Articles on Success, Significance and the Evolving Role of Work

Take a look at that title again.

Does it feel unfinished? Unresolved?

Good.

For many years, this internal dialogue knocked around my head: “Do I write because I’m a writer, or does the act of writing make a writer?”

In other words, does what I do (i.e. write) make me who I am (i.e. a writer)? Or is who I am (i.e. a writer) driving what I do (i.e. write)?

This classic “doing vs. being” debate fascinates me.

If you read the blog I wrote between 2009 and 2012 (called Keitharsis), my allegiance to the “doing” camp was obvious. My thinking was essentially this: If you want to call yourself a writer, you must write.

End of story.

But, for me, it was far from the end of any story.

I started writing songs and stories in elementary school. My first poem was published in our local newspaper around that time too.

It seems I wrote because I was a writer. And the act of writing over many years reinforced this.

But that wasn’t exactly it either.

Imagine a Venn Diagram, where the ends of two circles overlap. If we call one circle “being” and the other “doing,” what can we call the crossover area?

Do you see what’s been bothering me? Something else is happening in addition to “being” and “doing”. Something that has eluded me for a long time.

Until this past week.

I was up way past my bedtime, a few nights ago, and decided to re-watch a documentary on Harper Lee.

Lee grew up in a small Alabama town with Truman Capote and, like him, eventually made her way to New York City. While there, she worked as an airline ticket agent and wrote fiction on the side.

It was during this time, she befriended Broadway composer and lyricist Michael Brown and his wife, Joy. One Christmas, the Brown’s gave Lee a gift of one-year’s wages with a note saying, “You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.”

Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird.

Something Joy Brown said in the documentary hit like lightning:

“Essentially she (Lee) was a writer. She was not going to spend her life taking airline reservations or waitressing or what one does while one becomes something else.”

If you don’t mind, let’s let that quote hang unresolved, like today’s essay title. At least for a few more sentences.

Nothing we do is a path. Our lives consist of cycles. Seasons. Circles.

A week is a cycle of days. A year—a cycle of months. A blog is a cycle of posts.

And writing is a cycle too. I receive a prompt. It connects with something else. This connection spurs inspiration. I write. I edit. I re-write. I share with a few trusted colleagues. I hone. And then I share the final piece publicly or submit it to an editor.

Then I start over.

I’ve read a couple of libraries worth of books, blogs and periodicals that offer advice for writers. Most approach writing as if it were factory work. And the writer as if she were an hourly worker.

I think of the creative as a garden, and we, the artists, as gardeners.

Our job is to cultivate the ground. Plant the seeds. Pull weeds. Keep the critters out. Add water. And let God or Mother Nature do their thing.

And then, we begin again as the seasons cycle around.

It seems we are always becoming.

We are always in a space between “being” and “doing”—a space of tension.

So it seems fruitless to focus on either “being” or “doing”. I should stay focused on the art of becoming.

You should too.

Don’t think about when you will “be” [insert artistic title here].

And don’t obsess about what all you need to do to be that thing.

You are always becoming what you already are.

Like fruits in a garden.

It takes hard work and sacrifice, but the results taste so sweet.

From May 2012 to July 2013, I wrote a weekly series of intimate essays for writers and artists seeking a deeper connection with their identity and place as modern creatives. I called this series Root Notes. This was an essay in that series. It was originally published on April 21, 2013.

Creative work—be it writing, painting, photography, performing, designing—is a means to something else.

I’ve been hovering around this thought a lot lately—that even though I’m a writer, it’s not really about the writing.

I do it for something else. Something greater. Something outside myself.

Or do I?

Maybe I write solely for me. Maybe me thinking I write for others is a clever way of evading my complete and utter narcissism.

Maybe it’s a mix of both.

I have always believed the creative life consists of two root notes: communion and community.

Communion describes an intimate connection between two people. A sharing. Mutual participation. Vulnerability. Trust. And unspoken communication.

Communion can exist between a writer and reader. A writer and God. A writer and place. Or even between the writer and herself.

Communion is the practice of a personal, human connection.

Community describes a relationship among a group. Shared interests. Threads. Customs. Traditions. Culture. History.

Artists need a community. For belonging. For experimentation. For competition. For respite.

Community is the practice of a universal, human connection.

So circling back to where I started, if my work as a writer is not about the writing, what’s it about? Why write? Why create?

Is it for some greater purpose? Is it for myself? Or is it for both?

Did you know the root word in both “communion” and “community” is the word “common”?

Funny that we tend to see our commonalities as a bad thing. We’re supposed to be unique and different. Individuals. Stand-outs—which is where “outstanding” comes from.

And art—“real art”—is judged on its originality. Even the word “creativity” has become synonymous with what’s new and different.

But that’s not what we really want, is it?

We don’t really want to be creative, in the modern sense. We don’t really do creative work for its own sake.

Something else is at work in us.

Creative work—be it writing, painting, photography, performing, designing—is a means to something greater: human connection.

We do what we do to connect with ourselves, others, our surroundings and (for some of us) God.

From May 2012 to July 2013, I wrote a weekly series of intimate essays for writers and artists seeking a deeper connection with their identity and place as modern creatives. I called this series Root Notes. This was an essay in that series. It was originally published on April 7, 2013.

There are two types of people: Those who believe there are two types of people and those who don’t.

I have always loved “two types of people” categorizations, because they reveal core tensions at work around us and within us—poles pulling or pushing each other and everything/everyone caught in between them.

Certainly we’re not one type of person or another, as the surface of these arguments suggest. We’re both. Yet, we tend to be more one than the other.

