It’s a magical world!
For academic, professional, and personal reasons this school year has been moving at breakneck speed for me; so fast at times that I’m often afraid I can’t keep up. I genuinely enjoy reading, but lately I’ve felt like I’m reading to save my life—like the bus in the movie Speed, if I let my pace fall behind, the whole thing is going to blow up with me in it.
Because of that it was refreshing to read the short work Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative[1] by Austin Kleon. For the first time in months, I was able to sit down to read a book slowly, and deliberately, cover to cover.
Or perhaps I should say “re-read.” I read this book 10 years ago, when it was first published. And I told my friends to read it. And I bought copies for my kids. I remember at the time it was so encouraging, and fun, and challenging, and prescient.
Now a decade later, re-reading this was like running into a trusted old friend. Sometimes an old friend can remind you of what used to be (and still should be) important in your life. And I needed to be reminded of a few things; things like:
“Write the book I want to read”[2] (or lead the church I’d want to attend).
“Step away from the screen”[3] (or let the creative ideas flow before I start editing them).
“Don’t throw any of myself away”[4] (or making sure I hold onto the passion of the punk-rock kid I was before I became “respectable”).
There was so much more. Reading Steal Like an Artist was like stopping and taking a deep breath, and, for just a moment, letting the academic tension melt away.
Re-reading this book led me to start wondering if I’ve been approaching this doctoral program all wrong.
Instead of running at the work from my strengths I’ve been defensively compensating for my weaknesses. It’s felt a bit like swimming with a suit of armor, and I’ve been thrashing in the water trying to keep from drowning. What I’ve really needed to do was pick up my trusty ol’ slingshot and see what kind of damage it could do to the academic giant that’s been threatening to feed me to the birds.
In Steal Like an Artist, I found some smooth stones[5] that are especially valuable and timely for me as I throw myself into doctoral studies. Here are three:
1. A smooth stone for research: “Don’t worry about doing research, just search.”[6]
I love the serendipity of exploring and finding new things, but instead of joyfully collecting and curating good discoveries, I’ve ended up furiously hoarding everything[7]; instead of embracing the freedom of limitation[8], I’ve been trying to take everything in, and that’s left me exhausted.
But to keep the right things and leave the rest alone, I need a system to know the difference.
2. A smooth stone for notetaking: Kleon suggests cultivating a “morgue file”[9]: Keeping dead ideas you can reanimate later. I need a better notetaking, filing, and retrieval system. I had that thought when reading “How to Take Smart Notes”[10] but that book was so technical and highly specific about the system itself, I think I lost the plot.
Steal Like an Artist spoke my native language—the dialect of a creative—and helped me rethink the necessity of capturing, collecting, and curating my research like an artist would.
I just need to reclaim my identity as a creative.
3. A smooth stone for creativity: “Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing…take time to mess around. Get lost. Wander. You never know where it’s going to lead you.”[11]
I was reminded that my very best ideas come when I’m not over-busy, and even more, when I leave home[12], either literally or figuratively. A change of pace where I wander a city to eat interesting food, to step into new environments, and quite literally get lost has always ignited a creative explosion.
Maybe research can be more like that: Instead of furiously looking for a needle in a haystack, leisurely wandering around. Leaving home. Exploring. I know that can’t always be the case, but like taking a long weekend to get lost, I need to schedule this kind of reading and research into my life, too if I’m going to stay creative in my academic pursuits.
One of my favorite pieces of art is the last installment of Calvin and Hobbes that was released on Sunday, December 31, 1995. In it the precocious little boy Calvin trudges up a snow-covered hill with his trusty stuffed animal-best-friend Hobbes. Calvin says “Wow, it really snowed last night! Isn’t it wonderful?”
Hobbes replies, “Everything familiar has disappeared! The world looks brand-new!”
Calvin says, “A new year…a fresh, clean start!”
Hobbes answers, “It’s like having a big, white sheet of paper to draw on!”
They both get on a sled and hurtle down a hill as Calvin says, “A day full of possibilities! It’s a magical world, Hobbes ol’ buddy…let’s go exploring!”
Is there a way to be an artist and an academic? Or a creative and a pastor? If I’m going to learn to become a non-anxious presence, I certainly hope so.
Let’s go exploring!
[1] Austin Kleon. Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative. New York: Workman Publishing Co., 2012.
[2] Ibid, 48.
[3] Ibid, 58.
[4] Ibid, 68.
[5] 1 Samuel 17:40
[6] Ibid, 20.
[7] Ibid, 6.
[8] Ibid, 137.
[9] Ibid, 22.
[10] Sonke Ahrens, How to take smart notes, Create Space, 2017.
