Eric Kent Edstrom's Blog, page 13
March 1, 2013
Binary Stars and Relationships
Gravity is amazing.
It’s what holds objects to the surface of the Earth. If you take the time to think about it, you’ll realize that it’s a pretty freaky phenomenon.
There is nothing holding you to the floor except an invisible force that nobody truly understands.
Yeah, yeah, it’s related to mass of the planet. The Earth exerts more gravity than the moon. The Sun exerts way more than the Earth. Everything is tugging at everything else to some extent.
Relationships have gravity too.
So who is holding you down? What is the source of their influence over you?
There are no laws of physics at play in relationships. And yet, do you find it impossible to escape someone’s orbit?
What would happen if you decided to explore the galaxy? Would they let you go? Or would they say, “No. You are my moon.”
Take a clue from a binary star system, where two stars orbit each other around an empty point in space. That’s how relationships should be. A dance of partners.
So how are you going to move that center point from inside that person (or inside yourself), to someplace in between?
February 28, 2013
Rulebreaker!
A business puts an “enter” sign on one door “exit” sign on another. They do this in order to keep foot traffic flowing the way they want. But are the police are going to show up if you go in the exit?
No.
The lines painted on a parking lot are also a rule, one which states, “Put your car between these lines.” When we see someone who does a poor job of it, or who blatantly takes up two slots, we are outraged. Rulebreaker! Do the cops show up?
No.
How do you know when it’s okay to break a rule?
It comes down to the consequences of breaking it. Do you fear it or not?
Sometimes there are no real consequences.
I would not suggest you break the law, especially when it risks hurting someone else. But I’ve observed that those who perform on the largest stages tend to go in through the out door whenever they can.
February 27, 2013
Your Genius is Perseverance
Here’s the thing about effort: It doesn’t count.
No one buys a book because it was hard to write. No one goes to the movie because it was difficult to shoot.
What counts is whether it connects or not.
The reason you are an artist is because you’ll move heaven and earth to connect. Sometimes it’s really hard.
Your genius—your gift—is perseverance.
February 26, 2013
On Revision and Birdhouses
How do you know when you’re making it better?
The conventional wisdom is to rewrite and revise.
I once heard Grammy winning, super hit songwriter, Craig Wiseman give a talk to aspiring songwriters in Nashville. Allow me to quote from memory: “Songwriting is like building a birdhouse. And when you build your first birdhouse, its going to look like crap. Adding paint and decoration isn’t going to fix it. Too many beginning songwriters waste time repainting their first birdhouse when they would learn more by building a new one.”
He went on to advise writers to write hundreds of songs. Because only once you’ve done the practice do you develop any proficiency.
Finish the project you’re working on. By all means, fix the mistakes, the typos, the continuity errors.
Then move on to the next one. And the next. And the next.
February 25, 2013
The Sacred Old Forms
You already know that there is nothing new under the sun. The Lion King is “Hamlet”. “La Bamba” is pretty much the same as “Twist and Shout”. Bridget Jones’s Diary is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice.
How many paintings are there of the Madonna and child?
Yet as an artist, you ache to bring something fresh and new and exciting into existence.
Your conscious mind is a bored four-year-old; it wants to be diverted by the new. It will flip through a hundred channels and complain that nothing’s on.
Your subconscious mind is ancient and wise. It loves the old forms; it sees the sacred in them. The reason it knows them so well is because it was there when they were discovered. At the dawn of humankind.
Your subconscious mind is ready whenever you are. It waits for you, patiently. If you listen, it will tell you a true story. And though you’ve heard it many times before, that story will move you to create something awesome.
It won’t be something utterly new, but it will be utterly true.
February 24, 2013
Lessons from Lucky
My dog Lucky looks at me with intense focus. He noses into my space. He puts his foot up on the sofa, which is forbidden in my house.
He gets a rebuke. I push his foot off the sofa and tell him he’s being a nuisance.
What does he hear? The same thing Charlie Brown heard when the adults in his world spoke. “Wah wah, wa wah, wah, wah.”
Lucky doesn’t think about why he breaks the rules; he just knows that it works, because a significant proportion of the times he tries it, I get up and let him out. Or I give him a treat to get him to leave me alone. Or I go out and throw the Frisbee.
He’s got me trained.
Your worst habits work. They satisfy some lack or desire in you. The trick is to figure out what reward is conditioning the bad habit, then remove it.
Lucky has no ability to voluntarily modify his behaviors, because he has no control over his incentives.
You do.
February 23, 2013
Finding Your Heart
If you are an artist, you don’t get to wait for something to come out of you. You have to go digging for it. Puncture your skin, crack open the ribs, pull out the bloody bits, then reach in and find your heart.
Of course it hurts.
That’s why most people dream instead of do.
February 22, 2013
Lifting Yourself up by Your Hair (On Creating Masterpieces)
If you’re like me, when you read or see or hear a work of heartbreaking mastery, you feel suddenly driven to create something awesome.
I don’t know where the sensation resides, but it’s a physical force within. When I was seventeen, it manifested itself in a sudden urge to play my guitar. I had to do it. Now!
But sometimes that drive is ruined as the demand to create something important, meaningful, lasting, and stunning takes over.
The editor in your head is unsatisfiable. “How does this compare to Macbeth or Mozart’s Symphony #40?” it asks in that irritating way that tells you what the answer is.
If the standard is perfection or nothing, then you have an easy choice in front of you. You can save yourself a lot of heartache and just go fire up your Netflix queue.
Because the moment you demand your creation be a masterpiece is the moment you prevent it from becoming one.
You can’t decide to be a genius any more than you can decided to pick yourself up off the floor by pulling on your hair.
The brain doesn’t invent a masterpiece, then create it.
The brain invents it by creating it.
Walking the Path (includes math)
The people who do stuff get stuff done. They put one foot in front of the other.
It’s so obvious that it doesn’t need to be said at all.
Or does it? After all, you dream of writing that book, releasing that album, getting that gallery showing. And you know that it won’t happen unless you get some stuff done.
Working down your Netflix queue doesn’t count, and you know that too.
Buying groceries? That doesn’t count. And neither does making your bed, brushing your teeth, or any number of other necessary, worthwhile activities.
The only thing that counts is doing the stuff. Write a word. Then write the next one. Write a sentence. Then write the next one.
There 365 days in a year. Take 65 days off. That leaves 300 days.
Write (500/1000/2000) words per day and you will get (150,000/300,000/600,000) words by the end of the year. Repeat.
The people who are standing where you want to be have walked that path.
February 21, 2013
Legacy is Illusion
The world will keep spinning. People will go on living their lives.
The dog will need to go out; the dishes will need washing; the bananas will turn brown. The seas will rise, then fall, then rise. The sun will someday explode, and the great green Earth will be consumed in fire.
That’s what will happen if you write. Or if you don’t.
So you might ask yourself, “Why bother?” Why push through the discomfort, when, in the end, it’s all for nought? In one hundred years, will anyone know you existed? In a thousand? Ten thousand?
I can keep going. Time doesn’t have a meaningful cap. A lot can happen in a million years, and none of it will be influenced at all by what you create—or don’t create—today.
There is no such thing as a legacy with creative work. Not really. And that’s a huge relief, isn’t it? Because now you don’t have to worry about it. You can just do it.
You create art because you are a creator, just as the Beagle tracks a rabbit because he’s a Beagle.
So create for yourself. Play with the words, the emotion, the exquisite plot, the melody, the colors. Put into it everything you’ve got. Not so that you will live on in it.
Do it so you can live now.
