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In this book, Gilbert writes about her relationship with creativity, how she became a writer and how she sustained a writing practice over the years.
The overall theme is “lower the stakes”.
First, avoid going into a “create or die” situation, which is what happens when you have no other ways of fulfilling your needs (material and social) other than being creative. Have a job that isn’t writing. Avoid making your material needs more pressing by going into huge debt by going to university to study art.
The same advice applies to social needs (need for approval, desire for prestige.) Base your self worth on the fact that you continue to write, rather than audience approval. Avoid playing the martyr/tortured artist. Be playful, curious, comfortable with paradoxes. Don’t do it for others, do it because you love it even if it brings you zero return for investment other than fun.
It’s very much a “follow your passion” book, despite Gilbert including a paragraph on how passion is a fleeting feeling and tips for dealing with failure and depression (follow your curiosity, switch to another area, keep doing something - anything). She understands passion as temporary fascination. I understand it as a lifelong dedication to a subject (which she does engage in.)
Lastly, some people seem to be shocked (or rather, I suspect, embarrassed, because it’s too similar to child’s play and/or “primitive” religions) by “what if ideas are entities looking to manifest through us” and “what if you could have a relationship with your creativity”. I don’t see how this is different from people naming their cars and yelling at their printers (as if they could understand.)
Gilbert is advising becoming comfortable with a serious play attitude - and this is a perfect example of applying it. What if your creativity *was* a person, how would you talk to it when it runs away? What if it was a puppy? There is a whole therapeutic approach built on a similar assumption - internal family systems or IFS.
Overall, the book was okay, with some entertaining anecdotes (the environmentalist students and Bali dances stayed in my memory), but it didn’t break much new ground for me.
The overall theme is “lower the stakes”.
First, avoid going into a “create or die” situation, which is what happens when you have no other ways of fulfilling your needs (material and social) other than being creative. Have a job that isn’t writing. Avoid making your material needs more pressing by going into huge debt by going to university to study art.
The same advice applies to social needs (need for approval, desire for prestige.) Base your self worth on the fact that you continue to write, rather than audience approval. Avoid playing the martyr/tortured artist. Be playful, curious, comfortable with paradoxes. Don’t do it for others, do it because you love it even if it brings you zero return for investment other than fun.
It’s very much a “follow your passion” book, despite Gilbert including a paragraph on how passion is a fleeting feeling and tips for dealing with failure and depression (follow your curiosity, switch to another area, keep doing something - anything). She understands passion as temporary fascination. I understand it as a lifelong dedication to a subject (which she does engage in.)
Lastly, some people seem to be shocked (or rather, I suspect, embarrassed, because it’s too similar to child’s play and/or “primitive” religions) by “what if ideas are entities looking to manifest through us” and “what if you could have a relationship with your creativity”. I don’t see how this is different from people naming their cars and yelling at their printers (as if they could understand.)
Gilbert is advising becoming comfortable with a serious play attitude - and this is a perfect example of applying it. What if your creativity *was* a person, how would you talk to it when it runs away? What if it was a puppy? There is a whole therapeutic approach built on a similar assumption - internal family systems or IFS.
Overall, the book was okay, with some entertaining anecdotes (the environmentalist students and Bali dances stayed in my memory), but it didn’t break much new ground for me.