One Hundred Day Creative Challenge: Day 30 Recovering a Sense of Possibility
LESSON FOUR: An Artist Requires Creative Solitude
If you’ve ever done a Myers Briggs personality test you may have been a screaming mess like I was. The introvert/extrovert divide is not that clear in any test I’ve done.
I remember asking if I could begin the test again when I felt that I was constantly contradicting myself in my answers.
‘I’m failing the personality test,’ I told the examiner.
‘No one fails the personality test,’ he replied with a smile, the sort of smile that tells you he knows it all and you’re the weird one. I finished it and waited for the results with trepidation.
I was one question away from being an introvert. So if I’d answered one question differently I’d be an extrovert? I threw the results down in disgust.
However, the test highlighted one thing to me. I seem to be a mix. I can enjoy being with people, be inspired by them and even love them, but after a few hours, I just want to not be with anyone.
Julia Cameron writes,
‘An artist needs downtime, time to do nothing. Defending our right takes courage, conviction, and resiliency. Such time, space and quiet will strike our family and friends as withdrawal from them. It is.
For an artist, withdrawal is necessary.’
Photo Credit: Lightstock https://www.lightstock.com/photos/man-standing-in-a-field-by-a-lake
She goes on to say that if an artist is denied this time they become annoyed, sullen, depressed and even hostile.
Have you ever snarled (outwardly or inwardly) at someone when they interrupted your alone time? Do you start to feel that your loved ones are placing unreasonable demands on you?
We can’t expect to function creatively without giving our inner artist time to just think and be.
‘An artist requires the upkeep of creative solitude.
An artist requires the healing of time alone.
Without this period of recharging our artist becomes depleted.
Over time, it becomes something worse than out of sorts.
Death threats are issued.’
If this treadmill continues where we give in to demands and squash down our artist, Cameron says we are caught in ‘The Virtue Trap’.
Often we use it as an excuse to not do anything as we try and be nice or do the right thing by others.
Resentments build when we put aside our own desires for others. We need to find a way to make time for inner artist.
Nitty Gritty: Last year I wrote about the theory of planned behaviour and how I make appointments with myself. Even with the best intentions there were things that happened this year that pulled me away from completing my goals.
Some of these things were positive: our son’s wedding.
Some were unexpected: two surgeries in the space of a month.
Some were deliberate choices: travel
Some were valid: Traveling to attend courses
Some were the result of apathy or laziness: days spent reading instead of writing.
But, what I did achieve was time alone. I withdrew quite a bit. I spent time thinking, getting head space, clarifying, just being. I’m in the process of planning for 2016 and a priority is planned creative solitude.
Planned creative solitude is an essential in my life. Is it in yours?
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