introduction (The Creative Act: part 0)

Nothing in this book

is known to be true.

It’s a reflection on what I’ve noticed —

Not facts so much as thoughts.

Some ideas may resonate,

others may not.

A few may awaken an inner knowing

you forgot you had.

Use what’s helpful.

Let go of the rest.

Each of these moments

is an invitation

to further inquiry:

looking deeper,

zooming out, or in.

Opening possibilities

for a new way of being.

— Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being (2023)

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This book, this passage in particular, found me just as I was about to let this project into the light. After months of upheaval, distraction, and burnout, I finally allowed Tools of Resistance to fly from my desperate hands.

“It’s not ready yet,” I felt, “it’s not perfect.” I could have spent months, years if I let myself, fine-tuning and adjusting and editing what had already been changed minutely a hundred times before. In the effort to try to perfect the work, I was withholding it from its true purpose: to be shared with others.

I was in denial of the fact that the moment to publish this website and its contents was long overdue. My hesitation was palpable, enough so that this book, The Creative Act, was given to me as a gift in this time of need.

“It’s for your birthday,” my friend said, as he revealed the text. “But I also felt you needed it.”

The introduction of The Creative Act can easily be applied to Tools for Resistance. They are both a collection of thoughts, observations, a series of questions, and writing prompts, all in an attempt to discover what Rubin describes here as “opening possibilities for a new way of being.”

The cynic within me (born from my generation’s nihilistic worldview combined with a healthy dose of Scandinavian pragmatism) wants to point out how “new age-y” that sounds. This is a voice I commonly hear when attempting to delve into this type of literature, however not one I intend to entertain. That sort of judgment, I’ve realized, is not helpful and isn’t conducive to learning anything new.

Discovering new ways of being also reveals new ways of knowing, new ways of thinking, and new ways of interpreting the world around us. I think that is why I am so drawn to philosophy. Each theory is just a suggestion, an explanation, of a unique way to approach life. This, in turn, reveals more about ourselves. Why do we think the way we think? Why do we react in certain ways or engage in certain behaviors? Why are we the way we are? Why are we here?

To be fair, as vague and “new age-y” as those words may sound, there is no time people are more likely to accept it than around the new year.

The new year often comes with an expectation to shift into a new, superior version of oneself, and everyone’s always looking for the new thing that's going to make it happen. The new workout regiment, the new course, the new mindset that will kick start this “new way of being” into happening. But it is difficult to begin that process all at once, and despite how many millions of people try, it is not anything that can be done overnight. Especially when severely hungover the next day.

We feel so guilty when the change isn’t immediate, or when we fall off our resolutions inevitably in the second week, or when we encounter the first difficult obstacle of the new year (the first rejection, the first lie, the first death) and our new superior way of being no longer holds up under the weight of the disappointment.

As if we could hope to change so successfully so suddenly.

The Creative Act is not a book you read in one go. It is dense. Just the introduction, this passage, alone has taken me a couple of weeks of reflection to understand it, and I still feel like I notice something new with every read-through. You have to allow yourself to sink into it. 

Google describes it as a self-help book. While I have no judgment towards the term itself, I’ve found it has been used often to describe literature that is difficult to define to only one genre. In some ways, I believe “self-help” reduces the ideas found within this book, and many others, to the one thing they encourage us to let go of: the self.

I think this is where my fear of “new age-iness” comes from. The term and the negative stigma that comes with it is a way of discounting the very compelling, very valid ideas that can be found out of the societally accepted mode of thought. Ways of knowing that do not follow the traditional methods pedestalized by Western institutions — most commonly rooted in indigenous, feminist, or even spiritual knowledge systems — are twisted and corrupted beyond recognition, until they remotely resemble their origins at all.

The Creative Act is a study of human behavior. Each chapter, while not long, is an investigation into what, why, and how we create. There are no cited psychological studies. There are no specific authors whose careers are picked apart. No art history analysis or breakdown of technique. Only the observations born from the lived experience of a creative person. Some may argue that is not a strong enough foundation to start making claims about the entire universe. However, what can be more accurate than our personal experience? There is no diagnosis of our existence more applicable than one born from our memories.

So, I understand why it’s called a self-help book, and I can acknowledge that that is not an inherently negative thing by any means. He is giving guidance as to how we can be inspired, how we can find beauty, and how we can turn that into meaningful expression. But, given the scope of this book as defined in the introduction, I also think that he is talking about much more than just art, much more even than the self. It's not just "self-help", it's "humanity's-collective-psyche-help".

“As someone who is often in the company of creative people, I commonly hear (and understand) the argument that artists are the most dramatic, self-centered, narcissistic people you can meet. […] Now I know with certainty that the true egomaniacs are philosophers. Because I will spend hours agonizing over the state of the world, trying to put words to my thoughts, feelings, experiences, and not only will I really believe that the truths I’m arriving at are fundamental truths of existence, but I will also spend every waking moment trying to convince every one of them.”

This is the first line from one of my short stories, XES and Love. This piece also has a similar function as The Creative Act. The entire piece is a series of bullet points, each one a statement about the world. This piece is a philosophical practice where I am attempting to establish a sense of truth while knowing how futile it is given how subjective our experiences are. The author knows it is foolish to make such broad statements about the universe, and yet, there is no other way to go about the process of understanding.

I believe Rick Rubin is engaging in that same practice here, albeit, with a much larger dose of optimism than most philosophers. He aims to use this philosophical practice to ameliorate the sense of suffering that comes from trying to express or create something. The creative act is a difficult one. From trying to improve one’s skills, to changing the way we move through the world, transformation is extremely difficult. Not something that can happen in the infinitesimal gap between 2023 and 2024.

Within this written space, I am not searching for academic proof to support my knowledge. While I do my best to research as thoroughly as possible, especially when it comes to subjects I am learning about — which is most if not all of them — these responses are not limited in the same way as the academic papers I have written may be. My thoughts, opinions, likes, and dislikes, are born from my unique perspective, “a reflection on what I’ve noticed”, and I will express and defend what I believe to be true, even when I know that is susceptible to change.

Tools for Resistance is a space where I engage with the information that comes into my life. I am engaging in a dialogue with the voices I encounter. I am investigating how I feel about the knowledge I find. As Rick Rubin writes, there are influences we can discover that “awaken an inner knowing [we] forgot [we] have”, and I intend to follow those impulses endlessly if it means discovering those new ways of being.