“The quest for work you love – it all begins with the two simple questions: Who am I? and What in the world am I doing here?”

- Laurence G. Boldt in How to Find the Work You Love

Ah, yes – the “simple” questions. Right up there with “Want fries with that?” – “What is my purpose on this earth?”

Who are you? Want fries with that?

I don’t know my purpose just yet, but I figure the best way to find it is by living mindfully. For me, that means striving to align my external existence with my inner one. Whenever I feel like something in my external life is hollow – that I’m just going through the motions with it – I know it’s time to make a change, large or small.

Lately, I’ve been feeling this way with my professional life. I care about the work I’m doing, but it’s not why I was put on this earth. It doesn’t fulfill a purpose that’s unique to me.

I don’t know what I want to do instead – what I should be doing. I have glimmers, and impulses – but no answers. Not yet. I know I can’t rush the answers, but it’s hard – I get impatient.

One thing I find myself fantasizing about is a collaborative, creative space with other improvisers, video artists, writers, designers, musicians — all of our work fueling each other, hybrids forming, ideas bubbling… Plays, performance art, video projects, jam sessions, open mics, and who-knows-what else…of course, I have no idea how we could earn a living from this, or how I could. But it’s a recurring theme, as dreams of mine have gone: creating a space to spark creativity; a haven of sorts, and an incubator, all in one. Maybe there’s even a cafe…

Do you know of any spaces like this? If so, I’d love to hear about them. To be clear, I don’t just mean a co-working space, or shared studio space… I mean sharing space with the explicit purpose of cross-pollination between creative projects.

Let me know what you know!

And while you’re at it, tell me: ‘Want fries with that?

“Life is a creative endeavor. It is active, not passive…When we experience our lives as flat and lackluster, it is our consciousness that is at fault. We hold the inner key that turns our lives from thankless to fruitful.” – Julia Cameron

In The Artist’s Way,  Julia Cameron writes about two essential tools for creative living:

• Morning Pages: Write three pages every morning. If you can’t think of anything to say, write your to-do list, or your grocery list, or a list of things you see out your window…just write. The point is to empty yourself so you can be fresh for your encounter with the day ahead.Morning pages aren’t about “good writing,” so put aside any judgment or self-criticism; no one will ever see these pages but you, and it’s the process of getting things down on paper that will help you — so don’t worry about the product.
• Artist Dates: Just as we need to empty ourselves, so do we need to fill ourselves up with food for our creative selves; Cameron calls this “filling the well.” Commit to taking yourself on a date each week (at least an hour long) that quenches your creative thirst; if that sounds too high-minded, then just follow your impulse for fun. Go to a movie, take a class, go for a stroll…whatever makes the kid inside you go “oooh….”

(To read about these tools as Cameron herself describes them, click here.)

I read The Artist’s Way back in 2004, and it changed my life (this is not an exaggeration). It made me realize that I was an artist, and that the greatest source of my dissatisfaction (with just about everything) was the absence of art in my life. Within a year of reading this book, I’d re-arranged my hours at work to give myself time to write every morning, and I’d found the art of improv, which continues to be one of my greatest sources of joy and fulfillment (not to mention, the way I met many of my closest friends).

Sometimes I get away from the habits I list above, and then I come back to them; rediscovering their gifts is like catching up with an old friend, and remembering how deeply you connect with one another.

As I contemplate which direction I want to go in over the next few months — what work I want to take on, what classes I want to take, what projects I want to develop — I’m recommitting myself to morning pages and artist dates.

Wanna join me?

Also: Learn how to start an Artist’s Way reading group, or “creative cluster.”

“The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.” – Julia Cameron

- Twyla Tharp

Take, for example, this story from micro-sculptor Willard Wigan – but first, take a look at one of his sculptures:

One of Wigan's "micro-sculptures" features the Obama family standing in the eye of a needle

Now, the origin story:

“It began when I was five years old…I started making houses for ants because I thought they needed somewhere to live. Then I made them shoes and hats. It was a fantasy world I escaped to where my dyslexia didn’t hold me back and my teachers couldn’t criticise me. That’s how my career as a micro-sculptor began.”

And here’s photographer Sharon Montrose:

“From the moment I picked up a camera, it was my breath. I realized I was alive now.”

Of course, not all artists recognize their calling in a flash. Take me, for example: Even though theater and writing were my primary hobbies from the ages of about 5-18, I lost sight of these passions in college and afterward. In my effort to figure out my career, I assumed (as so many of us do) that I should focus on my cerebral, rather than creative, abilities. Then, in my mid 20s, I was absolutely miserable, and a series of events led me to exploring yoga for relaxation; at the yoga studio, I found a flier for a book group that was going to read The Artist’s Way. The rest is history.

It may sound dramatic, but looking back, I see a distinct “before” and “after” in relation to reading that book; maybe this is similar to the experience of being born again? I knew, suddenly, what I had known as a child, but forgotten as an adult: I was an artist.

When did you know you were an artist?

Related listening:

• This American Life: “Origin Story”

Image above by oceandesetoiles on Flickr

“If I have learned anything in this lifetime,” a friend recently wrote to me, “it’s that I need to trust my gut.”

I couldn’t agree more – but oh, it can be terrifying. It can be so hard that it feels physically impossible. But the alternative – living life like you’re playing a role in someone else’s play – is so much worse. I’d rather the pain of the band-aid ripping than a constant, gnawing pain that won’t go away.

I stayed at a job I hated for 6 years. And it took me 10 years to move away from DC, even though I knew deep down that it wasn’t the right place for me. I look back on these instances with sadness – sadness that I wasn’t confident enough in my instincts to pair them with action. But I also realize there’s no point beating myself up; we live and learn. I wasn’t ready then, for whatever reason. I had to experience what it felt like to ignore my intuition, before I could learn to trust it over all else. And then, oh, how good it feels…

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” – Alan Alda

Now I know the joy that comes from doing the thing you need to do, no matter how confusing it might be to other people, or even to yourself. I left a job that by all external accounts was “perfect” for me in order to begin freelancing; four years later and I’m still at it, and loving it. It’s freed up my energy for things I love, like family, friends, yoga, travel, art. I can give more of myself to improv, blogging – things that come from that place deep inside of me that needs to be heard.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” – Albert Einstein

But it’s hard. It’s hard when we’re trained to make decisions by thinking, since it turns out, we make the best decisions by feeling. Erica Heinz does a great job of explaining this in an article called “5 Clear Flags of Hidden Intuition” over on HuffingtonPost.com. She breaks down five ways to learn to hear what your body is telling you – here’s #1:

“Gut ache. Not as romantic as heartache, for sure, but way more useful. Did you know that one half of all our nerve cells are located in the gut? You have as many neurotransmitters there as you do in your brain. Your gut produces 95% of the serotonin in your body, and can function even if it’s detached from the spinal cord. (Read The Second Brain, by Michael Gershon, for more details.) So listen up! If it’s churning, aching, or fluttering, it’s not just indigestion. It’s Morse code.”

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Are you listening to your gut? Do you know what you want, deep down? Are you taking steps towards it?

Today I realized I need to be doing a different kind of improv. The classes I’m taking at UCB are great at teaching a particular skill set (game), but that’s not the skill set that fires my passion for improv (character, relationships). (Interestingly, I prefer a style that operates more from feeling than from thinking…hmm.) So tonight, I’m going to a “mixer” (open mic/jam) at Magnet Theater, a place known for an emphasis on character, and then I’m watching a couple of shows there. I have my eye on one of their classes. We’ll see where this goes…

Image above is by Cliph on Flickr

Related Reading:

• Be in the Scene You Want to Be In