A Martyr or a Trickster, you choose

As creatives, we have a choice. We can be either a martyr and vow to be committed, dedicated, serious, grim, always-on-the-go, strive-for-excellence fit-more-in-a-day-to-achieve-more type.

Or we can be a trickster and be artful, cunning, play games, have fun, cheat- here-and-there-but-harm-no-one and put-in-less-and-get-more type of an artist.

I was recently going through Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic and stopped at a section that I had underlined when I first read the book years ago. I started rereading it and laughed my head off.

How could I forget how much I enjoyed it when I read about the martyr and the trickster for the first time?

How could I forget how much I wanted to be a trickster?

Here I am, six years later, still a martyr.

Here is an excerpt from the chapter if you haven’t read it before or need a reminder.

Martyr energy is dark, solemn, macho, hierarchical, fundamentalist, austere, unforgiving, and profoundly rigid.

Trickster energy is light, sly, transgender, transgressive, animist, seditious, primal, and endlessly shape-shifting.

Martyr says: “I will sacrifice everything to fight this unwinnable war, even if it means being crushed to death under a wheel of torment.”
Trickster says: “Okay, you enjoy that! As for me, I’ll be over here in this corner, running a successful little black market operation on the side of your unwinnable war.”

Martyr says: “Life is pain.”
Trickster says: “Life is interesting.”

Martyr says: “The system is rigged against all that is good and sacred.”
Trickster says: “There is no system. Everything is good, and nothing is sacred.

Martyr says: “Nobody will ever understand me.”
Trickster says: “Pick a card, any card.”

Martyr says: “The world can never be solved.”
Trickster says: “Perhaps not…but it can be gamed.”

Martyr says: “Through my torment, the truth shall be revealed.”
Trickster says: “I didn’t come here to suffer, pal.”

Martyr says: “Death before dishonor!”
Trickster says: “Let’s make a deal.”

Martyr always ends up dead in a heap of broken glory, while Trickerster trots off to enjoy another day.

Martyr = Sir Thomas More
Trickerster = Bugs Bunny

Martyrs are stereotypical starving artists, literally dying for their creativity. It is surprising how many artists want to be martyrs. They are ready to die for their creativity but won’t live for it. We are ready to struggle and suffer rather than have fun with it.

I am the first one to admit that I take everything the hard way. I have always found the martyr’s sincerity more attractive than the trickster’s playfulness.

Not any more.

I am ready to change loyalty and become a trickster. Not because a trickster achieves more with her vivacity than a martyr could with her solemnity, but because I have understood the value of life. I have learned that living a simple life with vigor is better than a complex life full of guilt and sacrifice.

I am pretty sure most of you would also want to be a trickster. You also want to use the energy of a trickster. But you don’t know how to. And even if you make an effort, after a few days, like me, you forget.

I have figured out how to bring permanent change. Ms. Gilbert described it in the next chapter, but I didn’t pick it up in the first read.

The secret of a Trickster lies in a single trait.

“The most wonderful thing about a good trickster is that he trusts. It may seem counterintuitive to suggest this because he can seem slippery and shady, but the trickster is full of trust. He trusts himself, obviously. He trusts his own cunning, his own right to be here, his own ability to land on his feet in any situation. To a certain extent, he also trusts other people. But mostly, he trusts the universe. He trusts in its chaotic, lawless, ever-fascinating ways – and for that reason, he does not suffer from undue anxiety. He trusts that the universe is in constant play and, specifically, that it wants to play with him.” – Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic

Trust is what we need to become a trickster. And trust is what I will be developing in myself, my art, and the universe.

What about you?

Photo by Levi Saunders on Unsplash

We are all artists

Yesterday I wrote about Seth Godin who made me understand what is art. Today I am going to reveal the identity of a man who told me that I am an artist too. I have never met him. I have only seen his art. And I read his book and that was all I needed. He helped me believe in myself, my own creativity and my own potential.

His name is Hugh Macleod. He is a cartoonist, marketing consultant, and a highly-regarded author, writing on the themes of innovation, creativity and motivation. His book “Ignore Everybody” began life on his popular marketing blog, gapingvoid.com, as an e-book. It was downloaded over 5 million times since being posted and enjoyed by readers all over the world. Re-imagined in print form, the book “Ignore Everybody” made the Wall Street Journal’s best sellers list.

