creativity

Thou, the Creator

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I recently heard a question that led me to understand one of the most significant drivers of creativity.

That question was, “What would your seventeen-year-old self think of you now?“

My seventeen-year-old self would be reasonably happy as I had fulfilled many of my youthful dreams, at least partially. I had worked in video games, even if I found it wasn’t for me. I had and continue to be a published writer, even if it’s self-published. I am in a happy relationship, though I have one amicable divorce under my belt. I had done pretty decently.

But that made me realize that many of my dreams were creative dreams, and what had helped me reach them in part was that I had held on to some of my youthful desires to be a given kind of person. I was the writer, the game professional, involved in IT, and so on. I had held on to the dream of being a certain kind of person, even if the hope slept for years.

That’s when I realized a core driver of creativity is identity. When you identify as something, you become that thing – if not in whole in part, if not as a burning hot dream, then a warm reality. Some youthful identities had never left me, and thus I became them, and my further readings on productivity have confirmed that.

When I looked around at successful creatives I knew, it was almost always the same – each person dedicated to being a certain someone. A documentarian who could write with lightning speed scribed books faster than anyone. A creative idolizing people like Kubrik and punk rockers who could always find a new boundary to walk across into wild art. A cosplayer who constantly created as it was simply them.

And me, a person who wanted to be a writer as a kid who just kept writing, an IT geek that did it as he liked it who ended up in Silicon Valley. All that was just me being me.

Identity drives us. It is that which we are and must be, and nothing stops us because it is us. A failure may interrupt us, a crisis may mean a delay, but we surge ever forward because it’s what we do.

Identity keeps us from distraction. When you have a choice between things, your identity helps make the decisions, minimizing distractions. Even when there is chaos and crisis, that identity helps you go around the distractions when you can. Perhaps in crisis, you even find your identity drives you to a solution.

Identity channels our energies.  It is the lens that focuses the light of our adrenaline and power and fear and hope. It tells our energies where to go, and from that, great things can result.

A person who knows “I am this” is powerful as they are something, even if they are not the best form of it – or the best form of it yet.

For you out there, the creative, find your identity, hold to it, act on it. That’s your skeleton key to life, to unlock what you want to do. I am not saying it is easy or without pain – not at all. I am saying it is what will help you make art, and music, and books, and cosplay, and more.

Let me leave you with something that helped me. Write down everything you want to be/think you are – and keep it positive. Out of these, find seven or less – even if you have to drop some that seem little relevant, consolidate others, or even make hard admissions to yourself. Find what speaks to you.

Now ask, if these are who you are and will be . . . what do you do next?

Keep asking that question whenever you need to. Eventually, your seventeen-year-old self may be quite impressed – or you’ll find they already are.

Steven Savage

Politics and Art: Power Gently Resting In The Palm Of Your Hand

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Let’s get this out of the way: Politics definitely belongs in art.

People are inevitably political; we form alliances and tribes, we try to figure out how to reach our goals. We are political with our friends and family, co-workers and enemies, and everyone else. Politics is human, and humans make art, and all art is a statement on the person and the time it is made – politics is always there.

Politics is human, art is human, all art is political.

You cannot remove art from politics, and anyone telling you that you can wants you to obey their politics. They’re not telling you to “take something out” when they say they don’t want politics, they want you to conform to them. They’re liars (which often makes them poor artists)

Attempts to remove politics from art really is an attempt to make art conform to someone else’s politics.

If you attempt to remove politics from art, even sincerely, you flush it of everything that makes it real. It is unemotional. It lacks context. It avoids cause and effect. Not only is it essentially impossible, any attempt to do so makes it boring.

Even if you try to remove art from politics, you will only destroy the art while trying to conform.

Therefore the only thing you can do is embrace the political in art, to take it all the way. Dive into the experience and make good art. Good art stands on its own, speaks for itself, and is true – even if the truth might be hard, or worse indicate your art is bad. At least you know.

We might as well dive deep into politics in our art because it will make good art – or reveal our own flaws.

It is inevitable if we dive into making art sincerely, to embrace ever side of it including politics, that we will surprise ourselves. Art is a process of realization, and as we all know a work inevitably changes as we create it. That surprise is a sign we’re doing it right – as we express things (including politics) we learn about ourselves, our ideas, and what they mean (or that our ideas aren’t so good).

Good art shocks you and surprises you because as you make it you are learning.

If you are not surprised by your art, if it does not lead you to new paths and thoughts, then something is wrong. You’re not creating, you’re just churning things out, you aren’t learning. If your art is exceptionally political, then it’s likely you’re not exploring your ideas.

If your art, especially art that is intensely political, isn’t surprising you then you’re not learning anything.

I find the best way to approach art and politics is to hold your work “lightly.” Don’t grasp it tightly and try to force it into one form, but let it grow and evolve, let new ideas flow into it and lessons flow out of it. By letting your work grow you grow.

Don’t cling to your art much, let it grow, so you grow as well.

Finally, be ready to let your art into the world. Each time you create you grow and expand. Each work created that way will affect people and make them think. From this you’ll learn even more – to make your next work.

Let art have contact with others so they and you can grow to make your next work.

Of course, you may realize that a work created sincerely, openly, evolving and growing could be a very dangerous work indeed. What can you make without giving in to fit current politics, or to fit into your current ego? What dreams can you make that may change the world for the better?

Well, why not find out? Don’t be afraid . . .

. . . but people that should be afraid of what you can create should fear that somewhere out there, someone is making the art that will challenge them.

Steven Savage

Creativity And Revelations

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Obviously I’ve thought a lot about truth and creativity. We live in an age of so much B.S. truth matters. Shared reality matters – and by that I mean shared reality with connections to actual stuff that’s real.

We need creativity to tell the truth, especially in an age of lies and deceptions. If you’re a creative person, this is an important ability you have.

First, creativity can let you communicate truth in a way that connects with people. You find a new ways to say things, to show things, to illustrate things. A game can say more than a novel, a novel more than a news article, a news article more than an interview.

Secondly, creativity lets you find how to connect with people in new ways to communicate truth. One person may relate to imagery, another to song, another to the written word. In trying a one-on-one or one-on-some communication you can tweak how you show the truth.

Third, Creativity lets you find out how to avoid disinformers and liars and tyrants. You can undermine them right under their own noses as they don’t understand how you’re explaining truth. They might not be able to imagine what’s being said about them (and will only get more unhinged as they know someone is out there).

Fourth, speaking of, creativity gives you new ways to undermine lies to get to the truth. Mockery, for instance, well-delivered by a creative person drives serious liars and tyrants crazy in frustration. Clever protests leave a dictator fuming in the face of the unexpected. As liars are undermined, the truth can come out.

Fifth, creativity, gives you new ways to see the truth. Preaching, advocating, arguing, etc. can wear you out and the same thing can become boring. By imagining new ways to say important truths you become energized with potential and stronger in having new ways to see things.

Communicate truth with creativity. Leverage those artistic or musical or linguistic skills to refresh truth! If you’re an artist of any kind (and you probably are) you’ve got a powerful tool.

Steven Savage