The Subversive Act of Creativity
What if the most subversive act was actually to create? To bring beauty into the world? You don’t have to be an “artist” to do this. You just have to create.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about where we put our attention—how we give our attention. How we let it be tossed about, like a child’s toy boat bobbing on the sea. How we let our inner lead be dragged around, like a horse with loose reins weaving off the path and into the bushes, going where it will.
“What you focus on grows.”
“Where your heart is, there your treasure will be.”
“You are drowning in one inch of water—the answer is to roll over.”
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
The thing is, it’s true. What you focus on, grows. Maybe not in the external world, but in your internal world for sure. It is time to pay more attention. It is time to pay more intention.
It is time to take the reins of our lives and lead our attention where we would like it to go, not where the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” will take it. This seems like it should be simple—and it is. But it is not easy.
Everything competes for our attention. If I Google a question, I’ve forgotten the question by the time I return to myself from scrolling the “news” the algorithm decided I should see. We know these systems are designed to keep us addicted—and yet we often feel “powerless.” Like a casino with no windows, the algorithms lure us in so that we lose track of time and don’t realize we’ve squandered our very selves.
It’s also true of the news—the need to keep up with the latest atrocities or the unhinged noise of the day. It is not that we should put our heads in the sand, but how does our spinning help the situation? How does a dysregulated nervous system bring any peace?
“Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”
If peace is going to begin with me, I have to be able to find it within. I cannot be at peace if I am letting my time and energy be hijacked. In her book Beyond Anxiety, Martha Beck asserts that anxiety and creativity cannot coexist. When we are in that frantic, harried state, it is actually impossible to come up with a creative solution to what ails us. It does us, and the world, no good.
But, if we can engage in creativity, that simple, rebellious act actually crowds out the anxiety. It doesn’t give it space. It doesn’t give it energy. It doesn’t help it grow.
Make a recipe you’ve never tried. Draw something—anything—that brings you delight. Take a photo walk, looking for whatever draws you toward it.
When I was in the thick of my stressed-out corporate days, a wise counselor suggested I take a weekly photo walk. This was in the days of cameras and film. I thought it was a silly request, but I trusted her. Looking back decades later, I realize how brilliant it was. She didn’t try to get me to “fight” my hectic life head-on. She didn’t ask me to “analyze” it. She simply gave me a practice to “St. Francis” it—to step to the side and do something more beautiful.
In a world that feels as though it has gone beyond pear-shaped, it is our acts of creativity that will save us. Stepping to the side. Doing something more beautiful.
What you focus on, grows. So, why not focus on the beauty that is waiting to be encountered?
