The Creative Act: A Way of Being

by Rick Rubin

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.

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.

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.

Art is a circulation of energetic ideas. What makes them appear new is that they’re combining differently each time they come back. No two clouds are the same.

We can expand our awareness and narrow it, experience it with our eyes open or closed. We can quiet our inside so we can perceive more on the outside, or quiet the outside so we can notice more of what’s happening inside.

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 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.

We receive these types of messages all the time, if we remain open to them. We might read a book and find a quote leaping off the page, or watch a movie and notice a line that moves us to pause and rewind. Sometimes it’s the exact answer we’ve been looking for. Or it could be an echo of an idea that keeps repeating in other places—begging for more attention or affirming the path we’re on.

An integral part of the artist’s work is deciphering these signals. 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.

Look for what you notice but no one else sees.

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.

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.

When presented with new instrumental tracks for the first time, some vocalists record the first sounds out of their mouths, with no thought or preparation. Often they’ll sing random words or sounds that aren’t words at all. It isn’t uncommon, out of the gibberish, for a story to unfold or key phrases to appear.

There are practices that can assist in accessing this deeper well inside yourself. For example, you can try an anger-releasing exercise where you beat on a pillow for five minutes. It’s more difficult than you might think to do this for the full duration. Time yourself and go hard. Then immediately fill five pages with whatever comes out.

Interference may also come from the voices within. The ones in your head that murmur you’re not talented enough, your idea isn’t good enough, art isn’t a worthwhile investment of your time, the result won’t be well-received, you’re a failure if the creation isn’t successful. It’s helpful to turn those voices down so you can hear the chimes of the cosmic clock ring, reminding you it’s time. Your time to participate.

The people who choose to do art are, many times, the most vulnerable. 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. Many artists in different arenas have similar issues. The sensitivity that allows them to make the art is the same vulnerability that makes them more tender to being judged.

It’s worth noting the distinction between doubting the work and doubting yourself. An example of doubting the work would be, “I don’t know if my song is as good as it can be.” Doubting yourself might sound like, “I can’t write a good song.”

Doubting yourself can lead to a sense of hopelessness, of not being inherently fit to take on the task at hand. All or nothing thinking is a nonstarter. However, doubting the quality of your work might, at times, help to improve it. You can doubt your way to excellence.

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.

A painting is just a painting until you put a frame on it and hang it on the wall, then it’s called art. What’s considered art is simply an agreement. And none of it is true. What is true is that you are never alone when you’re making art. You are in a constant dialogue with what is and what was, and the closer you can tune in to that discussion, the better you can serve the work before you.

Intention is all there is. The work is just a reminder.

Rules direct us to average behaviors. If we’re aiming to create works that are exceptional, most rules don’t apply. Average is nothing to aspire to.

Instead of sounding like others, value your own voice. Develop it. Cherish it. 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.

Regardless of the type of art you’re making, listening opens possibilities. It allows you to see a bigger world. Many of our beliefs were learned before we had a choice in what we were taught. Some of them might go back generations and may no longer apply. Some may never have applied. Listening, then, is not just awareness. It’s freedom from accepted limitations.

Patience is developed much like awareness. Through an acceptance of what is. 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.

When it comes to the creative process, patience is accepting that the majority of the work we do is out of our control. 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.