There’s only one principle of creation

There’s only one principle of creation: Live it. 

Live what you seek to create in your life. 

Live it. Breathe it. Embody it.

Be the deliciousness of it . . . however you can

Earlier in the week this realization struck hard. That all the principles of creating something are subsets of this one concept. 

Yes, you will want to imagine the end point. And visualize it. 


Yes, you’ll want to rough out a plan on how you might get there. 


Yes, you’ll want to take in as much information as you can. Hello books, internet, people who’ve been there, done that.


Yes, you’ll want to surround yourself with the best people you can find to assist you in your efforts.


Yes, you’ll want to start.


Yes, you’ll want to throw copious love and energy in its direction.


Yes, you’ll want to keep at it till you’ve shaken it from wispy unreality into stubborn reality.

When I think of the things that worked in my life — the dreams that ultimately came to fruition — they are the ones that became a part of me. 

Let me give you an anti-example

Around the time we launched our slender hope of an art gallery into the world I also imagined that I might become an artist. 

I sucked at art but was creative in my ability to work around my artistic deficit. I managed to sell a few bad paintings on the cheap, but overall it went nowhere. 

While initially I fancied I might wiggle my way into a career as an unartistic artist — they do exist, I’ve discovered — what I actually did took me on a different journey.

With my lover woman partner wife I opened an art gallery. 

So what did I live?

Being a small biz entrepreneur. 

I starved every hour of the day in keeping this fragile little flame alive. We worked seven-day weeks. And many nights. 

For years. For years, I tell you. 

Fast forward to today, 19 years hence. I am decidedly an art gallery owner, and emphatically not an artist.

(My wife, who I believed in more than she believed in herself, is an artist. Because she practices art. She lives it. It took years too. But she’s there.)

(I’m not.)

My funny friend Mike

I met my friend Mike for breakfast last week, fresh on the heels of this body-gripping insight that you must live whatever you seek to create.

Excitement so pervaded my system I was hyperventilating.

Mike: You mean like Nike? Just do it?

Me, breathless: Yes! Yes! 

I could see Mike thinking, So you could have paid more attention to their marketing and gotten this years ago?

Me: But it’s more than just doing it. It’s being it. It’s living with it in your thoughts. It’s feeling it. It’s steeping in it. It’s exploring it in the context of your life!

Yes, I’m sure that’s what Nike and thousands of others imply when they speak to you about doing something. Creating something.

But I just got it. Finally. The full fajita. The essence at the heart of creation. 

When I see a a good Mom, she’s not thinking of Momhood, oh, from time to time. She’s in there, living the thing. 

When I come across someone electrified by life, it’s almost certainly because they’re living their ideal in some fashion. They’re finding ways to insert their dream life into their daily life.

They may be leagues from their goal . . . no matter, they’ve figured out how to put what they want into their everyday existence. 

And that’s all it is. 

Living it.

Some people, it comes naturally, this understanding. Some it takes decades, like five decades. 

Living it means now. Not some future weekend, some future better time. In the easiest breeziest way, you go at it now.

Want to be a fashion designer? Living it means something simple in that direction today. You pull out the sketch pad, the scissors, some measuring tape, a piece of cloth.

Want to be a tri-athlete? Living it means hopping on the bike today. 

Living it is such a cool shorthand for all the advice on how to create something important. Living it means today. Cuz your life is now. 

Being it is the simplest way there. 

__________________________
Oh come on you scamp: Click here to join the fast-growing subscriber list, for the best of The World Is Freaky Beautiful once-ish a month, maybe.