How to Art

Sitting for dinner, at a beachside resort in the South of Spain overlooking the Mediterranean, I was with a group of entrepreneurs last week.

The conversation started about business, moved to technology and went to geopolitics. After our main course was cleared, everyone’s bellies and minds feeling full, I leaned back in my seat and felt my body begin to relax. 

For a moment, I zoned out and stopped paying attention to the conversation, which at that point in the evening I started to find boring. 

I had the random thought that it had been a while since I danced. Freestyle dance has become a regular part of my life. A form of expression that I have come to cherish fondly. While in Sydney for the better part of this year, I managed to go to an Ecstatic Dance event or 5 Rhythms class weekly. I missed it. 

“What’s your favorite form of creative expression?”, I interrupted the conversation and asked the group. 

There was a long pause. 

I shared that for me, it is writing. It comes effortlessly and naturally to me. It transports me into a different realm, where I lose touch with time, my surroundings, and immediately fall into a flow state. Dance would be probably the next form of expression when I feel most in flow.

The group started to share, one-by-one, each with a gentle childlike smile on their faces. Screenwriting. Singing. Playing various instruments. Painting inanimate objects. Acting and improvisation. Cooking. The variety felt endless. 

No one needed more than a second to answer. Everyone knew immediately how they enjoyed most expressing themselves creatively. 

I then asked everyone when was the last time they practiced their favorite form of creative expression. Everyone went quiet. The answer was clear: no one could remember.

It's funny how we are encouraged to pursue all different types of art & creativity in our childhood. Yet in adulthood, it is rarely spoken about or seen as a priority. 

To make it important would involve being encouraged to do it, without the expectation of being good at it. 

Oftentimes, we are conditioned to believe that it is only worth doing something if we are committed to becoming the best at it. Oftentimes, this involves comparison and in a culture influenced by social media, the comparisons are endless. 

It’s a shame to not try something because we are fearful of not being good at it. It is an even bigger shame to not be able to enjoy something while being terrible at it. 

Joy does not need to be so tightly associated with achievement and acquisition. Joy is a spontaneous feeling that arises naturally from being present with the experience of doing something. 

So much of the joy of artistic expression has to do with the process, and not the outcome

The age-old teaching, seen everywhere in spiritual, religious, and mindfulness texts, reminds us to focus on enjoying the journey versus becoming attached to a specific destination. 

Art is the application of this teaching. Art is the practice of enjoying the process. 

It’s a shame to not make space for what we enjoy doing, on a regular basis. Life is about making trade-offs, and the trade-offs we make shape our day-to-day experience of life. 

Connecting to the desire to express that is often buried under the to-do lists, the expectations we perceive from those around us and the ambition to achieve is ultimately the source of fuel needed to make the trade-offs to make space for art on a regular basis. 

Letting go of any expectations to be good at our chosen forms of art is the freedom we so desperately need to feel on a regular basis. 

Expression through art is something we discover at some point in our journey through life and doesn’t need to end in childhood. It is a gift that continues to give, well into adulthood. 

And that is how I learned to art.