Fierce trust demands that you put forth the work anyhow, because fierce trust knows that the outcome does not matter.
The outcome cannot matter.
Fierce trust asks you to stand strong within this truth: “You are worthy, dear one, regardless of the outcome. You will keep making your work, regardless of the outcome. You will keep sharing your work, regardless of the outcome. You were born to create, regardless of the outcome. You will never lose trust in the creative process, even when you don’t understand the outcome.”
There is a famous question that shows up, it seems, in every single self-help book ever written: What would you do if you knew that you could not fail?
But I’ve always seen it differently. I think the fiercest question of all is this one: What would you do even if you knew that you might very well fail?
What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant?
What do you love even more than you love your own ego?
How fierce is your trust in that love?
You might challenge this idea of fierce trust. You might buck against it. You might want to punch and kick at it. You might demand of it, “Why should I go through all the trouble to make something if the outcome might be nothing?”
The answer will usually come with a wicked trickster grin: “Because it’s fun, isn’t it?”
Anyhow, what else are you going to do with your time here on earth—not make things? Not do interesting stuff? Not follow your love and your curiosity?
There is always that alternative, after all. You have free will. If creative living becomes too difficult or too unrewarding for you, you can stop whenever you want.
But seriously: Really?
Because, think about it: Then what?
Walk Proudly
Twenty years ago, I was at a party, talking to a guy whose name I have long since forgotten, or maybe never even knew. Sometimes I think this man came into my life for the sole purpose of telling me this story, which has delighted and inspired me ever since.
The story this guy told me was about his younger brother, who was trying to be an artist. The guy was deeply admiring of his brother’s efforts, and he told me an illustrative anecdote about how brave and creative and trusting his little brother was. For the purposes of this story, which I shall now recount here, let’s call the little brother “Little Brother.”
Little Brother, an aspiring painter, saved up all his money and went to France, to surround himself with beauty and inspiration. He lived on the cheap, painted every day, visited museums, traveled to picturesque locations, bravely spoke to everyone he met, and showed his work to anyone who would look at it. One afternoon, Little Brother struck up a conversation in a café with a group of charming young people, who turned out to be some species of fancy aristocrats. The charming young aristocrats took a liking to Little Brother and invited him to a party that weekend in a castle in the Loire Valley. They promised Little Brother that this was going to be the most fabulous party of the year. It would be attended by the rich, by the famous, and by several crowned heads of Europe. Best of all, it was to be a masquerade ball, where nobody skimped on the costumes. It was not to be missed. Dress up, they said, and join us!
Excited, Little Brother worked all week on a costume that he was certain would be a showstopper. He scoured Paris for materials and held back neither on the details nor the audacity of his creation. Then he rented a car and drove to the castle, three hours from Paris. He changed into his costume in the car and ascended the castle steps. He gave his name to the butler, who found him on the guest list and politely welcomed him in. Little Brother entered the ballroom, head held high.
Upon which he immediately realized his mistake.
This was indeed a costume party—his new friends had not misled him there—but he had missed one detail in translation: This was a themed costume party. The theme was “a medieval court.”
And Little Brother was dressed as a lobster.
All around him, the wealthiest and most beautiful people of Europe were attired in gilded finery and elaborate period gowns, draped in heirloom jewels, sparkling with elegance as they waltzed to a fine orchestra. Little Brother, on the other hand, was wearing a red leotard, red tights, red ballet slippers, and giant red foam claws. Also, his face was painted red. This is the part of the story where I must tell you that Little Brother was over six feet tall and quite skinny—but with the long waving antennae on his head, he appeared even taller. He was also, of course, the only American in the room.
He stood at the top of the steps for one long, ghastly moment. He almost ran away in shame. Running away in shame seemed like the most dignified response to the situation. But he didn’t run. Somehow, he found his resolve. He’d come this far, after all. He’d worked tremendously hard to make this costume, and he was proud of it. He took a deep breath and walked onto the dance floor.
He reported later that it was only his experience as an aspiring artist that gave him the courage and the license to be so vulnerable and absurd. Something in life had already taught him to just put it out there, whatever “it” is. That costume was what he had made, after all, so that’s what he was bringing to the party. It was the best he had. It was all he had. So he decided to trust in himself, to trust in his costume, to trust in the circumstances.
