The Creative Act: A Way of Being

by Rick Rubin

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

There’s an abundant reservoir of high-quality information in our subconscious, and finding ways to access it can spark new material to draw from.

create with a television, radio, and record player all on simultaneously.

We create pieces reflective of who we are, and if insecurity is part of who we are, then our work will have a greater degree of truth in it as a result.

The people who choose to do art are, many times, the most vulnerable. There

If you see tremendous beauty or tremendous pain where other people see little or nothing at all, you’re confronted with big feelings all the time.

All art is a work in progress. It’s helpful to see the piece we’re working on as an experiment. One in which we can’t predict the outcome.

Active play and experimentation until we’re happily surprised is how the best work reveals itself.

If I put so little care and time into it, what might the water taste like? It couldn’t possibly taste as good.”

As soon as a convention is established, the most interesting work would likely be the one that doesn’t follow it.

It’s a healthy practice to approach our work with as few accepted rules, starting points, and limitations as possible. Often

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.

When the listener is totally present, the speaker often communicates differently. Most people aren’t used to being fully heard, and it can be jarring for them.

To listen impatiently is to hear nothing at all.

Impatience is an argument with reality. The desire for something

to be different from what we are experiencing in the here and now.

If there is a rule to creativity that’s less breakable than the others, it’s that the need for patience is ever-present.

If we approach a task with ignorance, it can remove the barricade of knowledge blocking progress. Curiously, not being aware of a challenge may be just what we need to rise to it.

These childlike superpowers include being in the moment, valuing play above all else, having no regard for consequences, being radically

Strip away the labels. Now how do you see the world?

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

The work yielded may not be used in the current project, but it may be of use another time.

John Lennon once advised that if you start a song, write it through to the end in that sitting. The initial inspiration has a vitality in it that can carry you through the whole piece.

Get through a rough draft.

make, each action you take, each word you speak with skillful care.

The more you reduce your daily life-maintenance tasks, the greater the bandwidth available for creative decisions.

Create an environment where you’re free to express what you’re afraid to express.

Editing prematurely can close off routes that might lead to beautiful vistas previously unseen.

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

To avoid demo-itis, there is a simple technique. Unless actively working to make something better, avoid listening to it, reading it, playing it, looking at it, or showing it to friends.

A point of view is the perspective—conscious and unconscious—through which the work emerges.

Most people aren’t interested in being told what to think or feel.

We interrogate ourselves when we offer our work up to others.

People will tell you more about themselves than about the art when giving feedback.

The best art divides the audience.

The only ones we can control are doing our best work, sharing it, starting the next, and not looking back.

This is why it’s grounding to protect your personal understanding of success. And to make each new work, no matter where you stand on the ladder of public perception, like you have nothing to lose.

Art has the power to snap us out of our transfixion, open our minds to what’s possible, and reconnect with the eternal energy that moves through all things.

Be aware of strong responses. If you’re immediately turned off by an experience, it’s worth examining why.

Being made happy by someone else’s best work, and then letting it inspire you to rise to the occasion, is not competition. It’s collaboration.

Try finding the simplest, most elegant way to put a point across, with the least amount of information.

Perfection is finally obtained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there’s no longer anything to take away.

Coming to terms with the complexity of our human experience allows us to exit our natural state of confusion. To survive.

What if the source of creativity is always there, knocking patiently on the doors of our perception, waiting for us to unbolt the locks?

Living in discovery is at all times preferable to living through assumptions.

Sometimes the mistakes are what makes a work great. Humanity breathes in mistakes.

There’s a dullness in sameness.

Invite beliefs that are different from the ones you hold and try to see beyond your own filter.

We simply begin from a neutral place, allow the process to unfold, and welcome the winds of change to guide the way.