Expectation

After a considerable pause, this full moon episode launches the podcast again. I discuss the great blockage expectation causes in initiating new creative practices and projects.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome to Creative Labyrinths. My name is Cameron. This is another Full Moon episode. It's been some time since I've recorded an episode or an interview. For those who are not aware, there was a major catastrophe in the town that I lived in. Thousands of people's lives were uprooted and we were amongst that. So I lost the studio and all of my things, so it just wasn't possible. And then when I finally had the equipment to record, it had been some time since I'd been engaging with the podcast and I realized that my confidence was beginning to diminish. It was like I was, like I had built up momentum and was entering into a kind of stream where any overthinking or anxiety or anguish wasn't involving itself in the matter and after a certain amount of time I realized that my overthinking started to supersede my motivation and so whilst I had the impulse to record, I was finding it more and more difficult to actually sit down and attempt it. And I found that this was a good symbol of many people's battle with their own creativity in itself. So what I wanted to preface this episode with saying was that on this podcast, I understand that the audience is filled with many different perspectives and many different approaches to their own creativity. And many of the things that we say may not be relevant to you. So I guess what I wanted to say was that I recognize that there are some people out there that don't necessarily... Have a creative practice at the center of their life It's not necessarily something that they engage within every day It's not necessarily something that takes precedent or priority in their day-to-day living However, they have a yearning to engage with their own creativity Or just with a creative activity Whether it be painting or writing or playing the guitar or whatever it is that some people just have that yearning to actually initiate that and find it incredibly difficult. And I understand that struggle. And a lot of the things that may be talked about on this podcast may not be relevant for that type of person. Then again, there are some people who have their creative practice or honing their craft as their main activity, a main element in their day-to-day life and in the center of their living. And many of the things that we talk about here, I know from myself, from my own perspective, are directed at that type of living. For me, my own creativity is a fertile space I guess landscape for my own self-discovery. Engaging with my own creative practice is a way for me to meet parts of myself that other aspects of life don't offer me. And this podcast really came about because it was a way of trying to explore and trying to, I guess, suck the nutrients out of those experiences to relay them in a way that other people may be able to relate with them and then also to interview other artists that may be able to provide another perspective that can kind of add to the tapestry of wisdom in the world of creativity. And I think so far up to this point, it has succeeded in that, far beyond my expectations. Which I'm very grateful for all of those people who come on. And all of those people who will come on in the future. And what I wanted to do for this Full Moon episode was... Well, I'm beginning to realize that the Full Moon episodes are slowly morphing into my own creative diary. Where I can verbally reflect on things that have been happening for me in a way that I learn from and others may benefit from or not. And I'll just keep going on with them until they don't provide any fruit for me, if at all. So I will, I guess, kind of cut myself open here and explain something that has been going on with me. in as much an open and honest way as I possibly can to perhaps shed some light on what it is like for someone like me to engage in something new that I haven't necessarily done so much before because with my composing and my music I've been doing that for so many years that Whilst it provides its challenges, those challenges become more nuanced and subtle as I go along. And with painting, it's a completely different ground of discovery. However, I have always wanted to take my writing more seriously. And by writing, I mean physically writing like poetry and stories and... and books. And it's something that I've done my whole life. I mean, as far as it was something that interested me as a child. But it was always something that I wanted to take more seriously, dedicate more time to and have as more of a discipline to be able to release things. And I just never ever took that step. It was always something that was reserved for my journals. Reserved for lyrics, reserved for just my own, I guess, pleasure. Maybe not pleasure, but something else that I can't name at the moment. And so this was nagging me so much in my mind every day of always wanting to take that step of doing something a little bit more serious with it. And... I hadn't had enough at that. And so I began to question myself, I guess, to the point of an interrogation of if it's something that is so pressing on your mind, what is it that's stopping you from doing that? And so then I entered into the realm of my own fear. And it is in these reflective moments that I truly feel so many of us have the same types of struggles the same