Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
If you haven’t yet read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, we can’t recommend it enough. We like to refer to it as the “Creative Bible,” but this is a once-yearly must-read for everyone. Not just self-professed creatives. Everyone. Because we all like making things. It’s part of our human nature.
One of the first stories Liz shares that illustrates this point is about her father. He was a chemical engineer, very responsible and reliable, but still had the desire to pursue his curiosities. He spent time raising goats. He bought land and moved his family so he could run a Christmas tree farm. He later bought beehives and kept bees for decades. But he never quit his day job.
Liz emphasizes how important it is that we don’t demand that our creativity pays for our life. It’s too high stakes. If you can make a consistent living with your art, that’s totally fine. But the process of creativity needs to be light in order to work and demanding that it pays our mortgage is too stifling. There are many other ways to make money while still giving your creativity the freedom and lightness to work. Liz describes the paradigm of our art being both the most important thing we’ll ever do but also unimportant. We have to be comfortable embracing this paradox because what we make has to matter for us to dedicate so much attention and care to it, but it also can’t matter at all or it will consume us.
One of my favorite analogies Liz uses to describe this paradigm of lightness comes from ancient Rome. When someone produced something amazing, the Romans never said that person was a genius. They said that person had a genius. This separated mortals from the divine realm of ideas so that when things didn’t work out, you could just chalk it up to your genius not showing up to work with you. But when something truly magical came from the work and communication between you and your genius, you could thank that genius and be filled with gratitude that you were able to be a part of the process. Much healthier than the “tortured artist” approach, right?
Liz frames creativity as “the relationship between human beings and the mysteries of inspiration.” Ideas are living things whose greatest desire is to be made manifest and we humans are the ones who make that possible. Ideas must work with us to become something. But we have to have the courage to pursue our curiosities and we must give ourselves permission to do so. Otherwise, ideas will leave us and find another person through whom they can be realized.
We’ll leave you with a few radiant snippets of Big Magic. We hope you feel inspired and love reading the book!
“Your own reasons to create are reason enough… Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your own fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart.
The rest of it will take care of itself.”
“...your life is short and rare and amazing and miraculous, and you want to do really interesting things and make really interesting things while you’re still here. I know that’s what you want for yourself because that’s what I want for myself, too.
It’s what we all want.
And you have treasures hidden within you—extraordinary treasures—and so do I, and so does everyone around us. And bringing those treasures to light takes work and faith and focus and courage and hours of devotion, and the clock is ticking, and the world is spinning, and we simply do not have the time anymore to think so small.”
“A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, and expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner—continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you—is a fine art, in and of itself.”