The Artist's Way: Week 2

Jon and I are now in week 2 of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. 

Crazymakers

This week is about identity, and how it can be compromised from the outside by characters Cameron calls crazymakers:

Crazymakers are those personalities that create storm centres. They are often charismatic, frequently charming, highly inventive, and powerfully persuasive. And, for the creative person in their vicinity, they are enormously destructive.

I've definitely been friends with and dated crazymakers when I was in my 20s. Since then I have been avoiding them assiduously. Fortunately, chronic crazymakers are pretty easy to spot... they're the ones that thrive on drama.

The thing is, sometimes "normal" friends can become temporary crazymakers, too. Recently I've been on the receiving end of quite a lot of crazy lately. At first I tried to be supportive and kind and to listen (or rather read, because it's mostly walls of text), but increasingly I find that I can't. At least not right now.

I have other things going on in my life, too. My grandma just died, an old friend has Stage 4 cancer, and I am stagnating creatively. I have nothing left to give. I acknowledge that this friend is going through a hard time but, regardless, I feel drained.

One of the exercises in Week 2 is listing out what you've been spending your time and energy on. Then deciding what to protect and what to keep out.

This was timely. On my list of things to protect: yoga, reading, writing, pets, and being out and about (like the pub quiz we went to on Monday!). On the fuck-off list: drama, phone-based activity, and doing the dishes.

Skepticism

If crazymakers compromise your identity from the outside, skepticism is the enemy from within. For example, writing off happy incidents and creative progression as mere coincidences.

Ahh, if only I could be in this position! "Not feeling particularly divine this week," I wrote in my journal. The idea of myself as an artist is, at the moment, absurd. This is despite 2 recent moments of professional success: having my work praised by a client and getting my highest-paying writing gig ever. Actually, these incidents depress me. I'm afraid that I will only ever be good as a paid writer, while my own work is crap.

Attention

Very often, a creative block manifests itself as an addiction to fantasy. Rather than working or living in the now, we spin our wheels and indulge in daydreams of could have, would have, should have.

YUP. Especially now that I am dealing with mortality.

I have lost my grandma and I may very well lose my friend if she cannot make it through chemo. But what I feel isn't loss. It's guilt and regret because I have not been close to either person for a long time. I didn't even visit my grandma throughout Covid-19, it being such a convenient excuse. As for my old friend, I stopped talking to her in order to move on with my life. I guess part of me wanted to believe these decisions were no big deal and could be undone at a more convenient time. But now I have to face the truth.

Then there's the question of my own mortality. Life is short, I'm living on borrowed time... but what, exactly, should I be doing to seize the day and make the most of what I have?

And so my attention eddies around the urgent-but-unimportant stuff: what tupperware should I buy, what system of litterboxes should I use, booking and cancelling ClassPass classes, looking for a new whiteboard, etc. etc.

I think I need to go out and just be — just look, smell, listen; in other words, pay attention to the stuff of life.

Week 2 check-in

Morning pages: 7/7

Artist date: Sort of? I took myself out to double yoga on Friday, imagining it to feel super luxurious. But booking the second session was a mistake — I was too rushed. Still, what a privilege to attend 2 yoga classes on a random weekday afternoon.

Issues this week: Existential crisis, as described above.

As for the book... I am not sure I want to write a book after all. Well, I know what I want to write about — a personal finance take on Walden — but after shitting out a blog post on the topic I don't feel I have anything interesting to say.

It's weird because my unpublished personal ramblings are full of excitement and joy, but once I adapt them for publishing, they go flaccid. Maybe I'm just having a bad week.