we share the same fears and we hold the same expectations of ourselves and i i think that that in some twisted way is a really beautiful thing and a way for us to commune on and yet We as creatives a lot of time feel so difficult to be vulnerable in that particular aspect of uncovering and speaking about what these difficult things are. And in these interviews that I've been having, I've found that such a tremendous thing. So I began to interrogate myself as to why I wasn't taking that step. And... I was looking at my expectations, and ultimately that's what it came down to. I asked myself, what is it that you really want to do? And the answer was, I want to write a book. Well, actually the answer was, I want to write books. And then I needed to break it down and say, what's the expectation right now? I want to write a book. And then the question followed, well, why don't you do that? And the answer that followed was, that's a lot of work. And I was able to perceive in my mind the expectation that I had of being able to complete that and the amount of work that it required somehow inside of myself I had formulated the concept that I needed my life to look a certain way in order for me to carry out that goal or that dream and I think that that way of thinking is a sickness because in reality life is never ever going to look the way that we need it to in order to carry out And the funny thing is, is that a lot of times when our life does look the way that we want it to, we still don't do it anyway. So it kind of makes that expectation null and void. And in myself, in my past, I've known that this is a thing inside of me and it's a hurdle that I jump over quite quickly, but I have to recognize it at the start. So I realized that one of the expectations was understanding the amount of work that was needed, but I was viewing the amount of work over a time frame. Oh, that's probably going to be two years worth of work. Do you really want to dedicate yourself to that? Your music will suffer. All of these things will suffer. It's going to require a completely different way of living because of... change of thinking and a different way of living your day in order to reflect on characters and dialogue and all of these things and naturally I was wrapping it up into this massive massive problem I was trying to create a problem to argue against carrying it out and I thought why why is my mind trying to sabotage this activity And then finally, I was able to uncover that mask. And behind that was the raw truth, which was I had expectations of myself to create an incredible book, an incredible piece of writing. I wanted all of the influences of the best books and the best authors that I've read ever read in my lifetime to kind of be distilled into this masterwork that I was going to write and that was so much pressure and was such a sensitive and delicate thing to try to achieve that it seemed impossible and I thought that if I try to achieve this goal and if I start writing and it doesn't eventuate into the final product that I have expected, then I'll feel like a failure. And I'll feel like it's something that I won't ever achieve anything in. And then I will have to sit with those really uncomfortable feelings of feeling like a failure. Remember, these are all formulations and concepts that are occurring in my mind that I'm looking at and trying to speak with. I'm not saying that I'm aligning myself with these opinions of my mind. These were things that I needed to confront because they were stopping me from moving forward. And I mention these now because I know that there are so many people out there that wish to... to pick up their craft or to move their life in a way that allows them to hone their craft or to even just start with some creative activity in their life. And I know from conversations with these people that these same fears and expectations lie within you. And they seem so monumental. And yet when you confront them, not just with your own thoughts, but when you confront them through a change of activity and behavior in your day, they drop very quickly, in my experience. And so after a confrontation of these expectations, these great expectations, I needed to make a choice. And I needed to submit to the reality. which was the only way that it's ever going to happen is if I try. If I actually make a physical effort, not just talk to people about it's something that I'm going to do. It's on the going to pile. It's not just something that I keep puffing myself up with in my self-talk or buy a notebook and then it sits in a stack of unwritten notebooks next to my bed, haunting me with those ideas. It's something that I knew I needed to confront with action. And out of any of these reflections that I'm talking about now, that is the one singular most potent realization to take away, in my opinion. which is the only antidote to any of these things is to do, to actually do it. So I made the choice and my choice was now is as good a time as ever. And so I began to set myself manageable tasks that I could achieve. I'm going to write something every day. And I'm going to read, have concentrated reading time every day and concentrated thinking time, dreaming time, imaginative time every day. And I can't unpack the process of discipline and dedication now because it deserves its own talk. And a special side note to dedicated... imagination or dedicated thinking time that also is a very big thing in my life that i would prefer to say for another