Individual reading

I’m almost finished with this exquisitely senseless book! Now I’m reading a chapter that is called “Trust” (ironically) and by the end of the book I have probably sorted out the key message of it.

All this time I thought that “creative living” on the title meant something vague, but it is simply what it is — how to deal with difficulties when you create art (whether it’s writing, singing or painting). But you know what, every time I say that I figured everything out, it turns out I am wrong, so I don’t doubt that my final statement will change.

As for the part I’ve covered this time, it deals with suffering from lack of inspiration and other troubles of creative people. I like how Elizabeth Gilbert puts it:

Reasons to stop complaining
1. It’s annoying. Every artist does it so it’s dead and boring
2. Of course it’s difficult to create things. If it weren’t difficult, everyone would be doing it, and it wouldn’t be special or interesting
3. Nobody ever listens to anyone else’s complaints anyhow cause we’re all focused on our own holy struggle
4. You’re scaring away inspiration

Also I would like to go back to the idea of believing in magic that she gave me previously. The author does believe in it, but she also believes in hard work, because pure faith would not give any result, so you need to actually do something, not just wait for inspiration to come.

And there’s a funny paradox mentioned in the text: Art is absolutely meaningless (yeah!), but also deeply meaningful. For me this book is truly meaningless and I’m sick of reading it, but for others it may be meaningful and helpful. Well, I do creative work on a daily basis, I write for my media center and probably these messages from the book could help me, but I don’t feel that it’s my type of book. (If you want advice on a book for creative writing, it’s М. Ильяхов — Пиши, сокращай and Ясно, понятно)

Anyway, I’m going to finish the book and never read something like that again. Hopefully. As for new vocabulary, I stopped noticing new words on purpose, so I didn’t have any… But I went through the pages again and I can give you a couple of words:

Transgressive — exceeding a limit or boundary, especially of social acceptability
Endeavor — an attempt to achieve a goal
Entice — to persuade someone to do something by offering them something pleasant
Vagaries — unexpected events or changes that cannot be controlled and can influence a situation