Hola friend,
Recently, I spent a few days fasting from Facebook and couldn’t believe how much happier I felt. It was a welcome respite from the kinds of conversations that tend to leave me feeling frustrated and misunderstood.
This brief social media silence (which, to be honest, wasn’t much—only a few days) precedes a six-day hiking trip into the wilderness I’m taking this week with some friends.
As I look forward to the retreat, it occurs to me that all of my great work has come from this place of intentional stillness, from getting away from the noise of life and finding a void from which to create.
As someone who makes a living saying things, this is hard. Silence is not my default, and solitude is not a habit I have practiced well. But over the years, I have grown to understand the beauty and necessity of certain seasons of stillness—and how to listen to it.
This is true across many disciplines—from art to literature to even spirituality. We can’t create our best work from a place of constant noise and busyness.
In the words of Irish poet David Whyte:
“It might be liberating for us to think of our onward life being informed as much by our losses and disappearances as by our gifted and virtuoso appearances and our marvelous arrivals. As if the foundational invitation being made to us at the core of our continual living and dying is an invitation to participate in the full seasonality of existence. Not just to feel fully here and fully justified in those haloed times when we are growing and becoming, and seen to be becoming, but also, to be just as present and to feel just as much here when we are in the difficult act of disappearing, often against our wills, making way often, for something we cannot as yet comprehend. The great and ancient art form and its daily practice; of living the full seasonal round of life; and a touchstone perhaps, of the ultimate form of human generosity: continually giving ourselves away to see how and in what form we are given back.”
So what will emerge from this departure? I’m not sure. Maybe nothing but a few days with friends. And that, of course, would be plenty. These days, I am letting go of that part of my mind that wants to figure out everything, the ego that tries to calculate and quantify all of my actions. And I am consoled by the fact that this is no new thing for an artist.
Creativity requires quiet. Listening to our own inner voice is how we access the genius, that hidden source of inspiration believed by the Greeks to lurk in every human being.
And if you have ever felt this urge to remove yourself from the the world when so many were clamoring for you to say something or take a stand, then you might be comforted by the fact that you are not alone.
What we learn from the angst of art is that if we don’t allow ourselves to disappear, then we may very well lose ourselves in the work. We may disappear from ourselves, getting lost in the haze of our own life.
This discipline of occasionally stepping away from the outer world to access the inner one teaches us to let go of what we think we are so that we may emerge as who we must be.
To be creative is to be quiet. Learning to listen is how we do our best work. Every once in a while, we all need to get away from the noise and reconnect with our soul so that we can truly create.
When was the last time you got away—for a few hours, few days, or perhaps even longer? What kind of silence do you create for yourself on a daily basis so that you can quiet the soul and really listen?
Best,
Jeff
P.S. Last week, we wrapped up registration for another round of our biannual Write a Bestseller program and we still have a handful of coaching spots left. If you’d like one-on-one help with your book this year, shoot me a reply, and I can share more.
P.P.S. I posted a new video Instagram with some brief thoughts on personal transformation and slowing down, along with a beard update and a poem! Watch it here.