another talk because it is the foundation of my whole my whole creativity which is dedicated imagining and thinking time unplugging from phones and computers books Severing myself from the need of having to be entertained and allowing myself to sit with the uncomfortability for a moment and dedicate my mind to only thinking about the thing that I am creating. And so in this instance, it is sitting and thinking about ideas and letting the mind play with these ideas. So I set myself these tasks of writing, reading and thinking. And I set myself the task of doing at least that every day. And I started. I started that very day. And I began to write. And quite naturally, I think everybody's prediction would probably be the right thing, which was as soon as I began to write, I felt clunky and like I was playing in the world of pretend. And... kind of slotting myself into this stereotype of somebody writing a book or whatever and I just had to sit there and just do and allow all of those immediate reactions of my ego to just have to submit to the fact that it was something that I was going to do. And so I began and I wrote and I wrote the next day And I wrote the next day. And I didn't necessarily like what I was writing. It wasn't flowing with the ideas that I had in my mind. But I realized at that point that no longer was I wrestling with the idea of doing it. I was now working at the craft of doing it. And that's a far more engaging and enlivening activity than being stagnant in the face of your dream. Now, while I was writing, I was wrestling with the craft and learning about the craft. And that was so fascinating and beautiful. And I realized that I was just lost. I didn't know what I was doing and lost. Amidst that fear of not knowing what I was doing, something tremendous happened. I saw that I was trying to grasp for knowledge about, in inverted commas, the right way to do it. And I began, I found myself picking up my phone and typing into YouTube the best way to plan a book, to type into Google, And I was trying to look up the best way to do it as a form of impatience to alleviate myself from my own growth. Not realizing then that all of the wonderful authors out there and the writers that I love have all of the knowledge that they have about their own writing process because they grew and they... had to sit with their own uncomfortability and their own disgust at their own work and they had to grow through that and gain that knowledge. You don't gain knowledge of a craft by just being told how to do it. You gain knowledge of a craft by trying, by living, by growing, by having those small moments of triumph amidst a whole forest of disgust horrible moments this is my experience and I know that others share this with me and so then when it was at that point I fought that temptation continuously and let it go and just kept having I guess kind of pep talks with myself if you want to put it that way of just keep going the way that you're going and just carry the activity through and then assess it at the end rather than trying to chop and change, chop and change continuously and just reflect and grow as it grows. And it has been such a tremendous encounter with something new. It has been very awakening for me It's been such a long time. I can't really remember ever engaging with a new creative craft that I felt so shaky with, so lacking in confidence. And yet still having these, I guess, like delusions of grandeur happening in my mind and those two things together. caused so much stagnancy in moving forward so what a tremendous learning experience in seeing myself react in these ways all with the motivation of wanting something to just be the best thing that you can possibly do and the funny thing is is that if you just do it to the best of your ability then it will be the best thing that you can possibly do you may not like it you may be appalled at the outcome but that in that moment is the best that you can do and it leads you on and it leads you on and it leads you on and so i found myself submitting i had this wonderful idea and i wanted to honor this idea and and birth it in a beautiful way. And as I began writing, it was not taking the shape that I wanted. And I realized that I just needed to keep going. I just needed to keep pushing through. And there is a lot of that. And I know that there are people out there that sometimes hear that, that may not necessarily take up creativity as a discipline and say, I don't think creativity should really be something that needs to be pushed. I feel like creativity is something that needs to be organic. And I guess from their point of view, that is correct. But for myself, when I wanted to take my work to another level, regardless of whether it's painting or music or whatever, when I wanted to take it to another level, I realized that I could not operate, I can't keep operating at the whims of my inspirations. And that was happening here to a certain degree. I was waiting for that fresh gust of the muse to move through my mind, to move through my hand to the pen, so that when I wrote, I would be amazed at my own writing. That's easy. But how often does that happen? Maybe for one page out of a hundred. That's just not the way. That's naive. So my submission to the reality was the greatest thing for me in that moment. And even this... particular episode recording that this now is another example of that of it being I think four months more than four months since I'd recorded something off the