[11] 67
[12] 93
About the Author
Tim Clark
I'm on a lifelong journey of discovering the person God has created me to be and aligning that with the purpose God has created me for. I've been pressing hard after Jesus for 40 years, and I currently serve Him as the lead pastor of vision and voice at The Church On The Way in Los Angeles. I live with my wife and 3 kids in Burbank California.17 responses to “It’s a magical world!”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Brilliant, just brilliant
1) Don’t worry about doing research, just search.
I am plowing through research of others (which I will steal like a super villain!) But there is so much. I am reminded of Chiver’s statement that although data can be tedious, that the numbers are usually about people or things that matter to people. That keeps me willing to dive into the research pool.
2. Kleon suggests cultivating a “morgue file. Jennifer Vernam suggested I relook at Obsidian. I am going to try to give it “another” shot this weekend. Adam Harris has been using the Note function in Zotero. Sadly, a work in progress for me too.
3. Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing…take time to mess around. Get lost. Wander. You never know where it’s going to lead you.”
I been utilizing the Default Mode Network that I picked up on Ted Talks….Here is one. ” How boredom can lead to your most brilliant ideas.”
https://www.ted.com/talks/manoush_zomorodi_how_boredom_can_lead_to_your_most_brilliant_ideas?language=en
Here is a synopsis.
Do you sometimes have your most creative ideas while folding laundry, washing dishes or doing nothing in particular? It’s because when your body goes on autopilot, your brain gets busy forming new neural connections that connect ideas and solve problems. Learn to love being bored as Manoush Zomorodi explains the connection between spacing out and creativity.
As a new house husband, I actually find that housework is now my DMN space. I let my body go on automatic pilot, as recommended, and suddenly I have a new insight. One of the speakers said that DMN is the dating place for brain neurons to find new connections.
Too funny.
But now my resentment for the mundane household tasks is place where I mentally disengage and let my neurons dance around my brain like plum fairies!
Go David…slay the giant…Shalom…Russ
Thanks Russ, appreciate your encouragement. Also, I’m going to pick up your tip via Adam about using Zotero notes as well as the bibliographical data.
Talk about “stealing”…I am stealing your three smooth stones, and putting them into my pouch for future giant slaying.
I’m going to keep my eyes open for two more stones, just to get up to the biblical five. The ones I am going to be looking for are a smooth stone of emotional well-being, and a smooth stone of work/school/life balance.
Thanks for always spurring me on Tim.
Had 5 stones in my pocket but the post was getting too long!!! I like your additions, though!
I agree with John…I think that I will be stealing those three smooth stones for the giants that are awaiting.
I enjoyed your post and this section was a game changer for me. You wrote:
“Instead of running at the work from my strengths I’ve been defensively compensating for my weaknesses. It’s felt a bit like swimming with a suit of armor, and I’ve been thrashing in the water trying to keep from drowning. What I’ve really needed to do was pick up my trusty ol’ slingshot and see what kind of damage it could do to the academic giant that’s been threatening to feed me to the birds.” What a shift! I have been working to find my own balance and create the approach that is right for me.
So…you said this, “making sure I hold onto the passion of the punk-rock kid I was before I became “respectable”)”. Can you tell me more about him? (LOL)
Jointa thanks so much. Now to figure out HOW to run at this thing from my strengths…
The punk-rock teenager and young adult… I don’t know how to post pictures on comments or I’d show you. But while some might think outgrowing that stage is a sign of maturity, I’m contending that what inspired my passion then should continue to do so, just with a different manifestation. Figuring out that one, too…
Great post, Tim. Since you read Kleon 10 years ago, I wonder who you’ve discovered over the past decade who has emulated / stolen from Kleon in either their writing style OR in what they have actually written about. Are there any other authors that come to mind? I had not read Kleon until last week, and now I’m curious to read other content from him AND others who have written LIKE him.
Also, who are one or two other influences in your own career — others you have “copied” as a creative, or as a pastor — in and/or outside of your theological tradition? Others you have “stolen” from, or perhaps a name or two that you would consider emulating again as you execute on your desire “to reclaim (your) identity as a creative”?
Great questions, Travis.
You hit the nail on the head… Kleon was inspirational for what he wrote, but also for HOW he wrote it. Another book I can think of that shares this format is “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield (there are others, I can’t recall now).
Some I’ve stolen from? I can think of 100 pastors/theologians, but maybe more interesting are people like Charles Shultz, The Cohen Brothers, Steve Jobs, and Bono. Storytellers, artists, businesspeople and entertainers who are/were saying something beyond amusing people or making money.
