When Franz Kafka, one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, was asked how to be creative he said, “You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
What keeps us from listening? I have a theory. Not a ground shaking one, but a theory none-the-less. We're constantly being interrupted by noise. Noise can be defined as almost anything that distracts you from the task of creating. Some noise is unavoidable. Things like, your job, family etc. The stuff that fills up your day. It seems cold to refer to your family as noise. Heartless. Maybe I should attach a couple of modifiers like, "heartwarmingly valuable noise." Still for the sake of this blog, anything that keeps you from creating will be called noise.
But there's another far more paralyzing noise out there...
The noise I'm talking about is obviously TV, youtube, gaming, tweeting, texting and so on. We do it to ourselves. And don't get me wrong, I'm really guilty of inflicting noise on myself. I like to be entertained. The problem is that I have absolutely no right to complain about why I haven't finished my novel, started my graphic novel or started that business I'm always talking about. I have no one to blame but myself.
So, where do I go from here? I've had this moment of clarity but what do I do with it? Well, armed with the Kafka quote I'm going to try things a little differently. I'm going to find some time in every day to shut myself away and be still. It will have to be either very early in the morning, or late at night, when my heartwarmingly valuable noises are asleep. I'm going to find a place where I can block out the noise and just listen and create. No distractions. Just creativity.
The scary part is, what happens if nothing happens? Well now that I'm in my 40's I need to find out. I've spent a whole lot of time and energy being a critic. But critics seldom achieve anything great. In fact, I can't think of a single critic that has achieved anything of note. Appologies Mr. Ebert.
Let's see what happens when I listen without the distractions of noise. Will the world "freely offer itself to me" or not?
I'll let you know.
