In the Midst of Everything Else
purposeful persistence
In the Midst of Everything Else
We live in a maelstrom of information, distraction and endless busyness. To aide in the development of one’s stick-to-itiveness the artist has to survey all of the activities of one’s daily life and order them in such a way that allows the time, space and energy to focus on the central intention of pursuing one’s creative lifestyle. The fewer things one is juggling on a daily basis the more attention can be brought to the remainder. This is basic time and attention management. We all have 24 hours a day. How we structure those 24 hours has an infinite variety of possibilities.
Many younger artists typically have a full plate of things to do, things to take care of, jobs to deal with, kids to raise, bills to pay, etc. It can be overwhelming, and we can find ourselves spending most of our days reacting and responding to life rather than acting upon it. Our days seem structured for us by others, and we are not living by our own design.
If we have been to college then we may be well trained already in how to manage our time in a frantic environment, and it seems that the college routine expects you to be continually overwhelmed. But once we are out on our own, we either must design our own schedules or spend our days dealing with other people’s schedules for us.
However, instead of continually reacting there is a way to bring our own designs to our lives. In order to develop our creative lifestyle, once that has become our central intention, we must take the time to figure it out and start exerting control.
There is a very good chance that we squander many of the moments of our day on things we don’t actually need to be occupying ourselves with. A lot of this time is spent with our eyes on a screen that is absorbing our attention. This might be the first place we put our attention when it comes to time/attention management. The chances are we could carve out a couple of hours or more a day removing our attention from screens. Most of this time is wasted time better used on your own creative work. It is not just time, it is also attention and attention is one of the most important assets you have as an artist.
Our current environment is continually attempting to capture our attention. See Attention Economy. I am trying to capture and hold your attention right now as you read this article while hoping to convince you that you need to get away from screens and by the way please become a paid subscriber so I can continue to attempt to hold your attention. (haha)
Which brings up the point that we all need to prioritize what is important to us and what is not so important and cut out all of the things that are not that important or manage when and for how long we spend our time on these things.
What is important is achieving the ability to spend as much time a day as possible developing inner quietude and clearing out as much noise in the mind as possible so that we have the time and space to pay more attention to our intuition and the world immediately around us. Previous generations did not have to deal with the level of imported mental noise like we do today so we have the unique problem of needing to shelter ourselves from the over abundance of informational noise most of which we can’t use anyway.
The bottom line is: “Put your attention on your central intention.” The rest of the noise must be cleared out. As I have said in a previous article Build a Fortress around the Creative Life
“An artist can be demoralized by many different things. Not only lack of financial support from one’s work, (that can be solved by a number of different solutions), but also by a lack of time, a lack of energy, a lack of discipline, a lack of organization, a lack of concentration, a lack of stamina and especially a lack of a plan. All of these things and many others can be demoralizing for a creative person causing hopelessness, resentment, a lack of confidence and trust, and general negativity making it nearly impossible to move forward or to reach deeply.
For this reason, an artist needs to learn how to think correctly, strategize correctly, adopt and shape the right philosophy, gain control over the mind, avoid addiction, become equanimous in heart and mind, commit to their pursuits with clarity and determination, shape their environment and relationships to be conducive to their creative intentions. These things, when mastered build a fortress around the artist’s creative life so that circumstances cannot dislodge them from their purpose.”
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OK, back to the studio.
Guilty here of allowing the computer screen to suck my eyeballs and time away from the studio. Like sugar, it's an addiction and I'm weak on both. I allow distractions.....for example reading what you said about college......suddenly I was visualizing you writing "collage" instead and having to correct that to say 'college'.......OK but back to the subject...It's when I finally find nothing good on the screen and making myself not seek for more, is when I can get up and head to the studio "knowing" I'm done with the computer (for now). But it will try to beckon me like a Siren (not the alarm from a ambulance, but the cute ones from Greek mythology). Once I'm in the studio I'm good but outside it, my discipline to go in there is weak and stupid. But often my guilt will do its work and get me back to creating (I have a Jewish mother inside my brain that is very good at guilting me into doing what I need to do).
Hey, Cecil! I was so pleased to see my collage submission for "Poetry and Color" alongside this thought-provoking article! You made so many excellent points. Thanks for articulating a common concern for most of us.