Tim,
Powerful post!!! You validated how we all have felt in this program…at least I know I have. However, your post didn’t leave us without hope. Your “aha” moment inspired my aha moment! “Maybe research can be more like that: Instead of furiously looking for a needle in a haystack, leisurely wandering around.” I am challenged and hopeful to live a bit less panic-striken and more in a state of unfolding curiosity. This brings to mind one of Henri Nouwen’s quotes from one of the first books on our reading list: “Discernment”. “Spiritual discernment is hearing a deeper sound beneath the noise of ordinary life and seeing through appearances to the interconnectedness of all things, to gain a vision of how things hang together in our lives and in the world.”(p. viii) I desire to discern the deeper sounds on this journey. What are some of the deeper sounds you are cultivating?
Esther, I love your question, but don’t quite have an answer for it…yet. My desire to slow down hasn’t quite overtaken my inability to do it. While I know that is the way forward into health, I still must discern how to order my life in such a way that I have the bandwidth to ‘enjoy the journey’.
In the meantime I’m hanging onto deep calling unto deep, cultivating the ability to listen to the Holy Spirit in my daily life, and working to apply that practice to my doctoral studies as well. Up until now I’ve been bifurcating my personal/ministry life from my academic life, I am recognizing that I need to approach research with the same Spirit-sensitivity that I’ve learned in other arenas, too.
Great post man! I think C.S. Lewis says it’s a shame to read a good book once. You realize you missed so much and even see earlier things differently!
“Write the book I want to read”[2] (or lead the church I’d want to attend). This part hit me as well and I think this is what brings our flavor into the world. I instinctively look around and say what are “they” doing, instead of following my heart or what I feel God is speaking sometimes. I balance that with the fact that I know I am fallible, but I think we all have something unique in us that God wants us to express.
LOVE the balance of being an academic and an artist, a pastor and a creative. I am striving for that as well!
Adam, I couldn’t agree more with your statement that highlights the tension between our fallibility and our uniqueness. I say this without judgement or pride, but I just can’t imagine that God called me to lead a church that looks just like 100 others in our city. A technician can follow a pattern, but an artist has to create something unique.
So whether it’s ministry or school, I’d rather get a barely passing grade offering something that is making a unique Kingdom contribution based on who God has shaped me to be, than get an A+-100% turning in perfect work that is a copy of everyone else.
“Instead of running at the work from my strengths I’ve been defensively compensating for my weaknesses.”-Tim Clark, 2023. A quote that impacted me..I sit there and preach mindset and having a mind towards healing to so many and yet this quote hit me square in the gut or more like a palm slap to the forehead with a Homer Simpson “D’Oh”! Thank you for this insight in yourself and thus an insight in myself. My favorite symbol is the &, as I stated in a previous blog. Your questions in the end about being an academic AND an artist, etc. Brilliant. We get so trapped in this or that thinking and right or wrong, that we miss the creative edges that the AND brings. Where are you exploring currently outside of work and doctorate? What get’s your creative juices going as a person ( I realize you are a pastor and spouse, and father and friend) so not asking an or question, but who is at the core of your creative self that shows up in all these places?
Jana, thanks for the encouragement. I’m finding that I feel energy from my own questions but I’m grasping for the answers.
I want to run at this doctorate from my strengths, but haven’t quite figure out how to do that, yet. So I’m living in the liminal space between the two at the moment.
I want to explore better outside of my commitments to help my creative life, but struggle to find the bandwidth to do so.
For me right now it is a very present challenge to re-order my world to make creativity a much higher priority, because at the moment my life reflects the reality we read about in the little booklet, “The Tyranny of the Urgent”: My creative life is important (vital) but not urgent, so it’s getting pressed out.
So my answer to where am I exploring is…I’m in the middle of discerning an answer.
My answer to “who is at the core…that shows up in all those places” is a childlike self who is so curious about everything, and maybe too trusting of everybody, who experiences a lot of wonder and joy from the little things in life that I am learning to be thankful for and not take for granted.
C’MON Tim! You are simply a terrific writer because you connect so well with your readers. Thank you man. After loving reading your post, I only have one easy question:
You said, (or making sure I hold onto the passion of the punk-rock kid I was before I became “respectable”).
How does the “passion of the punk rock kid” make a difference in your present leadership skills?
Todd. THANKS for the encouragement. AND the question.
Who I was as a punk rocker: • Passionate to shake up the status quo • Unconcerned with how the ‘establishment’ perceived me • Angry with injustice. • Curious to experience and understand the world outside of my boundaries. • Committed to communicate truth through art • Covenanted with others to do life relationally together.
All of that is still true of me, though it all takes a different form now. I just have to slap myself every once in a while to make sure I haven’t become the thing I was fighting against all those years ago.
Hey Tim, thank you for your response! But after reading your response, I’m wondering if you are actually talking about the punk rocker in you or if you are actually talking about Jesus of Nazareth?
Anyway, you were definitely a mature punk rocker and now I can see and understand you even better as a lead pastor. If I’m ever in Burbank, I’m definitely stopping by your community on Sunday morning!