You should be working. You should be churning out all the magnificent potentialities stirring in your soul, begging to be born. But you're not. You're drifting. Perhaps a combination of malaise, distraction, and doubt. No, no… it's too noisy in this apartment. The light isn't right. And the idea I had, this beautiful artifact I held in the palm of my mind seems to be slinking away. Before long, it'll retract into the ether, and I won't be able to find it again.
Doing creative work is hard. It’s rarely something you can conjure up on demand. The conditions need to be right. You need to be inspired. You need to enter into a kind of meditative focus, journeying over energetic mountains to reach that fertile spring of invention. The whole process feels like you’re walking a tightrope of concentration as you wave your magic wand in the air, desperately trying to will imaginative fog into concrete products.
One slip and you fall off the rope. Phone rings and your temple of flow evaporates around you. Sun comes out, tempts you to leave your office, and you’re done for the day. Ambushed by thoughts of an upcoming deadline, social drama, mistakes from the past, and you’ve lost the plot. And then you must start you delicate journey through the mountains of creation all over again.
One reason we are so prone to distraction, procrastination, and lapses in concentration is that we’re not wired to work alone. We are tribal; wired to work in groups. As humans, our entire reality is a social one. So it makes sense that we would do our best creative work when collaborating with others.
For instance, all of us have experienced the infectious energy of the collective. Whether that’s jumping up and down and singing along with hundreds of others at a concert, executing a series of successful plays with team mates on a sports field, or painting a house with friends—getting lost in the flow of the group is easy. We crave it. It feels good.
When immersed in this flow, we tend to feel what others are feeling, we direct our focus where others are directing it, we look around and ask the group, “What’s next?” If others are laughing, it’s time to laugh; if others are dancing, it’s time to dance; if others are working, it’s time to work.
Additionally, the mixing and mingling of a group can stimulate our creative juices. Nothing inspires new and interesting ideas like observing others conjure up their creations; not exactly plagiarizing each other, but inhabiting the perspectives of other artists, indwelling their unique aesthetic sensibilities and attitudes. It can be inspiring simply to watch others do their artistic thing, as you inspire them by doing your thing.
Even without the increased concentration and quality, doing creative work with others is fun; uniquely satisfying. It’s usually in collaborative situations that people experience the most meaning and sense of aliveness. Anyone who has played in a committed band, organized art shows with fellow painters, or engineered a camp from scratch at Burning Man can attest to the euphoric sense of combined effort, accomplishment, and camaraderie that comes from a collection of individuals cohered in creative flow.
We are tribal. We were born to navigate a mysterious world of potential in packs with those we love and trust towards a shared and singular vision.
…And yet, most of us do our creative work alone.
We do our solitary projects in private workspaces, cut off from the rest of the world; we don’t collaborate with anyone; we may not even talk to friends or family about our strange private hobby or aspiring career as a creative. Why?
As much as groups can engender a concentrated focus, a more powerful flow, a breeding ground of ideas, and a deep sense of shared accomplishment—they can also be chaotic, distracting, volatile, and ultimately inhibit our creativity.
Creative work is—by its nature—very emotional, very precious to the creator: you don’t produce quality work without emotionally investing in it, and you don’t discover your creative voice without digging deep into a very personal, very vulnerable realm of your psyche.
Because of that, anyone who has entered into a collaboration with others—whether co-hosting an event, partnering in a business venture, playing in a band, co-authoring a play, or even planning a trip—has probably experienced the drama and fallout of creative-collaboration-gone-bad.
Individuals have different needs; different interpretations of what’s worthwhile; different interpretations of what’s aesthetically pleasing or enjoyable. Often we leap into collaboration without even establishing: what are the specific goals of the project? Who’s responsible for what? What’s ‘cool’ and what’s ‘lame’?
Some people want disciplined, regularly scheduled work while others prefer unpredictable bursts of passionate creation. Some want a ton of ‘checking-in’ while others just want to ‘see what happens.’ Some want to blast groovy vaporwave to set a productive mood while others want total silence.
Similar to living in the same house with someone, creative collaborations require the sharing of an important, but delicate, emotional container and therefore carry the potential to end friendships. Collaboration is a kind of intimacy and—though intimacy is the only path to a deeper engagement with the world—it is also where you’re most vulnerable. Disappointment, betrayal, and heartbreak run rampant in creative partnerships.
For all these reasons, many of us choose to create alone. It’s simpler.
But is there a happy medium? If the existential isolation of creating alone feels too cold, dead, and intractable; and the unpredictable disorder of creating with others feels too draining, distracting, and risky; it can be useful to approach creating with others in the form of a ‘study hall.’
I’ll define a study hall as: a container in which people come together to benefit from the primal ‘interpersonal activation’ of group work, while maintaining a soft boundary from each other by working on independent projects.
Students, for example, have trouble focusing at home, so they go to study hall to be in the presence of others; specifically those who are in a similar situation, doing similar work. It’s not as though the other students are coming over and doing your work for you—you likely won’t even interact with anyone else. You’re there simply for the ‘atmosphere’ or ‘vibe’ or ‘narrative’ of “we are all here, working hard on something that’s important to us.”
Painters rent a cubicle in a warehouse to work in the presence of other painters. Athletes go to the gym to workout in the presence of other athletes. Hipsters go to the coffee shop to work in the presence of other hipsters.
Tying it all back around to Seasons of Change: people working on the project of living well, or living meaningfully, or changing their lives for the better, can get together to do this important work in each other’s presence. They can benefit from the collective flow, interpersonal activation, and accountability of the group; they can engage in philosophical inquiry or seek advice and support from others; and they can do this all while maintaining the soft boundary of “my life’s work is mine and mine alone.”
Whatever the project, whatever the medium, you better believe others are out there doing it. Why not go find them?
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