[-practically mperfect-]

by Nancy S.M. Waldman

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.

Friedrich Nietzsche said that and I - with quite a bit of creative chaos in my life - completely understand what he means. Chaos - if we tone it down to a buzz of unrestrained energetic activity - can be an inspirational muse. However, chaos is hardly the only thing we need for creativity.

Creative chaos will not get a zine out - on time or otherwise. “Quarterly” doesn’t mean much to the chaos swirling in one’s soul. Chaos doesn’t know a single thing about html or how to put in a link that works. And chaos can’t write an essay for anything in the world.

Chaos does not keep up the blog entries.

Chaos cannot re-write a novel.

For those things and more, you need another “c” word; a word with a lot less magic, a lot less pizzazz, a lot less playfulness. You need consistency. This, folks, is the practical side of being practically creative. And it - or the want of it - comes up frequently for me.

Like all creatively conscious people, I adore those brilliant flashes of creativity when disparate ideas and materials come together in a new and exciting way. This stimulates and energizes and feeds on itself. So, if I occasionally feel those brilliant flashes, why worry about something as dull as consistency? Because not only does consistency accomplish tasks that chaotic creativity can’t, it also feels good to accomplish daily goals. Chaos cannot accomplish long-term, complicated projects. It takes consistency. It takes showing up for work, day after day.

For about a month after the first issue of the year came out, I was “showing up” to the Practically Creative blog most days. It was fun and creatively stimulating for me and, I believe, for others. I had plenty of gloriously creative raw material thanks to the Practically Creative flickr group. It didn’t take much time and I always felt better after doing them. It’s similar to the way I feel physically after exercising. Often I resist, but I always feel better when I do it. With the blog-roll I was on in February and early March, there was no reason for me to think that I couldn’t continue doing consistent daily blog entries forever. No reason except self-knowledge and experience. By now, I know myself pretty well.

Chaos and consistency don’t easily coexist. In my life and I think, the lives of many artistically creative people, chaos more often than not bests consistency in hand-to-hand, day-to-day combat. Even if we just call it moodiness, it’s enough to get us off track. So what can we do about it? We need both ‘creative chaos’ and consistency and they are close to being mutually exclusive!

We have to do what it says at the top of this article. We have to learn to accept our shortcomings. Consistency isn’t a parlour trick like a white rabbit conjured out of a hat. If it’s not in us as a natural attribute, then we have to practice acceptance, but we also have to foster more functional habits. It is a balancing act - think tightrope walker’s skill rather than a magician’s trick - to accept who we are. To embrace the strong parts of ourselves, those parts that are capable of giving “birth to a dancing star” while also repeatedly disciplining ourselves to show up so we can finish and bring our creative projects to the world.

Getting down on ourselves because we fail only gets in our way. The goal is not perfection. It is progress. Guilt and self-hatred come from that perfectionist thinking and will keep us from showing up tomorrow if we let it. Only a balance of self-awareness and the steady goal of making ourselves better at consistency will help us achieve a finished product.

Writer, Stephen Nachmanovitch said this about creativity:

The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.

We will, more often than not, miss that brilliant flashpoint if we haven’t shown up for the work. That’s consistency. We have to work when we aren’t inspired. We have to work even when we feel uncreative. We have to do it when it isn’t intuitive. The experience of it being “play” instead of “work” will follow from that consistent effort.

Whether or not we finish our creative projects - whether, for instance, my novels get re-written or my blog gets an entry today - isn’t going to make a difference in anyone else’s life, but it will in our own. Even if consistency isn’t our strongest trait let’s vow to continue working on the habit of showing up everyday.

Maybe today there will be a brilliant flash and, just maybe, that star will dance.

Originally published in the July 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly
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