I've been thinking about the creative process, and how a person sometimes feels a forward flow of energy that needs to be channeled in some way.
Steinbeck describes this energetic flow beautifully in his magnum opus, East of Eden:
Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes.
I believe we have all felt this from time to time.
Some express this energy in music. Others in writing. Yet others in conversation, or business, or cooking, or photography, or building a piece of software, or a myriad of other ways that end up channeling a person's spirit.
And then — the glory — so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished.
I have felt the flow of this energy obstructed in the past. Then, I believe, it becomes a chokehold; it strangles the very soul of the person and turns them inwards, against themselves.
The energy grows dark and festers. Then, I believe, we see what is considered unhealthy expressions manifested in a person's actions. Cruelty, anguish, self-despisement, lethargy.
The tricky bit, I believe, is when the glory does not strike in a tangible way. When artists write about routines and rituals that compel a writer to write, or a painter to paint, I think they are trying to create systems to induce the flow, to prevent obstructions from building.
So it seems to me that two components are necessary for an artist to thrive:
A creative outlet; some medium by which one can let their creative energies flow, a process that puts them in the state of flow.
A creative process; some method for catalyzing the flow in the day to day trenches of life.
And — here's the kicker — we are all artists.
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