a conduit for the universe. Material is allowed through us. If we are a clear channel, our intention reflects the intention of the cosmos.

We may not have a great understanding of what this magnum opus is because we only see the small part we play. The bee, attracted by the scent of the flower, lands on one then another, inadvertently enabling reproduction. Should the bee go extinct, not just flowers but birds, small mammals, and humans would likely also cease to exist. It’s fair to assume that the bee doesn’t know its role in this interconnected puzzle and in preserving the balance of nature. The bee is simply being.

Rules

As soon as a convention is established, the most interesting work would likely be the one that doesn’t follow it. The reason to make art is to innovate and self-express, show something new, share what’s inside, and communicate your singular perspective.

We assume the equipment and format are part of the art form itself. Yet painting can be anything that involves the use of color on a surface for an aesthetic or communicative purpose. All other decisions are up to the artist.

Similar conventions are woven into most art forms: a book is a certain number of pages and is divided into chapters. A feature film is 90 to 120 minutes and often has three acts. Embedded in each medium, there are sets of norms that restrain our work before we’ve even begun.

Genres, in particular, come with distinct variations on rules. A horror film, a ballet, or a country album—each come with specific expectations. As soon as you use a label to describe what you’re working on, there’s a temptation to conform to its rules. 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 come from those who master the rules to such a degree that they can see past them or from those who never learned them at all.

The most deceptive rules are not the ones we can see, but the ones we can’t. These can be found hiding deeper in the mind, often unnoticed, just beyond our awareness. Rules that entered our thinking through childhood programming, lessons we’ve forgotten, osmosis from the culture, and emulating the artists who inspired us to try it for ourselves.

It’s helpful to continually challenge your own process. If you had a good result using a specific style, method, or working condition, don’t assume that is the best way. Or your way. Or the only way. Avoid getting religious about it. There may be other strategies that work just as well and allow new possibilities, directions, and opportunities.

It’s helpful to remember that when you throw away an old playbook, you still get to keep the skills you learned along the way. These hard-earned abilities transcend rules. They’re yours to keep. Imagine what can arise when you overlay an entirely new set of materials and instructions over your accumulated expertise.

Listening

Listening without prejudice is how we grow and learn as people. More often than not, there are no right answers, just different perspectives. The more perspectives we can learn to see, the greater our understanding becomes.

Patience

The home built hastily rarely survives the first storm.

When listening, we tend to skip forward and generalize the speaker’s overall message. We miss the subtleties of the point, if not the entire premise. In addition to the assumption that we are saving time, this shortcut also avoids the discomfort of challenging our prevailing stories. And our worldview continues to shrink.

Impatience is an argument with reality. The desire for something to be different from what we are experiencing in the here and now. A wish for time to speed up, tomorrow to come sooner, to relive yesterday, or to close your eyes then open them and find yourself in another place.

We can’t force greatness to happen. All we can do is invite it in and await it actively. Not anxiously, as this might scare it off. Simply in a state of continual welcoming.

Even the masterpieces that have been produced on tight timelines are the sum of decades spent patiently laboring on other works.

Beginner’s Mind

The Ramones thought they were making mainstream bubblegum pop. To most others, the lyrical content alone—about lobotomies, sniffing glue, and pinheads—was enough to challenge this assumption. While the band saw themselves as the next Bay City Rollers, they unwittingly invented punk rock and started a countercultural revolution. While the music of the Bay City Rollers had great success in its time, the Ramones’ singular take on rock and roll became more popular and influential. Of all the explanations of the Ramones, the most apt may be: innovation through ignorance.

Animals, like children, don’t have a hard time making a decision. They act out of innate instinct, not learned behavior. This primitive force packs an ancient wisdom that science has yet to catch up with.

Talent is the ability to let ideas manifest themselves through you.

Inspiration

For the lungs to draw in air, they must first be emptied. For the mind to draw inspiration, it wants space to welcome the new. The universe seeks balance. Through this absence, you are inviting energy in.

The same principle applies to everything in life. If we are looking for a relationship when we’re already in one, then we are full. There is no room for the new to enter. And we are unable to welcome in the relationship we want.

To vary your inspiration, consider varying your inputs. Turn the sound off to watch a film, listen to the same song on repeat, read only the first word of each sentence in a short story, arrange stones by size or color, learn to lucid dream. Break habits. Look for differences. Notice connections. One indicator of inspiration is awe. We tend to take so much for granted. How can we move past disconnection and desensitization to the incredible wonders of nature and human engineering all around us?

Habits

The point Wooden was making was that creating effective habits, down to the smallest detail, is what makes the difference between winning and losing games. Each habit might seem small, but added together, they have an exponential effect on performance. Just one habit, at the top of any field, can be enough to give an edge over the competition.

Good habits create good art. The way we do anything is the way we do everything. Treat each choice you make, each action you take, each word you speak with skillful care. The goal is to live your life in the service of art.

Discipline and freedom seem like opposites. In reality, they are partners. Discipline is not a lack of freedom, it is a harmonious relationship with time. Managing your schedule and daily habits well is a necessary component to free up the practical and creative capacity to make great art.

Creativity-supporting habits can begin the moment you arise each day. These might include looking at sunlight before screenlight, meditating(outdoors if possible), exercising, and showering in cold water before beginning creative time in a suitable space.

These habits look different for everyone, and perhaps different for the same artist from day to day. You might sit in the forest, pay attention to your thoughts, and make notes. Or drive in a car for an hour, with no destination in mind, listening to classical music and seeing if any sparks arise.

If you commit to working for half an hour a day, something good can happen that generates momentum. You may then look at the clock and realize you’ve been working for two hours. The option is always open to extend your creative hours once the habit is formed.