back of recording continuously since the podcast had started which was such a long break and losing that confidence starting again just seemed such a difficult thing because I wanted to just replicate the glorious moments of some of the other episodes as soon as I sat down and I wanted to plug the microphone in, hit record, and for it to just come out of my mouth. And my mind was trying to formulate a plan and formulate all of these things. And whilst in the future that is something that happens, for now that was not going to serve me because it was going to stop me from meeting that moment of vulnerability. And so I just went for a walk under the full moon And stared at Venus for a while and then came and sat down and started talking. And I was even in two minds about talking about that experience I had with my own writing and my own book because it was something that I kind of wanted to keep private to myself. But I realized it was actually the ideas that I had and the characters that I had that I wanted to keep intimate to me. But speaking about the creative movements of all of that, I was unsure about how I would feel, but I feel like there is so much fruit in there that at least I wanted to attempt to enunciate those challenges. And I guess afterwards, now that I've spoken about it, I feel like it's something that I'm sharing with friends, but at the same time, I don't really know because I never really get to sit there and watch people listen to any of these things, which would be an interesting experience. So I think maybe I'll just sit with how that feels over the next couple of days. But I certainly hope that it's brought something to you. Even if it's just maybe directed you towards asking yourself these questions. Because at the end of it all, I can't tell people... what their blockages are to meeting these fulfilling things in their life. That's up to the individual. But I think what I can do is perhaps direct us towards some hard questions that need to be answered as to why is it that Seven years later, I'm still telling people that I, I'm not talking about me, I'm saying as a hypothetical person, well, after seven years, am I still telling people that I want to pick up the guitar again and start playing? Or why is it that I keep telling my partner all of the time that I'm just waiting for work to die down for me to be able to to pick up my paintbrushes again. It's a fallacy in the mind. It's a complete illusion. Really, in reality, what it takes for you to pick something up and to have a go is really nothing. It's the uncomfortable feeling of making something you don't like that stops it. So often, that is the problem. The moment that we learn to submit to the fact that so many of the things that we make are probably not going to be things that we like, then we can find a little bit more joy in the experience of just playing. Maybe that's not you. Maybe everything that you make you like and maybe everything that you engage with creatively in your life brings you 100% complete fulfillment. And if so, then these words don't matter to you. But that is not my experience and that is not the experience of the circle that I have around me either. So I implore you that if there is a pressing need inside of you to... take on the role of creator, then just take a step towards that. Take a step outside of it just existing as a thought and put it into the real world and then see how that feels. I encourage that for everybody and I will support that in everybody in whichever way is possible. So that is the end of that. This is the first episode back of Creative Labyrinths, this full moon episode. I don't even remember what episode number it is of this season. I think maybe I only just started season one. Sorry, I only just started season two with one episode before the flood. So either way, I am truly grateful for those people who have been listening out there. I do see you online. I do see people who engage with this podcast and the questions that I put online and the surveys that I put online are extremely informative for the directions that I can take in this podcast. And after some surveys and questions that I had, a few... I think maybe a month ago, I'm not quite sure. Something tremendous on here was one of the questions I asked was like, what do you think about your own creative process? And 100% of the people who engaged with this survey said that they wish they were more creative. They wished that they were being more creative. 100%. Every single person on that survey put down that exact thing. And whilst that's like a sad reality, I think that there is so much to be said for that. And that was one of the factors that led me to exploring that inside of myself about why do I always hold that? And not only that, in one of the survey questions, it was like, what are your general feelings around your experience when you do create? And the answers were all over the place. I feel content. I feel frustrated. I feel disappointed. I feel all of them. And I think that that's so amazing. I think that the reality of that, which is the amount of emotional movement that happens within the world of creating is just a fact. It's just something that is going to happen. And that is why it is such a tremendous... such a tremendous thing to engage with because in the face of so many emotions, you have the greatest possibility to know yourself. So this has been Creative Labyrinth's Full Moon episode. My name is Cameron. Thank you for listening.