Keep Going summary

If you want to do creative work, you need time and space to focus on it. But in today’s hectic world, it can be hard to find some peace and quiet. 

To escape the chaos of modern life, you can follow the lead of writer and literary scholar Joseph Campbell, and build what he called a Bliss Station. In its most tangible form, a Bliss Station is a silent and secluded place where you go to do your work – perhaps a special room or a garage.

To protect your creativity from the hecticness of modern life, you’re now armed with a Bliss Station and some healthy habits of disconnection. In this blink, we’ll look at some other simple things you can do to lend some order to the chaos around you – and maybe get some inspiration in the process!

The first is to make lists. There’s the classic to-do list, but there are many other possibilities. The visual artist David Shrigley keeps a list of things he wants to draw; that way, when it’s time to work, he’s never at a loss for ideas of what to draw next. The writer Steven Johnson keeps a list of ideas to come back to someday, and he reviews it for inspiration every couple of months. And the English rock band The Wire defined their artistic vision by writing a list of things they wouldn’t do: solos, “rocking out” and ending songs on choruses, for example. 

“Do what you love.” 

Many of us have internalized that often-repeated message, and it’s become one of the main career aspirations of our time. If you haven’t already achieved it, imagine landing a job where you get paid to pursue your creative interests. Or imagine being able to support yourself by selling your work online. To many people, those scenarios sound like dreams come true. 

In the previous blink, we looked at focusing less on measuring what you do and more on simply doing it. Now we’re going to look at the problem with the ultimate measure of them all: whether or not you’ve “arrived” as an “official” writer, painter, filmmaker or whatever you’re aspiring to be. 

This is part of an unfortunate tendency to focus on the nouns, rather than the verbs of creative work. For example, “sculptor,” “dancer,” and “singer” – all of those titles are nouns. The corresponding verbs are the actual activities of sculpting, dancing and singing. 

Alright, so you need to focus more on the verbs and less on the nouns of your creative work. But how do you actually do that? 

Well, if you want to take a master class on the subject, just watch some young children doing art. They’re natural-born experts at valuing verbs over nouns. Not only could they hardly care less about being an official artist, but they often don’t even care about the final product of their work! 

Imagine if you could magically make your life ten times cooler than it currently is. Your neighborhood, your home, your workplace, your friends – every element of your day-to-day reality has been instantly upgraded. 

If you could live that life, do you think it would take your creativity to the next level? Do you think the ordinariness of your current reality is the main thing holding you back? Many people fall into this trap. They think that if only their circumstances were more extraordinary, their creative work would be more extraordinary too – as if the one depended on the other. 

When you notice you’re doing something that’s making you or the people around you miserable, what should you do? In your personal life, the answer is obvious: reevaluate your behavior and try to change it for the better.  

That’s just as true of creative work, despite an unfortunately popular myth to the contrary. Call it the myth of the tortured artist. According to this myth, if you produce great art, it somehow compensates, excuses or even necessitates unhappiness. You can fall into addiction or be a total jerk to your family – it doesn’t matter as long as your work is amazing. Indeed, the darkness in your life can even be a good thing for your creativity; it gives you some demons to wrestle with.