As he moved into the crowd of aristocrats, a silence fell. The dancing stopped. The orchestra stuttered to a stop. The other guests gathered around Little Brother. Finally, someone asked him what on earth he was.
Little Brother bowed deeply and announced, “I am the court lobster.”
Then: laughter.
Not ridicule—just joy. They loved him. They loved his sweetness, his weirdness, his giant red claws, his skinny ass in his bright spandex tights. He was the trickster among them, and so he made the party. Little Brother even ended up dancing that night with the Queen of Belgium.
This is how you must do it, people.
I have never created anything in my life that did not make me feel, at some point or another, like I was the guy who just walked into a fancy ball wearing a homemade lobster costume. But you must stubbornly walk into that room, regardless, and you must hold your head high. You made it; you get to put it out there. Never apologize for it, never explain it away, never be ashamed of it. You did your best with what you knew, and you worked with what you had, in the time that you were given. You were invited, and you showed up, and you simply cannot do more than that.
They might throw you out—but then again, they might not. They probably won’t throw you out, actually. The ballroom is often more welcoming and supportive than you could ever imagine. Somebody might even think you’re brilliant and marvelous. You might end up dancing with royalty.
Or you might just end up having to dance alone in the corner of the castle with your big, ungainly red foam claws waving in the empty air.
That’s fine, too. Sometimes it’s like that.
What you absolutely must not do is turn around and walk out. Otherwise, you will miss the party, and that would be a pity, because—please believe me—we did not come all this great distance, and make all this great effort, only to miss the party at the last moment.
Divinity
Accidental Grace
My final story comes from Bali—from a culture that does creativity quite differently than we do it here in the West. This story was told to me by my old friend and teacher Ketut Liyer, a medicine man who took me under his wing years ago, to share with me his considerable wisdom and grace.
As Ketut explained to me, Balinese dance is one of the world’s great art forms. It is exquisite, intricate, and ancient. It is also holy. Dances are ritually performed in temples, as they have been for centuries, under the purview of priests. The choreography is vigilantly protected and passed from generation to generation. These dances are intended to do n
othing less than to keep the universe intact. Nobody can claim that the Balinese do not take their dancing seriously.
Back in the early 1960s, mass tourism reached Bali for the first time. Visiting foreigners immediately became fascinated with the sacred dances. The Balinese are not shy about showing off their art, and they welcomed tourists to enter the temples and watch the dancing. They charged a small sum for this privilege, the tourists paid, and everyone was happy.
As touristic interest in this ancient art form increased, however, the temples became overcrowded with spectators. Things got a bit chaotic. Also, the temples were not particularly comfortable, as the tourists had to sit on the floor with the spiders and dampness and such. Then some bright Balinese soul had the terrific idea to bring the dancers to the tourists, instead of the other way around. Wouldn’t it be nicer and more comfortable for the sunburned Australians if they could watch the dances from, say, a resort’s swimming pool area, instead of from inside a damp, dark temple? Then the tourists could have a cocktail at the same time and really enjoy the entertainment! And the dancers could make more money, because there would be room for bigger audiences.
So the Balinese started performing their sacred dances at the resorts, in order to better accommodate the paying tourists, and everyone was happy.
Actually, not everyone was happy.
The more high-minded of the Western visitors were appalled. This was desecration of the sublime! These were sacred dances! This was holy art! You can’t just do a sacred dance on the profane property of a beach resort—and for money, no less! It was an abomination! It was spiritual, artistic, and cultural prostitution! It was sacrilege!
These high-minded Westerners shared their concerns with the Balinese priests, who listened politely, despite the fact that the hard and unforgiving notion of “sacrilege” does not translate easily into Balinese thinking. Nor are the distinctions between “sacred” and “profane” quite so unambiguous as they are in the West. The Balinese priests were not entirely clear as to why the high-minded Westerners viewed the beach resorts as profane at all. (Did divinity not abide there, as well as anywhere else on earth?) Similarly, they were unclear as to why the friendly Australian tourists in their clammy bathing suits should not be allowed to watch sacred dances while drinking mai tais. (Were these nice-seeming and friendly people undeserving of witnessing beauty?)
