We Must Create: And Say It Again To Each Other Again
There are still tears in my eyes—tears of laughter. I just got off the phone with one of my Creative Fellows, a filmmaker from Los Angeles. His wife had already given him the *Greatest Advice of All Time, but he was calling his creative friends to vent anyway. Sometimes we need each other, us creatives. We need to say the same thing five thousand four hundred and fifty-nine times—to know it well enough for it to become something else. The dream is that it will expand—it will become the dream currently shadowed by fears, doubts, or stresses of whatever variety. I vented some, too.
Brother. We talked like brothers—fought over my contributions to one of his scripts. He gave me more credit than I deserved—a rarity and admirable quality in this Creative Fellow. All I did was clean up a screenplay: punctuation, formatting, and streamlining some sentences. The story was already there. It’s all his. I did no story work. None. Nope. I didn’t do it. This is for the record—I’m still fighting. Yeah. I’m glad it helped move things along, but the forces powering this particular story are not mine.
Power. I hope you hear me laughing as I write about this ‘fight.’ Our next project is all about power: False Power vs. Authentic Power. Internal vs. External Motivations. Belief. It’s a story I want to influence beyond punctuation marks because these are all themes I’ve been exploring in my work—my story—but now with a whole other plot; the plot that left me in tears of laughter for the images we imagined—a sapling of a story, just taking root.
We talked about creativity—how it can feel inaccessible in these times, surrounded by divided energies and opposing forces. It can feel impossible to create when the idea of it triggers guilt, shame, or confusion. When the ground beneath you is crumbling, two steps in any direction can feel like a scramble. But we must create.
If I have one thing to say today, it’s that we must create. If nothing else, create a vision of what is wanted rather than what is not. Feel everything fully, and feel it all while experiencing that vision—that opposite—even if only in your mind.
And bookmark this. I’m starting to sound like my favorite hypnotist. His work is at work in my words. More on this soon, I swear.
Oh, the collaborations. Yay.
*Her great advice? Go play basketball. And I agree. When overwhelmed by things beyond your control, change your state: play basketball, get skin scrub, take a deep breath, jump on your trampoline.