It’s hard being a creative.

For starters; our contemporary workplace and much of our broader society is constructed to mostly benefit and support those who lean towards Capitalist values (privatised institutions, capital accumulation, individualism) which usually bear little to no importance over our left of the left-wing desires.

Two; we most usually look, think, and/or behave in a manner outside the norm that generates a general misunderstanding of our nature and creates an almost omni-present shadow over our being, similar to the one you’d expect to hang over a character like the Lone Wolf or John Coffey.

Three; detonate the phrase, “I’m an artist”, in the middle of a group of ‘non-artists’’ and immediately pre-conditioned clogs will start churning that give shape to their conception of your insanity. What’s worse than instantly being labeled as ‘crazy’ is that there are years of statistical, medical, and historical evidence to back-up the theory of mental disorders and their inherent link to creative-types. But don’t worry, it’s better than having to define yourself as a ‘lawyer’ and getting the response, “(cough) cunt”.

Yes, the odds are stacked against us. Even though privately we may take preference in this proud struggle, it does not take away from the fact that we with the abstract imaginations have got our own unique set of hurdles that your accountant-ISTJ acquaintances may not ever have to hurl their legs over.

If you are creative, in any stage of flux — burgeoning, struggling, stuck, flying, or starting again — here’s some of the best chunks of wisdom I’ve swallowed, gagged on, then learnt the hard way during my time trying to survive in the very same lonely, but not alone, creative woods.

1) Get over being rich.

A monetary goal should never be the linchpin for pursuing your craft. It is all about the love and as the French say, “l’art pour l’art”. There’s nothing wrong with wanting financial security — just don’t let it become the reason — because it’s not why we are here. Our purpose is to change and effect and sway and move; and, do all of this deeply. Not to bank-roll, push the bottom-line, and float in the green.

If you are a genuine creative the thought of dollar-dollar bills won’t inspire a great deal in you anyway. In fact, ‘wealth’s’ very antithesis of ‘poverty’ and the agonies that one must endure in such a state will be of a more driving and enriching force to your motivation than rolling around in a matte-black Jeep will ever be. Our people are masters at being poor; we’ve been poor for centuries. We’ve never needed anything fancy to do what we do, and when you reach down to the testes of the matter, doing what we do until the day we die is the one and only true want.

Adversely, if you are a creative and you do strike a pot of gold — well done! — you’ve just joined a very rare percentile of your breed that is uncommon for the paradigm. This is a bonus. You’ll probably acquire a whole new set of problems hidden in your money bags and remember to always stay humble in the thought that no matter how gorgeous and Swedish your bank account begins to look; your yacht will still never be as big as the stiff who heads-up [INSERT BIG-DICK-FINANCIAL-CONGLOMERATION-NAME HERE].

2) The easiest way to manage expectations is to not have them in the first place.

It took me precisely twenty-six years to get this one and it was only after an infinite amount of disappointment, in not only my creative and professional life but in my personal and more romantically attuned, did I manage to comprehend the point that Lao Tzu has been trying to make (both alive and posthumously) since Before Christ.

To ‘act without expectation’ is not to confuse the concept with a free-wheeling, gypsy-like apathy devoid of tangible goals and dreams — which it can very often be mistaken. There is nuance to wanting something, rather than, expecting that something to happen. The former offers a guide-rail, purpose, and drive; the latter, which may garner the same effect, also gashes the net on a whole bevy of potential disappointment and major frustration to come flooding out when you don’t get your hands on that thing you had been expecting to hold.

After all, the future — in its quiddity — is a concept that is formulated only in our own mind, which is the stomping ground of all our expectations. It’s by nature a delusional state to exist in as the only reality is the one that we have here — now — in the present moment.

Emancipate yourself from expectations of anything — relationships, work, art, people — and not only will you be able to save your own soul from self-inflicted and unnecessary ball-ache, but you’ll inadvertently widen your shoulders and open yourself up to experiences you never dreamed could happen, which are of course the most profound occurrences in one’s lifetime.

