You Don't Get to Control the Weather

This last weekend I was scheduled to speak at a festival. The talk was one that I was excited for, bringing together some observations on creativity and embodiment. It was something I've not really shared on publicly before, and would give me an opportunity to flesh out ideas that will eventually make their way into the book I'm writing on some of these same subjects. I'd been preparing for a couple of weeks and had my talkrememberizedin a way that I'd not have to rely on notes or look like a deer in the headlights trying to remember my lines. All in all, I felt good about it. Then the storm hit. As it turns out, I mean this literally. The wind picked up out of the northwest and swirled down. Within about ten minutes we went from blue skies to sheets of hammering rain and cyclonic gusts of air. Trees were felled. Tents swept away. Campsites uprooted. Much of the festival's infrastructure was destroyed. Thankfully no one was injured. But I was left empty handed. The talk was canceled, along with the rest of the programming. All that work, and nothing to show for it. Which happens. Doesn't it? I tell this to the people I serve as a Creativity Director and mentor for. It's a core part of my teaching really. We make plans. And life happens. The two have such little relation. No matter how badly we wish to imagine otherwise. A lot of our day is spent trying to avoid this reality. We do it in curious ways. Education and preparation. Scripting our responses to everything. Making vows. Creating calendars and five-year plans and backup plans and backup plans for the backup plans. We endlessly watch informative little reels or tik toks , learning how to have difficult conversations, before we've even had them. We rehearse what we say. Endlessly. Preparing for life in the hopes that it will lose its ability to surprise us. Which is adorable. Because the world is under no such illusion. A tree cracks in the storm and hits the house. A child leaves and doesn't come back for Christmas. The funds dry up. Your body changes in ways you didn't prepare for. Feelings fade. The thing you thought would work, doesn't. The thing you were certain you didn't want becomes the thing you just can't stop thinking about. You spend two weeks planning for a talk and then stand in the rain while the storm washes it away. The French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre was interested in the strange truth that a lot of reality is already underway by the time we get here. We didn't choose the year we were born or the body we began with or the family in the waiting room when we show up kicking and screaming. We inherit our conditions. Just like we inherit other people and their choices. And somewhere in the middle of all of that we're asked to make a life. To choose, in spite of what's already been chosen for us. I think this is the heart of creativity. We like to imagine that making is astarttofinishsort of project. You have a vision and you make a plan and if you're disciplined enough you build it until the thing appears, more or less, as you imagined. Again,adorable. And sometimes it happens. But often, it doesn't happen this way at all. More often you start one place and end up in another. The novel rises up in rebellion. Your painting dissolves half way through. A bridge in the song you've been writing takes over and becomes the new melody. The business you thought you loved becomes unbearable. Your collaborators mutiny. On and on…I'm guessing you've seen a lot of this happen. And this is where our relationship with creativity—WITH LIFE—becomes much more interesting than your original intentions. We begin to ask: what can you make with what remains? How do you respond to the life that's actually there, and not just the thing you idealized and envisioned? You learn that loss isn't really loss. Ruined plans aren't ruined material. The wrong color on the canvas actuallyisn't. The quirky sentence that you thought broke the page, actually makes it far more interesting. This isn't some sort of cute insurance policy. Nothing takes away the risk of being alive. No. We need to have hopes and dreams and intentions. We need to live like mad and love like hell. That's true. Give your everything. And know this: The world owes you nothing. Certainly not its cooperation. You can love something and lose it. You can prepare beautifully and still be interrupted. You can do almost everything right and still find yourself standing in the wreckage of what you imagined was going to happen, looking around at the fragments. Creativity is more than making things. It's actually a way of meeting reality on its own terms. You look at what's left. You resist the urge to call it failure. You stay curious. You ask what this strange stew of random events and accidental disappointments might be asking of you now. And then you make something from that. I think that's the real trick. Learning to be hospitable to life as it is. That's what being a creator really is. THIS WEEK: Thu, Sep 10 • 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDTin the Creators Collective, we have a guest masterclass with Nate Elliott, legendary bartender and part of the James Beard Award winning team at The Scotch Lodge in Portland Oregon. He is talking about "The Art of Hospitality," and how we can create a sense of home. He brings not only years in the hospitality industry, but also a career as a professional photographer and touring musician, showing the interrelatedness of food and Creativity! This is part of a whole month celebrating the sensuality of food and the joy of cooking. In fact, I'll be teaching on Bourdain and Julia Child later this month. You won't want to miss it! Sign up now! Right now, I am opening books for one-on-one creative mentorship. Four months. Just us. A place to bring the project you can't stop thinking about. The work you're trying to bring into the world. The places where you feel stuck, uncertain, or ready for something more. As a Creativity Director, I help people with the practical thing like the structure, the next steps, the connections that need to be made. But we'll also pay attention to the deeper thing beneath it all. The creative life you're trying to build and the person you're becoming as you build it. In fact, that's probably the real truth. This is an experience where the art and the artist are the same substance. We come back to that time and again. If you're ready to create the project, the connections, and a life that feels more fully your own, this is for you. I'd love to walk alongside you. Only three spots are available. You'll want to reserve one now. Apply Now