The Creative Act: A Way of Being

by Rick Rubin

Those who do not engage in the traditional arts might be wary of calling themselves artists. They might perceive creativity as something extraordinary or beyond their capabilities. A calling for the special few who are born with these gifts. Fortunately, this is not the case. Creativity is not a rare ability. It is not difficult to access. Creativity is a fundamental aspect of being human. It’s our birthright. And it’s for all of us.

Attuned choice by attuned choice, your entire life is a form of self-expression. You exist as a creative being in a creative universe. A singular work of art.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

There’s great wisdom in transitional realms between wakefulness and sleep. Right before you fall asleep, what thoughts and ideas come to you? How do you feel when you wake from a dream?

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. Whatever the result, we will receive useful information that will benefit the next experiment.

We’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun. Perfectionism gets in the way of fun. A more skillful goal might be to find comfort in the process. To make and put out successive works with ease.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa was an architectural error, which builders further exacerbated by trying to fix. Now, hundreds of years later, it’s one of the most visited buildings in the world precisely because of this mistake.

Distraction is not procrastination. Procrastination consistently undermines our ability to make things. Distraction is a strategy in service of the work.

Nothing begins with us. The more we pay attention, the more we begin to realize that all the work we ever do is a collaboration.

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.

The goal is not to fit in. If anything, it’s to amplify the differences, what doesn’t fit, the special characteristics unique to how you see the world. Instead of sounding like others, value your own voice. Develop it. Cherish it.

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.

The most deceptive rules are not the ones we can see, but the ones we can’t. These can be found hiding deeper in the mind, often unnoticed, just beyond our awareness. Rules that entered our thinking through childhood programming, lessons we’ve forgotten, osmosis from the culture, and emulating the artists who inspired us to try it for ourselves. These rules can serve or limit us. Be aware of any assumptions based on conventional wisdom. Rules obeyed unconsciously are far stronger than the ones set on purpose. And they are more likely to undermine the work.

Examine your methods and consider what the opposite would be. What would balance the scales? What would be the light to your dark, or the dark to your light? It’s not uncommon for an artist to focus on one end of the seesaw. Even if we don’t choose to create on the other side, understanding this polarity can inform our choices.

When listening, there is only now. In Buddhist practice, a bell is rung as part of the ritual. The sound instantly pulls the participant into the present moment. It’s a small reminder to wake up.

Re-reading even a well-understood paragraph or page can be revelatory. New meanings, deeper understandings, inspirations, and nuances arise and come into focus.

Our continual quest for efficiency discourages looking too deeply. The pressure to deliver doesn’t grant us time to consider all possibilities. Yet it’s through deliberate action and repetition that we gain deeper insight.

Time is something that we have no control over. So patience begins with acceptance of natural rhythms. The implied benefit of impatience is to save time by speeding up and skipping ahead of those rhythms. Paradoxically, this ends up taking more time and using more energy. It’s wasted effort.

As artists, we aim to live in a way in which we see the extraordinary hidden in the seemingly mundane. Then challenge ourselves to share what we see in a way that allows others a glimpse of this remarkable beauty.

What defines inspiration is the quality and quantity of the download. At a speed so instantaneous, it seems impossible to process. Inspiration is the rocket fuel powering our work. It is a universal conversation we yearn to be part of. The word comes from the Latin—inspirare, meaning to breathe in or blow into. For the lungs to draw in air, they must first be emptied. For the mind to draw inspiration, it wants space to welcome the new. The universe seeks balance. Through this absence, you are inviting energy in.

To vary your inspiration, consider varying your inputs. Turn the sound off to watch a film, listen to the same song on repeat, read only the first word of each sentence in a short story, arrange stones by size or color, learn to lucid dream. Break habits. Look for differences. Notice connections. One indicator of inspiration is awe. We tend to take so much for granted. How can we move past disconnection and desensitization to the incredible wonders of nature and human engineering all around us?

When an idea forms, or a hook is written, we may feel that we’ve cracked the code and the rest will take care of itself. If we step away and let that initial spark fade, we may return to find it’s not so easy to rekindle. Think of inspiration as a force not immune to the laws of entropy.

Good habits create good art. The way we do anything is the way we do everything. Treat each choice you make, each action you take, each word you speak with skillful care. The goal is to live your life in the service of art.

