I started reading Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being some time ago, and I credit this book with my devotion to publishing frequently and imperfectly. This book has made me a consistent writer against my will.
You know why?
It’s because in the book, Rubin talks about how the universe (or God) is always broadcasting messages to us—talking to us. And the artists are the ones who are attuned enough to hear that call and relay it to the rest of humankind.
We are all translators for messages the universe is broadcasting.
—Rick Rubin. The Creative Act: A Way of Being
And the thing is: these same messages are given to multiple people. It’s only a matter of who acts on that message. And if you are feeling called to co-create with this message, you need to go for it because if you don’t, someone else will.
Answer the call or someone else will.
Michael Jackson has been said to talk about how he would rush to the studio because if he slept on the ideas, God might give them to Prince. And this breathes life into the notion that ideas are living entities seeking a collaborator.
This idea was set forth by Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear.
“… ideas are alive, that ideas do seek the most available human collaborator, that ideas do have a conscious will, that ideas do move from soul to soul, that ideas will always try to seek the swiftest and most efficient conduit to the earth (just as lightning does).”
―Elizabeth Gilbert. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear.
And the thing about answering the call is that whoever answers the call will be rewarded.
The reward for answering the call may be: notoriety, fame, money, authority, validation, and the list goes on. No wonder Michael Jackson was rushing, recording like he was running out of time… because he fully believed he was.
And once I learned that ideas might be sentient—living, breathing entities seeking a willing vessel, I began to create with that same sacred haste. Writing as if the window might close. Filming as if the idea might call to someone else. Publishing before my perfectionism could stop me.
Because when you understand that inspiration has a life of its own, you don’t hesitate… you surrender. You let the muse move through you, fully (because you and her are one). And in doing so, you become the kind of woman who is not just chasing ideas…
But the kind who answers them.
Now answer the call, siren.
With resonance,
Elle Ray
Founder of Siren Theory