It’s our work within (and through) these tensions that forms our artistic, creative and spiritual identities.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of these tensions at work as we work.

I’ve struggled with the tension of process vs. product. Should my root note be my love of the craft of creative writing? Which means accepting that the success and spread of my work may be significantly limited by my approach and interests.

Or should my root note be the product—the book, poem, essay, article, speech, video, song or whatever? Which means my process must serve the product. Which means I may not be able to go as deep as I prefer in my craft—robbing me of a key source of joy.

Like most of life’s tensions, it’s one that can’t be resolved. It must be endured.

In Ulysses, James Joyce wrote, “The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring?”

This isn’t about process or product. It’s about something much deeper. And much more important.

My favorite artists—the poets, writers, painters, photographers, musicians and filmmakers to which I continually return—are favorites because they draw me into who they are.

It’s as if the art is the doorway to the artist.

Joyce wrote, in A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, “The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.”

I love this idea of the creator accessible through the work, but only for those who chose pursuit.

Which begs me to ask the supreme question of myself: Out of how deep a life does my art spring?

Of course, I don’t get to answer this. But you do.

How deeply does my work penetrate your intellect, emotions and spirit?

And how long will it sustain?

Does my work offer access to me within or behind or beyond or above it?

Like me, you don’t get to answer these questions for yourself or your work either.

But you must ask them. Then you must stick around for the answers, which will return in time.

From May 2012 to July 2013, I wrote a weekly series of intimate essays for writers and artists seeking a deeper connection with their identity and place as modern creatives. I called this series Root Notes. This was an essay in that series. It was originally published on March 24, 2013.

Every chord has a root note.

Heart-swelling melodies and mind-altering key changes can be architected off that root note.

As a matter of fact, whatever you can pull off in context of what you are playing, can work with that root note.

A “wrong note” is simply one that doesn’t seem to blend and co-exist well with the root of what’s being played.

When we talk about living a balanced life, we make ourselves the root note.

We seek to divide our time, attention and energy among the things important to us.

Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right.

Not too much. Not too little. Just right.

Not too this. Not too that. Just right.

That’s balance.

But what if we are not the root note?

If we are not the root note, we are no longer the center around which everything in our life should be arranged.

And this changes our role and relationships.

Instead of being the foundation around which everything else aligns, we become part of the “everything else” and find ourselves faced with aligning with some source outside ourselves.

This can create considerable tension in our lives.

Unless, of course, we can find a way of blending and co-existing with the root note—which essentially means harmonizing.

Harmony is a beautiful idea and metaphor.

It’s about co-existing and blending with something bigger than ourselves (while staying true to the voice we’ve been given).

It’s about creating beauty in tension.

It’s about adding depth and texture to the root note.

Nothing surprises or delights our ears like simple or advanced harmonies.

If you are an artist, you are not the root note. Your culture is.

If you are religious, you are not the root note. God is.

If you are a parent, you are not the root note. Your family is.

Balance separates. Harmony blends.

If you are willing to give up some control, you can create beautiful harmony with others and the world around you.

I encourage you to find a root note for your creative life—something much bigger than you or your work—and align yourself with it.

Open hearts. Blow minds. And leave balance to the gymnasts, acrobats and accountants.

From May 2012 to July 2013, I wrote a weekly series of intimate essays for writers and artists seeking a deeper connection with their identity and place as modern creatives. I called this series Root Notes. This was an essay in that series. It was originally published on March 10, 2013.

We love to celebrate firsts—births, first words, first steps, first days at school.

And we celebrate or mourn ultimate lasts—graduations, deaths, divorce.

But what about little lasts?

We celebrate the birth or adoption of a child, but we can’t remember giving the last bottle.  Or changing the last diaper.  Or rocking our child to sleep for the last time.

Those are little lasts.

Some of us are barraged with countless questions from our kids and shown a never-ending supply of inventions, doodles and Tinker Toy contraptions throughout the day.  But, one day, we’ll see the last one.

That’s a little last.

My oldest son comes down the stairs multiple times a night (way past when he is supposed to be asleep) with made-up questions and reminders (just to stall and stay up).  I get angry with him. But there will be a last time he comes down our stairs.  And I’ll never have those private moments to be with just him.  Moments, I’m embarrassed to admit, I’ve squandered up until now.

A few years ago, I remember watching an Oprah interview with Dr. William Petit, a man who lost his wife and daughters in a horrific murder.  As I listened to Dr. Petit try to find the words for his feelings, it hit me that the people we love are what allow everything else to matter and have meaning.

Without that love, nothing else matters—little or big.

Every single day we change.  We age.  We mature.  We change our minds.  We are never quite the same person that we were yesterday.

That means that each day is a first.  And a last.

Today is the last day we will have with the people we love—the way they are today.  Tomorrow, everything is different, everyone has changed.  Just a little.

I realize that there will be a last time a child of mine believes in Santa.  And a last time we will put out cookies and milk.

There will be a last time I push my daughters on a swing. And a last time I wrestle on the floor with my sons.

I know, in the scheme of things, that these will not be those moments we document, like we do big firsts and ultimate lasts.

They’re just little things.

But it’s the little things that make our lives significant.

Let’s try to be fully present in those little moments that matter most.

Before they’re gone forever.

From May 2012 to July 2013, I wrote a weekly series of intimate essays for writers and artists seeking a deeper connection with their identity and place as modern creatives. I called this series Root Notes. This was an essay in that series. It was originally published on March 3, 2013.