An earlier version of the “Ignore Everybody” is available free as How to be Creative and it has been downloaded 4.5 million times and this was the book that introduced me to Hugh’s philosophy. The book has 26 chapters i.e. 26 pieces of advice. I selected three which made the most impact on me.

1. We are all born creative

Hugh’s simple argument is that we were all given a box of crayons in kindergarten. We all used them freely and had a lot of fun with them. Then what happened? We hit puberty. And they took away the crayons and gave us books on algebra:

Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, “I’d like my crayons back, please.

So you’ve got the itch to do something. Write a screenplay, start a painting, write a book, turn your recipe for fudge brownies into a proper business, whatever. You don’t know where the itch came from; it’s almost like it just arrived on your doorstop, uninvited. Until now you were quite happy holding down a real job, being a regular person… until now.

You don’t know if you’re any good or not, but you’d think you could be. And the idea terrifies you… You don’t know any publishers or agents or all these fancy-shmancy kind of folk…Heh. That is not your wee voice asking for crayons back. That’s your adult voice, your boring and tedious voice trying to find a way to get the wee voice to shut the hell up.

Your wee voice doesn’t want you to sell something. Your wee voice wants you to make something. There is a big difference.

Go ahead and make something. Make something really special. Make something amazing that will really blow the mind of anybody who sees it.

So you have to listen to your wee voice or it will die… taking a big chunk of you along with it.

They are only crayons. You didn’t fear them in kindergarten, why fear them now?

Hugh MacLeod in How to be Creative

2. Ignore Everybody

When we get an idea that holds us and doesn’t just go away, our first reaction is to run it past others. To get advise. To think about it logically. Do a feasibility study. But Hugh advice is to ignore everybody:

The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you.

You don’t know if your idea is any good the moment it’s created. Neither does anyone else. The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feeling is not as easy as the optimist say it is. There’s a reason why feelings scare us.

Plus the big idea will change you. Your friends may love you, but they don’t want you to change. If you change, then their dynamic with you will also change. They like things the way they are, that’s how they love you – the way you are, not the way you may become.

Hugh Macleod in How to be Creative

It is so liberating to do your own thing. It is so liberating to do something where you don’t have to impress anybody. It is so liberating to feel complete sovereignty over your work. Hugh writes, “The sovereignty you have our work will inspire far more people than the actual content of it.”

3. Put the hours in

When Hugh first started with the cartoons on back-of-business-card-format, people thought he was nuts. He got asked a lot, “Your business card format is very simple. Aren’t you worried about somebody ripping it off?” His answer to them was “Only if they can draw more of them than me and better than me.” What gave his work its edge was a simple fact that he’d spent years drawing them. He had drawn thousands. That was tens of thousands of man-hours.

“Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what separates successful people and the failed people is time, effort and stamina.

If somebody in your industry is more successful than you, it’s probably he works harder at it than you do. Sure, maybe he’s more inherently talented, more adept at networking, etc. but I don’t consider that an excuse. Over time, that advantage counts for less and less. Which is why the world is full of highly talented, network-savvy, failed mediocrities.

Put the hours in; do it for long enough and magical life-transforming things happen eventually.

Stamina is utterly important.  And stamina is only possible if managed well. People think all they need to do is endure one crazy, job-free creative burst and their dreams will come true. They are wrong. They are stupidly wrong.

Hugh MacLeod in How to be Creative

When we put the hours in, do it for long enough, magical and life-transforming things happen eventually. That is the promise Hugh makes.

I urge you to read his books How to be Creative and Ignore Everybody. They will answer most of your concerns and tackle head-on the fears which are stopping you from starting whatever it is you want to.

Tomorrow, I will introduce to you the man who inspired me the most. I owe, starting of this website and many other creative ventures I have started, to him.

Top Photo by Avinash Kumar on Unsplash

Valparaiso – a city where creativity is everywhere

Valparaiso was more than I hoped for.

We took a bus from Santiago to get to Valparaiso. The two-hour ride was my first experience of Chile’s countryside, and I was looking forward to driving through the famous winery town on the way. Instead, we passed through a valley, hills on both sides, beautiful scenery. And, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, we were already in Valparaiso.