3) You are not Rimbaud (yet) so don’t give up.

Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet of the mid-to-late 1800s whose small body of work has inspired more dead and alive musicians and artists than I could list here. He is credited as being the founder of the Symbolism movement that pre-figured Surrealism, and was described by Victor Hugo (the guy that wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame) as an “infant Shakespeare”. He achieved all of this in a freakish space of time that makes you question your own adequacy as an artist — five years’ — before he gave it all up at the Beiber-skinned age of nineteen to work in various ‘normal’ occupations for the time. He never produced another poetic work right up until his death at the age of thirty-seven.

I’m not typically a fan of giver-upper-er’s although there is something about Rimbaud’s volatile rebellion against his own genius that makes him an exception to this rule and endears me to the talented, little shit.

But you are not Rimbaud. And, neither am I. No one has ever described me as an“infant Shakespeare” or a ‘voice of my generation’ and until they do, if ever, I don’t think I will ever hold any plausible ground to snub my own impulse to create.

However, the sinister thought and almost too-easy possibility of ‘throwing in the towel’ is quite intoxicating sometimes — usually after some form of rejection letter, an empty bank account, watching friends succeed financially, or no recognition for my art. If — and, more appropriately — when, you find yourself in this overwhelming crotch of the devil, before you chuck a Rimbaud, take a moment to think of the reason why you held on for so long, and just keep on going.

4) Make time to be still sometimes.

This is the best advice I’ve ever received. Particularly helpful in the situations when you are blocked and don’t know what to do (artistically and/or personally) — or to borrow the crackled and worn verbose of my ninety-four-year-old Grandma Peggy, “when you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything at all.”

Put down your pen, brush, notepad, keyboard, mouse — whatever tool that is a vessel for all you’re trying to unleash, attempt to pause the cerebral and just do nothing for a little while. Be still. Open space inside for the flow to keep streaming down, in, then out.

I like Bukowski’s version best:

“This is very important — to take leisure time. Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you’re gonna lose everything…just to do nothing at all, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very few. That’s why they’re all totally mad, frustrated, angry and hateful.”

If you’re not into your Mr.Miyagi’s as drunks then see Krishnamurti: “to understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still.” Bhagavati: “Quiet the mind, and the soul will speak.”. Jesus’s Dad: “Be Still.” And, good-old Eckhart: “True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.”

I don’t care if you ignore my advice, but try not to disregard the above, I’m pretty sure these guys are onto something.

5) Get all Late-Latin on your passion.

My golden nugget of the first-half of 2014 was discovering the original Late Latin root of the word, passion:

Late Latin ‘passiō’ : suffering, submission.Derivative of Latin ‘passus’: past participle of patī to suffer, submit

To suffer and submit to your art. It sounds like a noble venture. Giving into it all, letting it take you under, aching for it, hurting for it, cutting a proverbial vein and bleeding for it. How can you not produce something great if you’re doing all of that?

In short, get all Late Latin on your passion’s ass.

6) Throw out your T.V.

I haven’t owned an operating T.V. for coming onto four years now and other than being asked if “I was a hippy?” by an Irish man in grubby workboots who once came over to inspect my flat for lease (we never became room mates), there’s been no moment I can recall when not possessing a T.V. has made me less than happy.

The benefits include:

• Decreased contact with low-vibrational, vacuous, sensationalist programs in the format of news, reality, or sitcom, that deceive and pantomime as being necessarily informative or innocently entertaining, but really only project insidious shit at the psyche feeding the maturation of an extra chromosome.
• Increased engagement with programs, documentaries, shows, books and other content that you actually want to watch and read that does not deduct from intelligence, reduce consciousness, or meddle with spirit.
• More time in general to spend involving yourself in more productive and creative activities.
• Less noise = decreased air clutter = more quiet = greater floor space in the soul.

Throw it out already or at least do a dry-month. I promise you don’t need it as much as you think you do.