Creative Rebellion Essays: Sacred time. Sacred space.

Probably the most common question I’m asked is how do I “find time” to write and make art as much as I do, given that I have a demanding fulltime day job and family. We all have the daily worries of life weighing on us: finances, emotional, spiritual and physical health and in these particularly weird times, COVID-19. We spend most of time “giving it all away” to the socially sanctioned and worthy pursuits of making money and taking care of the family. This is reality. But I’ve found that if I’m constantly giving it away, eventually my psychic battery drains and I’m not sure what it is I’m even thinking anymore. And aside from the various labels I carry (boss, dad, husband, son, brother, mentor), I’m not even sure who I am anymore.

So how do I make a personal creative practice while balancing the demands of reality? The answer is pretty simple. I make “sacred time and space” for my personal endeavors. You can choose any hour you like at any time of day (4 am, 3 pm, midnight, whatever floats your boat) but the rules are that you simply do that one thing that is only for you, whether it’s yoga, meditation, writing, playing guitar, making art or chopping wood. You can only do that one thing and nothing else. If you are composing music on a piano, you either play or you sit and do nothing. No social media, no TV. No nothing but simply the task at hand. 

Secondly, sacred space can refer to a physical space if you are fortunate enough to have a study, home office or studio or it can be a mental space. I’ve written essays and stories in public cafes and I’ve written all my fiction books outside in the backyard, under a large California live oak tree, composing at an orange table while sitting on an orange chair. The family kitchen counter can be your “space” in the early morning hours before the family, or roommates, awakens and takes it over. 

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” 

― Blaise Pascal

During this sacred time and place, you may find yourself initially a bit lost and confused about what to do. Allow that state of boredom and uncertainty to sink in and just be. It’s okay if you spend the first few times just simply showing up and actively doing nothing. Don’t reach for your distraction of choice (email, news, Instagram, et al) but focus on just being. At 5:30 am, I generally take the first 15 minutes of my sacred time to meditate using Headspace. And then, once I’m centered, I can do the one thing that I (and many others) find challenging throughout the day: focusing. Focus actually isn’t hard. It happens naturally once you center and access a state of flow (as defined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). 

During these sessions, you will find an arena that piques your interest. You may find yourself excited by the novelty of the project. Let’s say you want to write a poem a day and post it on Instagram. The first few days will be relatively easy but then again, life will start to impinge on it: you got a cold or hangover or just plain tired and didn’t get up early enough; you got busy with a presentation to a client or senior executive; or a more common scenario, you just decided that you’d rather watch TV or hang with friends. Afterall there’s so much stress in the world, aren’t I allowed to vege out, drink wine and eat chocolates? Yes, of course you are. But these interruptions should be the exception, not the rule. 

Going back to the example of doing a daily poem, the only way the sacred time and sacred place will work is if you...

Commit and habituate.

In this case, you have to commit (and I mean commit like you commit to getting married) to writing and posting daily for X amount of days (yeah, give yourself a goal as it makes it easier to attain) and then habituate, which means getting into the habit of getting up at 5 am or stopping what you are doing at 5 pm to open sacred time to write poems. 

After a while it becomes second nature and it will feel odd if you don’t show up for your sacred time and sacred place.

In modern society, it’s considered socially acceptable to workout and perhaps train for a triathlon. This is awesome. I’m glad that most companies are okay with that commitment to health but many companies tend to be dubious about the same amount of commitment and time being allocated to creativity. Tagging along with the relatively innocuous question, “How do you have the time to write a book (or make art or record an album or fill-in-the-blank)” is the associated passive-aggressive implication that you must not be doing your real jobs (working for money and taking care of family) very well. Surely something must be suffering? 

Unfortunately, this comes with the territory. While others are out eating and drinking late with co-workers and friends (sanctioned and socially acceptable uses of time), you are in your sacred space, making something out of nothing. In other words, creatively engaging with life. And out of this wonderful struggle will be birthed something that will, if practiced and treated with the respect, outlive you and potentially positively influence others, perhaps for generations. 

Quantity begets quality.

Do enough of anything long enough and you can’t help but become better at it. At the end of a year, you will find yourself with a lot of something – poems, songs, plays, dances, stories, perhaps even a finished novel or screenplay. And this is who you really are. 

I’m currently working on a new painting series using synthetic polymer paints from Japan. The current work-in-progress is 6’ x 4.’ We don’t have an art workspace so we’ve converted the living room into a makeshift studio so that my wife and daughter can paint in addition to myself. It’s pretty awesome to have the Sonos speakers going and the three of us creating, each engrossed in our own projects but together in the same room.

And once you know who you truly are, creatively, then you will find that you will be even better at your job, even if your job is creative in nature. The sense of who you are will be less tethered to the bestowed title and brand association to the company and this is actually a really healthy thing. You are always a human first, not a title or role. As an individual, you are always bigger than the company you work for. Ironically, this will most likely make you into an even better employee or leader because you will be confident in your creative self and not as reliant on other’s validation. 

During these times of social distancing and Zoom/videoconferencing, don’t forget to schedule breaks in the day and get off the sofa to not only eat lunch and go outside but schedule in your sacred time and sacred place. Get into alignment with your significant other, family and if necessary, your boss, that between X to Y hours you will be engaged in creative self-care. 

Communicate your needs clearly and kindly. Establish your boundaries. 

And as the Shia LaBeouf says, Just do it!

John

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Check out this interview I did with Linkedin editor Victoria Taylor for her weekly newsletter You've Got This.

What I’m watching:

Okja – I came to director Bong Joon-Ho late. I’d heard of him for years but it was honestly through his brilliant Parasite that I started down the rabbit hole of his works (my teenage daughter loved Parasite so much she asked to buy it after we rented it). Okja is ostensibly about a young girl and her friendship with a genetically modified pig (Okja) but it’s much more. Bong Joon-Ho became a vegan while researching slaughterhouses for the film (which delighted my vegan daughter). It’s brilliantly and stylistically done, with moments of almost Wes Anderson-esque cinema mixed with Kurosawa-style slow-motion action. It had a deeply emotional impact on my family.

Ozark – Season 3 continues to be filled with tension, not only because the Byrde family has to deal with a Mexican gang war and the Navarro cartel but due to the ongoing power and relationship battle between Marty and his wife Wendy. It has moments of Breaking Bad and The Sopranos but is uniquely written, directed and acted. A wonderful commentary on relationships, power struggles and just staying alive.

What I’m listening to:

Murder Most Foul – Bob Dylan released an epic song (his longest ever coming in at 16 minutes, 57 seconds) about the assassination of JFK. According to an article from the BBC, the song’s release may have been timed as political commentary on our current state of affairs.

"The day they killed him, someone said to me, 'Son, the age of the Antichrist has just only begun,'" he sings around the nine-minute mark.

"I said, 'The soul of a nation's been torn away, and it's beginning to go into a slow decay.' And that it's 36 hours past judgment day."