The goal is to commit to a structure that can take on a life of its own, instead of creating only when the mood strikes. Or to start each day with the question of how and when you’re going to work on your art.

The more you reduce your daily life-maintenance tasks, the greater the bandwidth available for creative decisions. Albert Einstein wore the same thing daily: a gray suit. Erik Satie had seven identical outfits, one for each day of the week. Limit your practical choices to free your creative imagination.

Seeds

And for a business, it could be a common inconvenience, a societal need, a technical advancement, or a personal interest.

An idea appearing to hold less vitality may grow into a beautiful work. Other times, the most exciting seed may not ultimately yield fruit. It’s too soon to tell. Until we are further along in the process and the idea has been developed, it’s impossible to assess these germs of an idea accurately. The appropriate seed will reveal itself over time.

Placing too much emphasis on a seed or dismissing it prematurely can interfere with its natural growth. The temptation to insert too much of yourself in this first phase can undermine the entire enterprise. Be wary of taking shortcuts or crossing items off your list too quickly.

When we make assumptions about what seeds won’t work or may not fit with what we believe to be our artistic identity, we may be prevented from growing as creators. Sometimes the purpose of a seed is to propel us in a completely new direction. Along the way, it may morph into something hardly resembling its original form and become our finest work yet.

Experimentation

There’s no right way to experiment. Generally speaking, we want to begin interacting with the seeds, developing our starting point in different directions. We are cultivating each seed, much as a gardener creates optimal conditions to foster growth.

In this phase, we are not looking at which iteration progresses the quickest or furthest, but which holds the most promise. We focus on the flourishing and wait to prune. We generate possibilities instead of eliminating them. Editing prematurely can close off routes that might lead to beautiful vistas previously unseen.

Ancient Chinese alchemists searching for immortality mixed saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal. They discovered something else: gunpowder. Countless other inventions—penicillin, plastic, pacemakers, Post-it notes—were discovered by accident. Consider how many innovations that might have changed the world have been lost because someone was so focused on their goal, they missed the revelation right in front of them.

The heart of experiment is mystery. We cannot predict where a seed will lead or if it will take root. Remain open to the new and unknown. Begin with a question mark and embark on a journey of discovery.

allow space for magic to enter.

In nature, some seeds lie dormant in anticipation of the season most conducive to their growth. This is true of art as well. There are ideas whose time has not yet come. Or perhaps their time has come, but you are not yet ready to engage with them. Other times, developing a different seed may shed light on a dormant one.

Being open to possibility gets you to a place you want to go that you may not know you wanted to get to.

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. The surprises along the way can expand your work, and even the art form itself.

Failure is the information you need to get where you’re going.

Try Everything

There is a gap between imagination and reality. An idea might seem brilliant in our mind. But once employed, it might not work at all. Another might seem dreary at first. Then, upon execution, it might be exactly what’s called for.

We want to set up an environment where the decision making occurs free of the misguiding force of persuasion. Persuasion leads to mediocrity. To be evaluated, ideas have to be seen, heard, tasted, or touched.

Once the idea is witnessed in its full expression, it may turn out far better than you imagined. It may even be a perfect fit. Or it could be exactly what you expected. Something will be gained through the process, whatever the result. Give yourself permission to be wrong and experience the joy of being surprised.

When working through ways of solving a puzzle, there are no mistakes. Each unsuccessful solution gets you closer to one that works. Avoid becoming attached to the particulars of the problem. Widen your field of view. If the idea takes the project somewhere with a stronger energetic charge, follow the new direction. Demanding to control a work of art would be just as foolish as demanding that an oak tree grow according to your will.

Taking a wrong turn allows you to see landscapes you wouldn’t otherwise have seen.

Crafting

Art may only exist, and the artist may only evolve, by completing the work.

If several directions seem captivating, consider crafting more than one experiment at a time. Working on several often brings about a healthy sense of detachment.

This is one reason the boundary between the Experimentation and the Craft phases isn’t a linear progression. We often move back and forth between the two, because sometimes what we add isn’t as good as what nature is bringing. When we realize this, we stop and go back to where nature left off.

Many of Andy Warhol’s paintings were done by other artists and by machines, while he supplied the ideas and retained authorship. Some famous California rock bands of the ’60s didn’t play on their own albums. And some prolific authors just invent characters and story lines, and leave it to other writers to fill out the prose.

Remain open to doing whatever it takes to make the art as good as it can be, whether this means inserting yourself more into the details of the process or stepping further back from them.

Momentum

Once enough data is collected, and the vision is clear, it can be helpful to set deadlines for completion. The options are no longer unlimited; the process is less open-ended. There may not be a clear finish line in sight, but the core elements are there.

The details matter, but they aren’t likely to sink the enterprise.

While crafting, an artist might succumb to outside pressure to set a fixed release date for their project. Preparations are made. Outsiders are notified. Then sometimes, as we work diligently toward the final stage, an entirely new and preferable direction might appear. But the artist is left without the time to pursue it. And this leads to a compromised result.

The business thinks in terms of quarterly earnings and production schedules. The artist thinks in terms of timeless excellence.

Another impediment some come across is that their vision for the work exceeds their ability to manifest it. They can hear the drumline, but the rhythm is more complex than their ability to play. They can picture the dance, but their body can’t perform the moves gracefully enough. It might seem as though the next step is an impossible leap.

And sometimes, our vision for the work is a goal to work toward, and in the process we come to learn we’ll reach a new and unexpected destination.

Point of View

The goal of art isn’t to attain perfection. The goal is to share who we are. And how we see the world.

Success

If we second-guess our inner knowing to attempt to predict what others may like, our best work will never appear.

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