"Big Magic" (part 1/2)

"Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear" by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of the sensational memoir "Eat, Pray, Love")
Non-fiction, self-help, motivational
(c) 2015

Here are my favorite lessons from the first three chapters of Liz Gilbert's inspiring book:

I. COURAGE

• The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them. The hunt to uncover those jewels--that's CREATIVE LIVING. The courage to go on the hunt is what separates a mundane existence from a more ENCHANTED one. The often surprising result of that hunt is the BIG MAGIC.
• "Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them." 
• Creativity is a path for the BRAVE but it's not a path for the FEARLESS.

II. ENCHANTMENT

• While the TORMENTED ARTIST throws a temper tantrum, the MUSE sits quietly  in a corner of the studio, patiently waiting for him to calm down and sober up so everyone can get back to work. 
• Ideas are alive. Ideas seek the most available human collaborator. Ideas have a conscious will. Ideas do move from soul to soul. Ideas will always try to seek the swiftest and most efficient conduit to the earth.
• An Idea is stubborn. It refuses to stop searching until it has found an equally stubborn collaborator. 
• If you show up for work day after day, you just might get lucky enough some random morning to burst right into bloom. 
• The Romans believed that an exceptionally gifted person WAS NOT a genuis but HAD a genius. It's a subtle but important distinction (being vs.having). This way, the vulnerable human ego is protected from the corrupting influence of praise and from the corrosive effects of shame. 
• "Just write anything and put it out there with reckless abandon" - Ralph Ellison

III. PERMISSION

• Golden Rule in the Gilbert household: If you're supporting yourself financially and you're not bothering anyone else, then you're free to do whatever you want with your life.
• You want to write a book? Make a song? Direct a movie? Decorate pottery? Learn a dance? Explore a new land? Do it. Who cares? It's your birthright as a human being, so do it with a cheerful heart. Let inspiration lead you wherever it wants to lead you. For most of history, people just made things, and they didn't make such a big freaking deal out of it. 
• I'll tell you who I am. I am a child of God, just like anyone else. I am a constituent of this universe. I have a right to be here. I have a right to my own voice and a right to my own vision. I have a right to collaborate with creativity, because I myself am a product and consequence of Creation. I'm on a mission of artistic liberation.
• If you're working on your craft every day on your own, with steady discipline and love, then you are already for real as a creator. You don't need to pay anybody to affirm that for you.
• Editors could reject me all they wanted but I wasn't going anywhere. I plan to stick around. 
• Smile sweetly and suggest--as politely as you possible can--that they go make their own fucking art. Then stubbornly continue making yours.

I'm currently in the fifth chapter of the book. I'll share with you my new learnings on a new blog :)

Cry

Go ahead and cry if you must, if you think you should, if you think it’s about time but remember to stop and think. Ensure that there is learning for every tear-shedding moment. It can be a life-changing epiphany or a simple thought; “Tears make the eyes look fresh.”

Cry when it hurts, when it’s almost or absolutely unbearable. Cry when you can’t contain your laughter. Cry because you crave attention, long for affection, or seek forgiveness. Cry when you had to painfully forget someone or when he or she easily ignores you.

Cry and talk to someone but don’t feel guilty when you cry without letting anyone know. Cry and make sounds. Cry when it’s true. If you can’t help it, wail. If you can control it, sob. If it hurts deep within, weep. Cry when you think it’s proper. Cry even if it’s awkward. Don’t be ashamed for no one is immune to the emotional vulnerability that forces, compels, invites, or surprises us to cry. We were all born crying. Those who didn’t were not the brave ones. We fought our way out here crying—that was how we announced our being.

Cry regardless of who you are. Cry because you’re a girl. Cry because that’s what makes a man. Cry because you’re gay and prove to people that you’re either lame or your stronger than most for showing your emotions. Cry to show sympathy. Cry as if you have one.

Cry when you’re happy and cry when you’re not. Cry when you’re honest, cry to play pretend. Crying has become stereotypically associated with weakness that it’s a convenient excuse or defense, regardless of the circumstance.

Cry to be understood or cry when no one bothers to understand you at all. Cry when you wish you could just disappear from this orderless world.

Cry once a year, once a month, or every two weeks. It’s reassuring to know that your tears will never run out, anyway.

Cry in the movies. Let the tears drop on your book. Cry and bend on the couch, comforting yourself that the world is safer with just you and your good old childhood blanket. Cry while singing a song. Cry to award speeches. Cry while watching the US president. Cry for the victims of extrajudicial killings.

Cry to clear your mind. Cry when you’ve just figured out a way out of a complicated problem. Cry to celebrate, commemorate, create, and communicate. Cry and walk out or cry in a corner.

Cry to surprise yourself or your loved ones. Cry to reveal what’s long been hidden. Cry because you care. Cry when you can give nothing else including care.

Cry and learn from it or cry because you can’t seem to get the lesson from the same situation. As an actor, cry to impress. As a child, cry to express. Adults, cry and be strong by being weak, first. Depressed? Cry to release. Mourning? Cry to accept.

Cry for now but not forever. It’s good but not without a burden. Cry when you can’t think properly or when you’re writing with so much pain.

Do yourself a favor. Cry. Cry and be forgiving—to your downs, your past, and your shortcomings. Cry and be welcoming—to changes and new beginnings. Cry when you succeed.

There’s too much happening that drowns you in life. When you can’t find the right words to express what you’re feeling along the way, three letters are okay. Cry anyway.