But the high-minded Westerners were clearly upset by this whole turn of events, and the Balinese famously do not like to upset their visitors, so they set out to solve the problem.
The priests and the masters of the dance all got together and came up with an inspired idea—an idea inspired by a marvelous ethic of lightness and trust. They decided that they would make up some new dances that were not sacred, and they would perform only these certified “divinity-free” dances for the tourists at the resorts. The sacred dances would be returned to the temples and would be reserved for religious ceremonies only.
And that is exactly what they did. They did it easily, too, with no drama and no trauma. Adapting gestures and steps from the old sacred dances, they devised what were essentially gibberish dances, and commenced performing these nonsense gyrations at the tourist resorts for money. And everyone was happy, because the dancers got to dance, the tourists got to be entertained, and the priests earned some money for the temples. Best of all, the high-minded Westerners could now relax, because the distinction between the sacred and the profane had been safely restored.
Everything was in its place—tidy and final.
Except that it was neither tidy nor final.
Because nothing is ever really tidy or final.
The thing is, over the next few years, those silly new meaningless dances became increasingly refined. The young boys and girls grew into them, and, working with a new sense of freedom and innovation, they gradually transformed the performances into something quite magnificent. In fact, the dances were becoming rather transcendent. In another example of an inadvertent séance, it appeared that those Balinese dancers—despite all their best efforts to be completely unspiritual—were unwittingly calling down Big Magic from the heavens, anyhow. Right there by the swimming pool. All they’d originally intended to do was entertain tourists and themselves, but now they were tripping over God every single night, and everyone could see it. It was arguable that the new dances had become even more transcendent than the stale old sacred ones.
The Balinese priests, noticing this phenomenon, had a wonderful idea: Why not borrow the new fake dances, bring them into the temples, incorporate them into the ancient religious ceremonies, and use them as a form of prayer?
In fact, why not replace some of those stale old sacred dances with these new fake dances?
So they did.
At which point the meaningless dances became holy dances, because the holy dances had become meaningless.
And everyone was happy—except for those high-minded Westerners, who were now thoroughly confused, because they couldn’t tell anymore what was holy and what was profane. It had all bled together. The lines had blurred between high and low, between light and heavy, between right and wrong, between us and them, between God and earth . . . and the whole paradox was totally freaking them out.
Which I cannot help but imagine is what the trickster priests had in mind the entire time.
In Conclusion
Creativity is sacred, and it is not sacred.
What we make matters enormously, and it doesn’t matter at all.
We toil alone, and we are accompanied by spirits.
We are terrified, and we are brave.
Art is a crushing chore and a wonderful privilege.
Only when we are at our most playful can divinity finally get serious with us.
Make space for all these paradoxes to be equally true inside your soul, and I promise—you can make anything.
So please calm down now and get back to work, okay?
The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply thankful to the following people for their assistance, their encouragement, and their inspiration: Katie Arnold-Ratliff, Brené Brown, Charles Buchan, Bill Burdin, Dave Cahill, Sarah Chalfant, Anne Connell, Trâm-Anh Doan, Markus Dohle, Rayya Elias, Miriam Feuerle, Brendan Fredericks, the late Jack Gilbert, Mamie Healey, Lydia Hirt, Eileen Kelly, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Susan Kittenplan, Geoffrey Kloske, Cree LeFavour, Catherine Lent, Jynne Martin, Sarah McGrath, Madeline McIntosh, Jose Nunes, Ann Patchett, Alexandra Pringle, Rebecca Saletan, Wade Schuman, Kate Stark, Mary Stone, Andrew Wylie, Helen Yentus—and, of course, the Gilberts and the Olsons, who taught me, by example, how to be a maker.
I am also grateful for the TED conference, for allowing me to stand upon their deeply serious stage (twice!) to speak of spiritual, whimsical, and creative matters. Those speeches led me to hone these thoughts, and I’m glad for it.
I thank Etsy for welcoming this project—and for giving a home to so many other creative projects, besides. You are everything I am talking about here.
Lastly, I send love and gratitude to my beautiful Facebook community. Without your questions, your thoughts, and your inspiring daily leaps of courageous self-expression, this book would not exist.
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