Hi y’all,
This post is part of an ongoing monthly series on the creative process, wonder, and the numinous. Thank you for liking and sharing my work!
Joyful Effort In Creative Practice
There’s an expression, “joyful effort,” which I first remember hearing when I started doing Ngondro in Tibetan Buddhism. Ngondro is a meditation that involves a physical practice called prostrations, which is kind of like a burpee you’d seen in a gym, but involving prayer-hands. I was instructed to practice Ngondro with “joyful effort.” The idea is that prostrations take willpower—we will sweat a lot, and our quads will be sore—but our attitude, our aspiration, is celebratory.
The “joy” in the effort is largely about making an aspiration that your practice will benefit all beings. I want my writing to have the same tone as my meditation practice.
About a year ago, I wrote an aspiration prayer on top of the novel manuscript I’m working on. I read this aspiration silently to myself every time I sit down to work, and I pray that the work liberates myself and supports the liberation of others. (Liberation here, for me, is simply waking up to our true nature.)
I also make a cup of tea which I leave on the mantel in our living room for the benefit of all beings, and for a yidam, Buddha-form I feel connected to. When I make these gestures, which could also be called “rituals,” I’m training myself to associate writing as an act of generosity, or an offering—something I know I badly need, because I’ve been conditioned to think that being a writer is selfish.
I find that these gestures remind me of how my life, and so many other lives, have been touched and moved by art. Ritual elevates the practice of writing to something that isn’t just about me, but into an act that has resonance regardless of the outcome. In that way, my writing becomes freer, and more about creating art than commercial viability.
When all else fails, I think of my own death and impermanence. Or, as writer Jami Attenberg noted:
I don’t think you need to be a spiritual or religious person to feel a greater sense of connection into your creative practice. For many of us, the creative practice itself connects us to the numinous. Also: making art is mostly just fucking around.
Art Is Just Fucking Around But In a Disciplined Way
We’re taught that a sense of imaginative play ends when our childhood ends. But for most creative people I know, our desire to play didn’t go away with childhood, it only transformed into a desire to create art—which might be considered play but with discipline and deliberation.
It doesn’t matter how serious, sober, violent, or harrowing a work is. All artistic work involves play, which is characterized by many of the same qualities we experienced in childhood: the imaginary realm, improvisation, using props, mimicry of other art forms, some kind of narrative, and/or an emotive tone. Play in the artistic context is both light and dark.
There isn’t a good word for play in English which connotes how serious it actually is. But I love the term “lila” in Sanskrit, which roughly translates to “divine play.” Even the Universe is just fucking around.
This is important, because creative work is often nonlinear, slow, and bumpy. But if you’re okay with playing, you’re okay with making a mess. You’re okay with making something ugly before you make something beautiful.
Look at what’s wrong with this drawing:
Then take this drawing, by the same artist, Vincent friggin’ Van Gogh, two years later:
I first saw these examples from the brilliant writer, Ana Menendez, when I was in graduate school, during a talk she gave at Centrum Writers’ Conference. And I was astonished. Not only by the awkward early sketch by Van Gogh, but that I finally had met a writer who was honest and transparent about how much practice is required to learn a craft.
Menendez noted Malcolm Gladwell’s research from Outliers on what it takes to achieve mastery in an artistic discipline. In research he conducted with the New York Philharmonic, he found that generally speaking, everyone in the orchestra had practiced around 10,000 hours. Even after this number of hours, the musicians continued to practice each day for around four hours a day. Much of that time was spent playing musical scales which they had learned as beginners. In other words, they were still playing the same exercises they had learned as children when they first began learning their instrument.
Granted, you could practice 10,000 hours and still not get into the New York Philharmonic. Or paint 10,000 hours but never create a work as innovative as Van Gogh’s “Café Terrace at Night.” But you’ll never come close to this level of expertise if you don’t put in the time.
This is what I think of as the practice mindset. When you play in a way that is disciplined, you are teaching yourself the tools of your art.
If we have too much discipline, our creative practice will feel stiff. Writing can lose its magic. Here it can be helpful to cultivate a sense of joyful effort that allows us to feel greater than ourselves, our careers, or our work.
If you have a ritual that connects your creative work to wonder and the numinous, I’d love to hear about it! Please feel free to share it in the comments.
P.s. Here is where you can purchase Adios, Happy Homeland!, one of my favorite works by Ana Menendez! A playful, Italo Calvino-esque exploration into patriotism, exile, Cuba, and life itself:
First time here and I take away two gifts. 'Joyful effort' and the new thought of writing as an act of generosity-an offering. Lots to think about, thank you.
Wonderful article. I think so many artists and writers would benefit from reading this!
Those fables 10,000 hours are always going to be so much more achievable (and by extension more productive too) if we approach it with that idea of joyful effort.