Creative Rebellion Essays: True to Your Voice

In November, some of my design leaders attended Adobe Max 2019, which is an annual creative conference whose main objectives is inspiration. They were fortunate enough to see an interview with Billie Eilish, the 17-year old musical wunderkind, and Takashi Murakami, the Japanese “super-flat” artist (in the tradition of Warhol to Koons to Hirst). 

One of the takeaways from the interview was a theme, which as obvious as it may seem, is to be true to your voice. Whatever that voice may be. This theme continued through the interviews with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, Dave LaChapelle, the photographer and even M. Knight Shyamalan, the film director. Shyamalan, famous in his 20’s for making The Sixth Sense, in 1999, found himself struggling for relevancy and studio interest in more recent years. The footage he shot a particular project was geared towards what he thought the studios would like and yet all the studios turned him down. He was in dire straits, as he’d actually mortgaged his house to pay for the shoot but he decided to revisit the footage and re-edit. Not trying to edit for an audience or a studio or a market but, rather, editing it the way he wanted it to be. This version of the project did sell. And it worked because he was true to his voice. They were all true to their individual voices.

“Do what you want. That’s all I can say. For real. Do what you will be happy with...I can’t say anymore. As long as it doesn’t harm anyone. Or ruin someone’s life. And do what’s going to make you happy.”

-- Billie Eilish

To paraphrase the precocious Ms. Eilish, would you be doing the creative work you’re doing if there was no one around (ie if everyone died?). Most likely not, I’d wager.

So the next question is, What is your true voice? This is the hardest question because, for some reason, it can almost feel indulgent to focus on what you truly like. And then there’s fear of comparison and judgment. What if my drawing, painting, design, music, painting, poetry or dance is “bad” by accepted contemporary and historical standards?

I used to worry about that. A lot. I used to be concerned about how my writing and art and design would land on the Mount Olympus of what is acceptable within the pantheon of tastemakers and gatekeepers of literature and art. The irony is, the more you try to create for existing norms and gatekeepers, the worse the actual creative work becomes. The only way to break through and be original is to radically be you. Whatever that is. 

“...there is an ironic dimension to the history of art; only those works that break with the era come to be seen as typical of the era, those works in which the artist’s personal vision forces its way through, using the language and the methods then available to and belonging to everyone.”

-- Karl Ove Knausgaard from So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch

And I think we are sometimes terrified at what may come out if it’s uncensored – it could be considered perverse or childish or amateurish or worst of all, banal and dull. But that’s okay. It doesn’t really matter because as I’ve written about in The Art of Creative Rebellion, there are billions of people who have lived and died before you and there may be hundreds of millions, if not trillions, who will follow you after you leave this mortal coil. So, it just doesn’t matter either way, if you are famous for your work or not. 

It all ends up in the sun eventually. 

And this is not morbidity. This is just reality. And it can be, and should be, inspiring. Let your freak flag fly. Why not? 

A couple years ago, I decided to write a book. I thought, I’ve always wanted to write fiction and there’s never ever been enough time to to do it between work and family and if I’m not careful, I’ll be on my deathbed at some point just wishing I had sat down and at least tried. So I did. I decided to get up early (5am) and simply write for 1.5 hours, aiming to hit around 1500 words a sitting. I had a rough outline but I decided to let the story take me along and I’d hang on for dear life. And that’s how I wrote LUMINAL: The Cosmic Misadventures of an Existential, Intergalactic Assassin. It was published earlier in 2019. 

Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter. 

“There’s a silent, blindingly white blast that happens whenever I come out of the wormhole, and as usual, I’m butt-naked in the vast expanse of space. For a moment, yeah, I can see eternity. But Dak told me that is an illusion — my consciousness, trying to make sense of itself as it is literally deconstructed, ripped into trillions of smaller perfect copies of itself before it, along with my physical body, passes through the singularity of an event horizon. This kind of superluminal travel is what is referred to as the Einstein-Rosen bridge, or more prosaically, as a Schwarzschild wormhole. 

Yes, I know that theoretically the singularity at the middle of the black hole crushes everything, including light, but it’s the most efficient way to get from point A to point B in infinite space. And I am bio-engineered for this kind of thing. 

Back to my dramatic entry into the middle of nowhere. First thing I try to do is orient myself and find where the Mirai is. It takes my consciousness around 10 seconds to meld itself with my torso, the bio-nanotech having reconnected all the molecular bits together. As soon as I’m actually whole again, I vomit, producing a perfect sphere of gastric acid and partially digested filet mignon. It’s like clockwork. I see the Mirai about 20 meters away, advancing towards me, since I can’t exactly move towards it without any propulsive measures. 

I’m not indestructible, and I feel the coldness of space like any other Homo Sapiens, but I’m not going to pass out anytime soon. I can hold my breath for a good 10 minutes, but I will start to blister and get frostbitten if that fucking pod doesn’t get to me in the next 12 seconds. 

A hatch dramatically opens on the side of the Mirai and Juliana, perfectly beautiful and perfectly backlit, smiles at me from the opening like the supermodel android that she is. She glides out to me, cradles me in her arms like a madonna, which she knows annoys the shit out of me, and gently pulls me into the, let’s just call it, womb of the craft. Then it all goes black.”

It’s a raucous Sci-Fi romp through a world that was tonally Hardboiled/Noir but with a snarky protagonist – it had influences from Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman and Frank Herbert. I was as surprised by its final form as anyone else. But what made it interesting to me was that it was fun to write, and hopefully, to read. It’s the kind of thing I would have written even if no one else was around to read it. And in the end, I was proud of it. 

Creating is hard work. It’s an uphill battle, especially if you are making something completely new and different. Your time is prioritized towards “adult” matters like paying the bills, sitting in endless meetings, answering a hundred emails, fixing the backed-up sink, doing homework with the kids and time goes on and on.

A work crisis or fire is important. It is. In the moment. But the question is, is the fire/crisis/seemingly-important-as-hell meeting going to be something you will even remember in a year? A month? A week? But that creative project you did? Well, you have that thing a year later, whether it’s a painting, poem, three-act play or even a new app that you launched. 

And yeah, if you put it out there, on Instagram or Youtube or Amazon, you will be exposing yourself to trolls. But as Teddy Roosevelt said (and Brené Brown recently popularized), You are in the arena. Which is much better than being in the stands, throwing rotten tomatoes. 

My recommendation is that you should do your very best in the office, in your day job. Be engaged. Be present. But when the work is done (and you do this by putting boundaries in place), then you should be present with friends and family. And you should be present with your own creative work, whatever that is. 

And whatever creative work you choose to engage with, just be sure to allow yourself the uncensored joy of just making it without judgment. Do it enough times, as in daily, and you will find your true voice. It can’t help but arise as quantity begets quality. 

John

What I’m reading:

So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch by Karl Ove Knausgaard. A brilliant meditation on the melancholic and highly iconoclastic art of the Norwegian artist (probably most famous for “The Scream”). 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel by Neil Gaiman. Very personal story that feels partly memoir, partly fiction.

Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon. 

Please visit my website to sign up for my blog/newsletter as well as downloading the first chapter from my upcoming book, The Art of Creative Rebellion. 

If you like what you are reading, please pre-order The Art of Creative Rebellion.