I had booked a classy hotel for our one-night stay in the historic city of Valparaiso, which a commercial hub of freight ships going to North America before the construction of the Panama Canal in 1914. The hotel was advertised as a luxurious casa and was one of the highlights of our stay in Chile. 

The taxi driver dropped us at the end of a street, declaring that he could go no further. The street was blocked with iron pillars. We dragged our suitcases, on cobblestone, for two blocks, afraid that we would break the wheels at the start of the trip.

The hotel indeed was a casa but a century ago. Today it was a world heritage listed crumbling structure. The receptionist led us three levels down from a narrow staircase to a tiny and smelly room. The furniture seemed to have come from a museum – an old hospital bed, a free-standing wardrobe, a white thin-legged table, an old chair, and an ottoman whose cover badly needed a wash.

We guessed we had to put up with it. Thankfully we were there just for one night.

We tried to connect to WiFi, but it didn’t work. Our luggage was still at the reception. We quickly freshened up and went back to the reception.

The receptionist’s name was Phillip. He was a young fellow, very patient with our slowly building anger. He did everything to please us. Although his English was limited, he managed to get his message through.

“I am sorry but, WiFi in our room is not working.”

“Sometimes happens. I check. From mains.” He pointed to the door where perhaps the controls were.

“Are there any tours?”

“Yes, walking tours. But. Too late.”

“Not today. For tomorrow, I mean?”

“Tomorrow, plenty. Ten in the morning. Then afternoon. Three pm.”

“Do we need to book?”

“No. Go to the main square.” he showed all his fingers, “Ten minutes before.”

“Is there any good place to eat?”

“Yes. You like seafood? I recommend this.” He made a dot on the map.

“If you prefer Chilean food, this restaurant,” he made another dot on the map.

“And if drinking. And gourmet food, I recommend this place. Bit expensive but a harbor view. Atmosphere very nice.”

He forgot to mention that the hotel itself served Italian food, which we had the next day and was very nice.

We left the place, letting the receptionist take our luggage to our room and fix our WiFi. Equipped with a map, we set out to navigate the winding cobblestone streets of Valparaiso. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any of Phillip’s dots on the map because he forgot to mention the names of the restaurants.

Instead, we found an Italian place with Trip Advisor sign on the door. It had the best bruschetta and vegetarian pizza I had ever eaten.

When we came back, Phillip informed us, “I couldn’t fix WiFi in your room, but I have good news for you. You have three rooms to select from where WiFi is good.”

“Good, let’s have a look.”

The first room was the same as before, tiny, but its window faced the street rather than the harbor—a big no from me.

The second room had a spiral staircase leading to the bathroom and the window still facing the street. No again.

I prayed, let the third room overlook the harbor. It did. Not only that, it had its balcony. The room was the biggest, almost two adjoining rooms with a lounge and a third bed. The only problem was, the shower screen in the bathroom was broken. Furniture was still old style. I opened the door to the balcony, and two mosquitoes flew in.

What the room lacked in appearance, it made up in views. This photo from the balcony says it all. We took it.

Art Everywhere

The following day, after a breakfast of runny scrambled eggs, homemade cake, and black coffee, we got out of the hotel from the back street. The narrow road was as ancient as the hotel was. Cobblestoned with open drains. Locals were sitting on the steps soaking in the morning sun.

You can tell you are in a small town when people greet you and have time to ask where you were from. We stopped a couple of times from chatting, but language was a barrier, and we couldn’t converse much.

Just a hundred meters down, about the third house from the hotel, I stopped. It had a large slanting mural of overlapping boxed shape colorful buildings covering the black corrugated wall. It was such a striking and unexpected sight that both my husband and I stood in the middle of the street and watched it in awe. On the floor, to complement the mural, the house owner had placed planters made from old milk bottles cut from the top and painted in sapphire blue.

The whole street was laced with buntings – red, yellow, and blue with diamond-shaped holes cut through them. We were in a fairyland where a naughty wizard had used his wand to do graffiti wherever he went.

The next house had paintings of people on its light yellow walls – people taking photos, in swimming costumes, and with guns posing to shoot.

What struck me most was the house wall where some clever householder had made windows with paint and then hung plastic old Coca Cola bottles turned sideways with succulents growing in them. From a distance, they looked like genuine windows, like in the streets of an Italian town.

Walking Tour

We were joining the walking tour at the main square. We got so engrossed in the mural that we forgot the time. With just ten minutes to go, we started running the winding street without knowing where it was heading.

