a chat with Hugh Mackay about getting creative (sunday life)
This week I’m cruddily creative
Every now and then I use the auspice of this column to meet people I’ve always wanted to sit next to on a long plane trip so as to pick their brains for fatty morsels on how to make life better. It’s not a bad perk of the job. So, on Tuesday I arranged to have afternoon tea with social researcher and ethicist Hugh Mackay.
Mackay is a man whose values and considered opinions I’ve gravitated to since I was a kid, like a little mollusk to a sturdy pylon in rough, swirling waters. He’s spent more than 50 years observing and reporting on what matters to Australians, the fatty morsels from which he’s collated in his latest bestseller “What makes us Tick“, I figure, as we order sencha, he might be able to answer this: what’s the one thing that works?
Having interviewed tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Australians and spent decades reflecting on his own sense of wholeness, this is what he reckons makes for a better life: Being creative. And often.
We both agree that the pursuit of happiness is not much chop when it comes to determining a better life. It’s fleeting and only one emotional expression among many on the spectrum. A satisfying, full, purposeful and whole life is what we’re all after and to achieve this requires knowing ourselves, our true, “inner” selves, which is something Mackay and I both agree on, as do a long tradition of philsophers, theologians and eastern spiritual types. And the shortcut to this? Being creative.
Painting, singing, gardening, playing the glockenspiel, finger-knitting: it’s pleasurable. But more than that it exposes ourself to ourself. When we’re creative we naturally narrow our focus and distractions are shut out. Time disappears; we’re in flow. And from here stuff is able to bubble up, stuff that really is the self expressing itself. And so, as we swirl the paint around, mindlessly, we appear on the page. Carl Jung once built is own house and described his creation as “the representation in stone of my innermost thoughts”.
“When I’ve spoken to people who write or paint, they say they don’t know where the idea came from…it just emerged,” Mackay says. “What emerges is always revealing.”
Mackay quotes Franz Kafka:
“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”
Reading or looking at art, but writing or painting even more so, thaws out the layers of façade and rigid thinking and reveals what we’re truly about. The real “us”. And can there be any other more valid point to life than knowing thyself?
Of course what bubbles up from the deep recesses might be crud. But even the crud reveals something. Me, I’ve found it hard to be creative in the past few years (decades?). I guess I have a creative job. But being creative for the sake of just seeing what comes up, with no expectation, no deadline, no intention of displaying it to others or being perfect? Dancing with no one watching? Writing to burn what I’ve written? I’ve felt it doesn’t have any productive point.
But this week I fought the resistance. I wrote some haiku poems. I ignored the requisite weather pattern inclusion and I didn’t post the results on Twitter (which has become quite a hashtaggy pastime for some). They were mostly about my desire to flee. Which was revealing, I guess. I also picked flowers and arranged them whimsically in random vessels, mostly salvaged from the recycling bin. The result was uneven and mismatchy and very unflowery. Which I think says a lot about my true desire to abandon order and the safety of rigid patterns.
The resistance to doing something crazy and creative was very present. Mackay finds the same. He has two tricks. First, he walks. “The motion seems to settle me into the creative space.” Second, he joins groups. He belongs to a Wednesday night choir group. He resents going, resists the whole way. But after ten minutes, he settles and can sink into the creative space. “Ritual and setting up structures that get you to commit is important.”
Does he have a tip for those of us who produce only crud? “Practice, go through a struggle or paint something else over the top. That in itself is an exploration of yourself.”
How are you cruddily creative? Artistic for the sake of going deep? I’m sure it says a lot about who you are!
I never really considered myself a stereotypically “creative” persion. It is only recently that I have realised that, hang on, I have always been creative! And not only that, I have always needed a creative outlet in my life. I was always creative in some way as a child. In my teens I wrote a whole batch of short stories, as well as many, many poems, one of which has been published. These poems are very close to my heart and certainly revealed a lot about me at the time, although I am sure anyone else reading them would be puzzled as to what that is exactly. That is the beauty of poetry! I also used to religiously teach myself to play an acoustic guitar, and after school I used to shut myself in my room and just play and play, simply for my own benefit. It soothed me somehow, and brought me back to myself I think. And these day I am an avid knitter (at the ripe old age of 21). I tend to be an edgy, anxious, constantly thinking-type person, so after a day of uni or work, getting stuck into one of my many knitting projects…there is just nothing else like it. I become centred, calm, focused, kinder to myself. And it is incredibly relaxing. Like you have mentioned before Sarah, I find it very difficult to simply relax for the sake of relaxing – I have to be doing something. I am a bookworm so reading is one way for me. But when I find my mind won’t shut off or slow down at least, knitting allows me to unconsciously let go of the things I am worried about that really aren’t worth worrying about, so I can think with clarity. Also, I just get so much joy out of creating something using two sticks and some yarn that will hopefully bring joy to the dear person I give it to! It is my way of being creative and nurturing at the same time, which in turn reminds me of what is really important – family, friends, generosity, love. And my other main creative outlet is cooking – I love to create new dishes, with a passion. So, being creative really is important for me I have realised, as I have always made creativity a part of my life in one way or another and without it, I doubt I would be living a life feeling as wholesome and happy as I (for the most part) do!
