Space & Silence

Your greatest fear is your greatest ally.

It appears to be nothing, but it is everything.

Here it is:

* I have hosting duties at a national conference today (Thursday), so I will respond to your comments, email and social media posts tomorrow (Friday).

Keitharsis is a blog for writers, artists and creatives.  New posts appear each Tuesday and Thursday.  Creative exercises are shared on Wednesdays.

Comments

[Keith Jennings]

Psst...click on the white space in the post!

[georgia]

{...}

[Barb Winters]

I think it's the fear that drives us to fill up the empty space . . . tv, facebook, loud music . . .

I just spent a week of fasting from tv and facebook. The hardest times were when I typically use tv as background noise for others things like exercising. I noticed I spent more time in thought and prayer.

[Kim]

"Practicing means constantly messing up. Constantly stopping and re-starting. Constantly battling the feeling of wanting to quit. Constantly doing the things you're not good at doing. Things that don't come easy or feel natural."

Yes! I wonder if this is part of what we discover in Act II? Once the rush and excitement and newness and worn off, the practice begins.

A meditation teacher said once that when we meditate, its only natural that our thoughts will wander, and that we will feel restless or bored or tired...and that that is when we come back to our breath. He said "That's why it's called a 'practice'"...which made me see "meditation practice" in a whole new light. It's not just something I DO. It's something I WORK at, over and over and over again. And the work leads to the reward.

Same with writing.

Thank you for this, Keith.

[Keith Jennings]

Georgia,

I loved your idea of leaving a blank comment! I'm sorry this platform doesn't allow it. We'll have to fix that!

[Keith Jennings]

Barb,

I agree that it is fear. My original title for this post was, "The Artist's Greatest Fear". And I was just going to leave the entire post blank (with a hidden link).

What most interests me about this topic is that there is in inherent tension at work. On one hand, we want to unplug and disconnect from life's busyness. On the other hand, we don't want to experience isolation or loneliness.

[Keith Jennings]

Kim,

There is a thing psychologists call "deliberate practice". This type of practice means working on the things you can't do yet. Which means there is a LOT of frustration and failure involved.

I think deliberate practice is the secret sauce in any creative life. As a matter of fact, I can tell how well a writer will do based solely on their work ethic.