Artist Above: @_mik3_
“Look in your own heart. Unless I’m crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you as it has ten thousand times, the calling that is yours and yours alone. You know it. No one has to tell you. And unless I’m crazy, you’re no closer to taking action on it than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow. You think Resistance isn’t real? Resistance will bury you.” – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
Do you guys ever sit around wondering when you’re going to come across the next idea that is going to change the trajectory of your life? Could be big or small, doesn’t really matter. It just needs to be enough to get our gears turning; enough to propel us in some sort of a positive direction.
Embarrassed to admit, I find myself looking for these moments, often (yes, I know that there are a ton of character defects within this type of thinking. Don’t psychoanalyze me, shithead).
Lately though, I’ve given up on them.
Don’t let those words come off as the words of a cynic. This “giving up” is more of a surrendering at this point. I fully trust that when the time is right, the universe will send one of those “ah-ha” moments on over my way.
Honestly, I think she is always sending us these moments.
It’s just up to us to be paying enough attention to spot them when they do tip-toe into our lives. Will we be present enough, and are we going to seize the opportunity when they come to greet us? Or will we let them drift right on by?
That’s what this blog is going to focus on: listening to the whispers that the universe sends our way, and whether or not those whispers are a life of their own.
So, here we are, you and I, left to digest concepts of the metaphysical variety. This should be fun.
THE MOMENT
A few weeks back, I found myself listening listening to the Align Podcast with Aaron Alexander and Drew McManus, lead singer from the band Satsang. Besides it being a phenomenal podcast, I had me one of them “oh shit” moments and whether it was 2% or 10%, it shaped the course of my life for the better.
Drew was asked what his creative process looks like when it comes to making music and he responded by saying that “he made an agreement with the Muse, and no matter how inconvenient the time, if she calls, he’ll always pick up the phone.” He even goes on to tell a story about how one time while giving his kid a bath, a song came to him and he knew he needed to go write.
“Babe! Babe! You have to take over,” he called out to his wife.
Within 30 minutes he had the rough draft of a soon to be released song; this is what happens when we don’t ignore the whisper.
Aaron followed this up by wondering if, like any relationship that builds a level of dependability, Drew has become a dependable source for the Muse where she now knows that she can knock on his door because he’s going to answer.
ARE YOU LISTENING?
The concept of the Muse is nothing new, but for those who may not know what I’m talking about, Steven Pressfield popularized this idea of “The Muse” in his book The War of Art. He considered it as that force from beyond that comes to him while writing, but that comes to all of us during our creative endeavors:
Even though I’ve thought heavily about this idea of the Muse over the years, hearing this conversation between Aaron and Drew lit up some new circuits for me.
What if I started showing up for her more often? What would happen?
What would happen if every time I felt that strange twinge of needing to get the rush of thoughts out of my head and into words, I actually followed through? (The same twinge, might I add, that lead me to writing in the first place; a time in my life where I had no business doing so, but the voice in my head told me that I had to. Yes, this is how a crazy person goes about life. By listening to the voice in their head.)
Would she show up for me more?
Does she show up more for the people that answer her call because she knows that she can depend on them? And if I don’t answer when she comes to my door with a good idea, would she take that very same idea to the doors of anybody who’s willing to answer, only for it to be gone forever?
Woah, woah, woah. Hold the fuck up, Justin. You’re telling me that ideas don’t actually come from us, but from a source beyond our selves? A force we can’t see? From this “Quantum Soup?” You wan’t me to believe this? Yeah, ok, fuckface.
I know that for some of you reading this right now, you may be having a hard time wrapping your head around this ethereal concept, but think about some of the creative greats throughout history and where they said ideas came from:
“God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his minister.” – Socrates
“We are writers, and we never ask one another where we get our ideas; we know we don’t know.” – Stephen King
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” – Picasso
“I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning.” – William Faulkner
“All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.” – Chuck Chase
Yes, we are physically doing the work. But if you’re honest with yourself, when you’re in a state of flow and everything fades away as you’re honed into your craft, it’s hard to take full-credit. “You,” hardly felt like you did anything as the work feels like it has come from somewhere more than you.
As my girlfriend would say, “we are all cosmic puppets.” In a sense, when we dial in our craft to the point where we’re able to get out of our own way, maybe then, and only then, do we become vessels for ideas to be birthed to the world. It almost seems that it becomes this two-part system where if you show up to do the work, you get rewarded with insight from the Muse.
She is the small whisper in our head that is always guiding us––if we’re paying close enough attention, and if we have the courage to bring that whisper up on stage to hear what it has to say.