Huffing and puffing, we stopped a young man at a corner and asked him where the main square was. Like most people, he didn’t understand us—language problem. On top of that, he was a tourist too. He must have guessed we wanted to go to the main square; opening the map in his hand he directed us to a set of stairs that descended to a street leading to the main square. With no time to enjoy lovely mermaid murals along the stairway, we descended the first flight of stairs and got out of breath. There were three more to go.

The main square was nothing like the main squares I had seen. It was enormous. What was striking that it was virtually empty? Unlike Santiago, there was no one there other than some stray tourists.

For a small tip, we joined a group of excited tourists and tour guide Wally (dressed in a red and white striped t-shirt like Where’s Wally in children’s books) from the Valparaiso Offbeat Tour Company. The tour was for two hours and involved eight kilometers of walking.

Wally told us about the main buildings encircling the main square. Iglesia de la Matriz, a historic church with a mixture of classical and colonial design. The Agustin Edwards Building, also known as Reloj Turri, is iconic and serves as a reference point. The Chilean Navy building has French neoclassic design and La Sebastiana, one of the three houses of the national poet Pablo Neruda that works as a museum dedicated to the artist’s life.

We then walked to Valparaiso’s original neighborhood, Barrio Puerto, once one of the wealthiest areas in the world, was now experiencing a decline.

From there, we went to an old prison house that had been turned into artist’s studios. Local artists can hire a prison cell at a nominal fee and make it their studio.

The prison house has lovely lawns, which are now used as children’s playgrounds and local picnics.

The next stops included the cemetery of Valparaiso and the city’s street art galore.

All through the tour, Wally kept us engaged by telling stories about food, graffiti, politics, social realities, and old brothels of the port city.

My only regret was, sometimes I couldn’t hear him correctly. On the other hand, maybe our group was too big.

History

Valparaíso is one of the main ports of Chile. It played the most critical geopolitical role in the second half of the 19th century when it served as a major stopover for ships on the routes communicating Europe with the Pacific coast through Cape Horn. It had a port suitable for large vessels.

There is no certainty about when the city was founded. However, most historians assure that it was in 1530 when Juan de Saavedra arrived in the Quintile Bay.

The city had its zenith until the early 20th century, when it was hit by an earthquake that almost destroyed it.

When the Panama Canal was opened, the sea traffic was interrupted, and the city began to decay.

In 2003 Valparaíso was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO due to its exceptional testimony to the first phase of globalization at the end of the 19th century.

Now it is known for its artists, writers, and poets. It houses La Sebastiana, the museum house of Pablo Neruda, a Nobel Prize-winning poet.

Transport

There are three modes of transport in Valparaiso.

Elevators (also known as ascensores or funiculars) connect the hills with the flat part of the city. In the beginning, there were 30 elevators, but today only 15 work properly. Between 1974 and 2010, all elevators were declared Historical National Monuments.

We took a ride in one of them during the second walking tour. The ride lasted three minutes, getting in and out five minutes.

Trolleybuses (also known as trole) are buses driven with electricity and go on a set path. They have been around since 1952.

We sat in one of them. It was crowded, and you had to get in quickly because it didn’t stop for long.

“O” buses (pronounced OOOOOhhh bus) that race each other to pick up passengers and are bumpy and scary. Prices are cheap, and they are much faster than walking. One “O” bus route travels through Valparaíso’s hills parallel to the ocean, offering unparalleled views of the coastline and passing some of the city’s most iconic tourist attractions.

This was the most exciting but terrifying trip. The driver drove dangerously in the narrow streets and in a rush to beat another bus to pick up a passenger. He was getting tipped off by someone (to whom he paid some tip) about the waiting passengers. The ‘tips’ were the only way these informers make a living. Wally told us it was sufficient to live on.

Natural Disasters

Valparaiso has seen many natural disasters. Other than the earthquake of 1906, which almost destroyed the city, a great fire burned down 2500 houses in 2014, leaving 11000 people homeless.

The city has a proud history of firefighters. It has the continent’s first volunteer fire department which now has expanded to several battalions representing their different countries. There is a Canadian battalion, a British battalion, and so on.

Second Walking Tour

After a break for lunch, we joined the second walking tour to show us the town’s highlights. It was three hours walking from the port to up the hills.

