“There is no hurry” – Alan Watts

 

 

The digital world has impacted how we do just about everything.  This includes how we consume and make art.

 

To be clear, much good has come from this.  Technical and digital advances have opened up whole new worlds to artists of all kinds.  It’s also meant more choice and accessibility for consumers of this art.  However, there is also a slightly darker side.

 

Like moths to the flame, we are drawn to the new, bright and shiny.  The digital world knows this, so is hungry to oblige by giving us ‘new’.  Well, sort of.

 

At a certain point, the quantity and quality balance gets tipped.  This leads to a lot of sameness.  A lot of beige.  You know the stuff.  Listicles you are sure you have read before.  Regurgitated ‘thinking’, without adding any new perspective.  Clickbait headlines and pictures to draw us in.  Memes and, the always golden, promises of ‘4.5 second abs’.

 

This is lazy art, if it’s really art at all.  Part of the reason it finds a home is because as a mass audience, we continue to eat up this lazy work.  In fact, we demand it.

 

We click and refresh, click and refresh. Not really absorbing what we are consuming, mindlessly searching for what is next instead.  No judgements, I do it and I’m sure you do it.  There’s a strange, and not always satisfying, addiction at play.  The web, social media and our phones all fight hard to keep us in a cycle of clicks.

 

Almost everything is geared up for speed and more of more.

 

So, what is a creative to do in this environment?

 

The answer depends on why we are creating.

 

Why Are You Making Your Art?

Are we doing this, in an attempt, to create our best work?   Do we wish to explore ideas that burn at us, fully and deeply?

 

Are we doing this purely for ourselves, as a creative expression and to clarify our own thoughts?  Is this mostly a passion project of one?

 

Are we trying to serve an audience?  Are we trying to entertain?

 

Is this how we make a living, or are we looking to make this the way we make a living?

 

Are we looking to get as many people as possible to stand up and take notice?  Do we just want a ‘following’ and eyes on what we create?  Do we strive to be controversial or contrarian?  Are we seeking the mass audience?

 

Are we making our art for humans, optimum SEO or a little of both?

 

Are we creating to try to be part of the signal, or merely to blend in with the noise?

 

Each of these set of reasons can mean we approach our art in very different ways.  Each places a constraint on our offerings.  Each choice has the potential to influence what, and how, we create.

 

For simplicity, we will focus mainly on the people that wish to create their most authentic work, work from the heart.  The people that wish to challenge themselves as much as they challenge any audience.  The people that wish to create for a human experience first and foremost, letting any numbers and stats take care of themselves.

 

These are the people that create for the sheer creative challenge itself, as much as for any other reason.

 

For these creatives I say, slow down.

 

Create on Your Own Schedule

Let your work unravel and breathe for longer.

 

No need to rush ideas, unless you’re on a tight deadline.  Deadlines can be utilised as a positive, but they can also lead to hurried and poorly formed work.  No creative wants that.

 

Approach your art as the craftsperson you are (or wish to be).  Chipping away at ideas.  Getting rid of the excess.  Uncovering what is left.

 

Take time to experiment.

 

Whether your ‘art’ is writing, photography, music, podcasting, building websites, code or anything else, let your ideas percolate.  Let them mature and form fully.  Strive to make what you create today a little better that what you came up with yesterday.

 

Put yourself in your art, don’t merely look to be a carbon copy of someone else, even if that someone else inspires you.

 

Be wary of playing to an audience too much.  Even for those that wish to make a living from their art, creativity can be stifled if we pander too much to what we think will pull in a crowd.   This is a fine line but one that must be managed if we want to remain in love with creating.

 

Some ideas may come in one sitting, seemingly perfectly formed from the start.  Others may take longer to express and be ideas we pick up and put down, then come back to.  Some ideas may be with us for years before we really feel like we can do them justice.  That’s okay.

 

We can set up environments that facilitate our best creative work.  Leveraging trigger states.  Whether this is a preferred location or time of the day, or both.  Music on or off, we get to choose.  Experiment, find what works, then look to incorporate it without being married to it.

 

Create freely, express yourself purely.  Dance with your ideas.  Realise that not every day will be what Elizabeth Gilbert describes as a ‘Big Magic’ moment.  But recognise these moments when they do visit and ride that wave.

 

Respect the process.  Embrace the journey.  Stop rushing.

 

Fall back in love with the idea of slow art.  Create for the sheer joy of it.

 

 

 

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