Ancient Chinese alchemists searching for immortality mixed saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal. They discovered something else: gunpowder. Countless other inventions—penicillin, plastic, pacemakers, Post-it notes—were discovered by accident. Consider how many innovations that might have changed the world have been lost because someone was so focused on their goal, they missed the revelation right in front of them.

As we lose enthusiasm, we often continue to labor on a seed, believing that the work has to turn out for the better because we’ve invested so much time in it. If the energy continues to drop, it does not necessarily mean that the seed is bad. We just may not have found the right experiment for it. Perhaps we need to step away for a time and shift perspective. We may choose to start over with it, or set it aside for a while and sift through the others.

In the abundant mindset, the river never runs dry. Ideas are always coming through. And an artist is free to release them with the faith that more will arrive.

Choosing to live in scarcity leads to stagnation. If we work on one project forever, we never get to make another. The fear of drought and the impulse for perfectionism prevent us from moving on and block the river’s flow.

Our life’s work is far greater than any individual container. The works we do are at most chapters. There will always be a new chapter, and another after that. Though some might be better than others, that is not our concern.

The recognition of abundance fills us with hope that our brightest ideas still await us and our greatest work is yet to come. We are able to live in an energized state of creative momentum, free to make things, let them go, make the next thing, and let it go. With each chapter we make, we gain experience, improve at our craft, and inch closer to who we are.

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.

There’s always a next scene, and that next scene may be one of great beauty and fulfillment. The hard times were the required setup to allow these new possibilities to come into being.

The outcome is not the outcome. The darkness is not an end point, nor is the daylight. They live in a continually unfolding, mutually dependent cycle. Neither is bad or good. They simply exist.

The ecstatic is our compass, pointing to our true north. It arises genuinely in the process of creation. You’re working and struggling, and suddenly you notice a shift. A revelation. A small tweak is made, a new angle is revealed, and it takes your breath away.

This epiphany is the heart of creativity. It’s something we feel in our whole body. It causes us to snap to attention and quicken our heartbeat, or to laugh in surprise. It gives us a glimpse of a higher ideal, opening new possibilities in us that we didn’t know were there. It is so invigorating that it makes all of the laborious, less interesting parts of the work worth doing.

Other times, it is a moment of astonishment, when you feel emotions so powerful that you can’t believe they’re happening. They jolt your reality and push you into a sense of disbelief. Like realizing you’re driving into oncoming traffic.

With each new project, we are challenging ourselves to most beautifully reflect what’s living in us at that particular window of time. In this spirit of self-competition, task yourself to go further and push into the unexpected. Don’t stop even at greatness. Venture beyond.

We live in a mysterious world full of uncertainties. And we regularly make assumptions to explain them. Coming to terms with the complexity of our human experience allows us to exit our natural state of confusion. To survive.

All art is a form of poetry. It’s always changing, never fixed. We may think we know what a piece we made means, yet over time that interpretation may change. The creator stops being the creator once they finish the work. They then become the viewer. And the viewer can bring as much of their own meaning to a piece as the creator.

If we’re paying attention, we may notice that some of our most interesting artistic choices come about by accident. Springing from moments of communion with the work, when the self disappears. Sometimes they feel like mistakes.

Making great art may not always require great effort, but without it, you’ll never know. If inspiration calls, we ride the lightning until the energy is exhausted. The ride may not last long. But we are grateful for the opportunity. If inspiration does not come to lead the way, we show up anyway.

Do what you can with what you have. Nothing more is needed.

If you are an artist whose process is intellectually based, it may be of benefit to play with spontaneity as a tool, a window to discovery and an access point to new parts of yourself.

What ultimately makes a work great is the sum total of the tiniest details. From start to finish, everything has shades and degrees. There is no fixed scale. There can’t be, because sometimes the smallest elements are the ones that weigh the most.

If we like what we are creating, we don’t have to know why. Sometimes the reasons are obvious, sometimes not. And they can change over time. It could be good for any of a thousand different reasons. When we’re making things we love, our mission is accomplished. There’s nothing at all to figure out.

To hone your craft is to honor creation. It doesn’t matter if you become the best in your field. By practicing to improve, you are fulfilling your ultimate purpose on this planet.

Imagine a flower in an open meadow. Now take the same flower and slip it into the barrel of a rifle. Or place it on a gravestone. Notice in each case how you feel. The significance changes. In new surroundings, the same object can take on considerably different meanings. The context changes the content.