Valparaiso is built on a natural amphitheater of 45 coastal hills connected by maze-like side streets and endless stairways.

We explored Valparaiso’s wealthy hills of Cerro Alegre and Concepcion and then the poor hills by bus. We walked past bohemian hotels, five-star restaurants, and wild nightclubs and took photos of the rubbish truck with graffiti mosaic pillars and seats.

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Valparaiso is a city where creativity is on display everywhere, where people invite artists to do graffiti on their walls. Where the government supports them by providing low-cost studio space, it is a place I wholeheartedly recommend you to visit.

Art Bus

I walk out of the workplace at lunchtime and find a colorful bus parked in the middle of the city walk. There is no sign next to explain what it was other than the sign on the head of the bus that says ART BUS.

What a treat! I take some photos and then hit the net to find out what it was about.

Australian National Capital Artists Inc. (ANCA) has transformed a retired Action Bus into a mobile contemporary gallery and studio space. What a great idea!

Once a humble local bus has been stripped of its seats and fitted out with gallery walls, lighting, and new external paintwork by local artist Riley Beaumont and turned into a mobile gallery. It is heartening to know that the ACT Government and Transport Canberra are supporting this initiative by ANCA.

ART BUS will be at three different sites across Canberra’s City Centre showcasing contemporary art by local artists and interactive art workshops for children.

Each artist will take over the ANCA Art Bus for a month at a time.

In November, it will display artist Ruby Berry’s work. Ruby is a textile-based artist working with three-dimensional sculptural textile works and sensory engagement.

December’s artist is Dionisia Salas, who has been working with repeated marks and patterns and has experimented with painting, silkscreen printing, burning techniques into paper surfaces, and collage.

In January 2019, Tom Buckland, a sculptor and multi-media artist focusing strongly on making and materiality, will exhibit his work.

This is what the Canberra Times is saying about it.

I would like to see more of these art buses parked at various public places in Canberra.

A case for standing up while creating

Standing desks at workplaces are becoming increasingly prevalent. Despite complaints about aching legs and strain on spines, more and more people are choosing them. The pay-off is just not in health benefits but also in productivity.

An average person sits for approximately twelve hours a day. The doctors are warning that sitting is the new smoking.

In the most clicked article on standing desks, Cia Bernales writes that she used to have tight shoulders, lower back pains, and bad posture. Now she is not slouching, walks around the office more, and is more productive.

The advice to make sales calls while standing up has been around for a long time. Now there are calls for stand-up meetings and stand-up schools.

According to Andrew Knight, Professor at Olin Business School, groups are more creative and collaborative when they work standing up.

“The participants wore small sensors around their wrists to measure “physiological arousal” — the way people’s bodies react when they get excited. When a person’s arousal system becomes activated, sweat glands around the feet and hands release bursts of moisture. The sensors pass a small current of electricity through the skin to measure these moisture bursts.

Knight and Baer found that the teams who stood had greater physiological arousal and less idea territoriality than those in the seated arrangement. Members of the standing groups reported that their team members were less protective of their ideas; this reduced territoriality led to more information sharing and higher quality videos.” 

Science News: Standing up gets groups more fired up for teamwork

“Seeing that the physical space in which a group works can alter how people think about their work and how they relate with one another is very exciting.” — Andrew Knight. 

Many artists are known to express themselves better while standing up. Violinists, guitarists, and trumpeters all perform while standing up because you are holding your instrument upright when you’re standing. You are connected, expanded, tall, wide, round, inflated, supported, grounded, and free!

Ulrike Selleck, a classical singer, says standing is the best position to create beautiful, strong, and resonant sound because you are rooted in the earth through your legs. You stand like a tree, immovable throughout the storm, or the scales or coloratura or high notes or low notes, or interminably long phrasing, swooping melodies, or intricate lyrics.

Comedians perform standing up, and artists draw and paint standing up, then why don’t writers write standing up? 

Most of us struggle to stay up with new ideas when we sit in front of the computer after a day’s work. 

Our bodies in sedentary mode give the shut-down signal to our brains.

One way for writers to unlock creativity and break out of the too-tired-to-write routine could write standing up.

I will certainly test the theory next month, writing 1667 words a day (50,000 in a month) while participating in NaNoWriMo 2020.