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so as i continue to write for pleasure, school and work, i realize how much it really brings me out of myself and feeds my creativity. if i couldn’t express myself this way, i might implode. i really like this post… it makes me realize that the career path i’m wandering down might just actually be the perfect one for me.
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I express my creativity through words. I’m not much of an artist with a paint brush, but seem to have a knack for articulation. I try and write each day. Love this post.
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Sarah, are you still leading the ‘Walk for Water’ walk on 17 April?
I know this question has nothing to do with your article (sorry). I’ve never done the walk before so wondering if it’s still on.
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April 3rd, 2011 at 3:36 pm
Yep, it’s still on and, yep, I’m leading it. Come! It’ll be fun – my favourite route.
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April 3rd, 2011 at 4:25 pm
yay, thanks for update. Looking forward to the walk.
Must say, I was born without the creative gene. I have no imagination in the kitchen, suffer writers block when making a shopping list, and just recently my husband asked which one of our sons (aged 2 & 5) drew the new pictures – umm, that was actually me! But I won’t give up. There must be some unearthed talent lying dormant for now.
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April 3rd, 2011 at 9:47 pm
the point is not to be good but just to engage!
Creativity shows itself in so many ways…I doubt there is a person alive who isn’t creative. I’ve often thought it sad that people label themselves uncreative…or that some ‘creative’ types look down on people in office jobs dismissing them as being ‘corporate’ and definitely not creative types. There is creativity in so much around us…cooking, writing, painting, collage, gardening, even writing lines of programming code. Takes a truly creative individual to recognise and nurture it.
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I draw illustrations for kids books nearly every day. It can be really hard. It can also be a pleasure. But like avoiding sugar, overall it makes me more content. There is a book which I read/did which I found genius called The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. A great trip for anyone and everyone, not just those actively pursuing a creative career.
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This post really spoke to me I’m creative in so many ways without realizing. I come up with meals from scratch using what I’ve got in my cupboard to make something awesome, every place i’ve lived in I’ve created a collage which gets where I am right there and then. I take lots of photographs (music and nature mainly) and I write. I’ve just started painting and am intrigued to see where that takes me. The moment I stop doing any of these things is when I get blurry and stagnant. The more creative things i do the better I feel.
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April 3rd, 2011 at 9:48 pm
yes, creativity needs to be reframed for some!
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Often being creative is seen as being something of a sideline or a hobby only engaged in when you have enough time.
Engaging with your creativity in whatever field of endeavour you choose I think is vital. If the job you have makes you feel deprived of your creativity, work out a way to apply it somehow or just leave.
Your creativity often doesn’t just come whenever you call on it… often times it comes in the nooks and crannies of life’s intricacies, so make space for it!
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Hugh is on my list of people I would love to sit down and talk with. His commentary and conversations always provoke reflection and questioning in me. Creativity is something that I think I have but I have to go seraching for, not a quality I would necessarily strongly associate with me but I know it is there hiding somewhere…..the flower arranging is something that I relate to, I always amaze myself when I stand still and really enjoy the process of arranging flowers in a vase.
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Sometimes I rearrange fruit bowls so they have only one colour. Ie, today we are doing a study on YELLOW. So I arrange the lemons and bananas prettily and hide all the apples in the fridge. I also write haiku poems to/ about zombies.
I am trying to draw more, I used to be good at it but I seem to have lost the skill. No matter. I would love to create a comic book with a super heroine who has Hashimotos, and kicks ass and has adventures. Maybe one day I will. As soon as I figure out what her super power is.
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thanks again Sarah!! On my list of April goals for the new moon last night was be more creative. To read this today is all the motivation i need to put this into action.
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I second Cassandra’s comment about The Artist Way by Julia Cameron (http://www.theartistsway.com/). I really credit it with helping me reconnect with my creativity, but even more importantly I started to really ‘see’ myself again.
Since staring to follow the Artist Way in August last year I have:
* started my blog,
*’remembered that I wanted to be writer and taken a course at the Sydney Writers Center
* had an idea for a start up
* quit my job (along with partner) to really give my big idea a go
But best of all I feel so much happier now that I’m not ignoring an important part of myself – my creative spirit
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Both Lisa & Cassandra got to this first. I live in NY and have take two courses with Julia Cameron. I have not read The Artists Way but she teaches a lot from it. I did read her book; The Right to Write which was also one of the namesake of the courses I took with her.
It’s been nearly a year and I still use her tools to create. I create constantly in my spare time and it doesn’t have involve a craft! There is always a creative process going on in the background, we just have to give it the space and foreground to emerge.
I think you’re right – being creative is the pathway to profound and lasting happiness, because it’s entirely you. That’s our center.
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there is an important concept in taoism called wu wei, which is the action of nonaction. Basically, instead of making the action come from you, you let the action flow through you. All creativity comes from a higher place, and when you relax and let what happens happens, or when you let the creativity flow, you tap into your higher self. This is the magical place where the best creativity comes from. Even Michael Jackson spoke of his dancing in this way- there are no dancers, there is the dance that exists forever, and when you give yourself to it, you are letting the dance flow through you.
let the creativity flow, and tap into your higher self.
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[...] Sarah Wilson who blogs at her self named site comments that when we’re creative we naturally narrow our focus and distractions are shut out [...]