Tag: artists commitment

Living the Creative Life

Creative people view life a little differently than does the average person. They manifest a much greater degree of commitment to their work. A notable result of this dedication is their highly selective attitude towards what they will and will not do with their time. Much more than the typical individual, they recognize that time is a limited resource and must not be squandered if something is to be accomplished.

Thomas Edison in His Lab

We have all heard the stories of how the creative Thomas Edison practically lived at his lab. (Photo: Wikimedia)

Creative individuals do not waste energy on unsolvable problems. They do not indulge in what Virginia Woolf so aptly referred to as “woolly thinking.” To achieve this efficiency, they develop the skill to recognize what is feasible and what is not. Going back another step, they are able to acquire the ability to assess feasibility because they immerse themselves completely in their work (commitment again) and learn its parameters and boundaries with unusual thoroughness. When they decide to tackle a project, they know it is workable in the long run.

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Artists Strive to Give Life Meaning

Powerful artists infuse their work with a blend of deliberately chosen emotional themes, their own emotionally important ideas, and subtly distinguished shades of meaning. The great work always starts with the individual, yet manages to present universal aspects of life. Artists do this by looking for the universal elements of their own experience. They never lose sight of the simple fact that we are all human beings. What happens to one of us, in some specific way, has undoubtedly happened to others, in somewhat different ways. Artists suggest the underlying commonality and reveal the universal. In this way, they make the specific general, the individual universal.

Lighthouses and stars are examples of those images with a rich array of symbolic meanings favoured by writers, poets, and painters. (Image: public domain.)

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