As creators, we are both attracted to and repelled by creating within a committed routine.
In many ways it feels anathema to inspiration… that the proper relationship to creation is to work only if and when the muse moves us to.
When we give in to that wistful arrangement and leave our creating undisciplined, the powers latent in us go untapped:
We live as potentialities, always wondering what we are capable of but never disciplining our creative lives in a way that will ultimately reveal that to us.
In truth, discipline does not diminish creativity… it harnesses it.
When you finally regiment your creating, you experience the true freedom of constraints.
You realize that placing “no limits” on your creativity was the ultimate limit of all, insofar as it kept you from actually producing anything (or at least anything consistently).
As you go into the tender green days of a new year, you WILL break your creative routine. If you have not already, a day will come very soon when you fail to do the work you swore you’d do.
When that happens, your temptation will be to say “fuck it” and go, with a mixture of frustration and secret relief, back to workless creativity… to unburden your creative powers from the constraints of a work schedule.
And in so “freeing” yourself of these committed routines, you will lock yourself back in that old familiar prison, sending your creative power up to the sky, watching through the bars as it soars among the clouds in complete impotence.
As many times as you break your commitments…
As many times as you fail to do the creative work you promised yourself you’d do…
Go back to your regimen. Return, again and again, to your hours of intentional creating.
Insofar as your fulfillment and your freedom depend on you doing the greatest work you are capable of, these commitments are not a “nice to have.”
They are your salvation.
I have lived in the prison of my mind daydreaming long enough. It’s time for massive action!-LZ
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I live this principle – it drives my creativity. I have come to embrace boundaries and constraints – the limits of time, budget, etc, actually push me to be more creative and to utilize the resources I have in ways I wouldn’t have done otherwise. I use Haiku as a metaphor for the creative process.