How long must it take to succeed at something, and why?
I just got back from dinner with Christine Farber, who sponsored my presentation here yesterday; who decided that a process involving art would be a good thing to expose professional psychologists to. Actually she was keeping me company at dinner, and it was the first hour I had her alone since getting here. The conversation meandered through success, happiness, achievement and seeking depth of human contact. I mentioned that the subject had arisen here that it could take between five and eight more years for me to get anywhere as a photographer.
The question she asked was: and why would that be?
There is actually no reason. All it takes is one point of human contact; the illumination of one synapse in the collective soul. I suggest we stop telling one another how hard it’s gonna be and start making it easier for one another. (To do that we would only need to ditch those inner authoritarian voices of parents and teachers who told us the same thing, and be ourselves.)
I am certain we don’t admit how much we can do for one another, and if we do, we spent a lot of time and energy not doing it. We don’t usually recognize how much we can do for ourselves, either, but let’s talk about helping one another from the point of advantage we have. I recognize I live in a world where I will take the first opportunity to do what I can, for anyone I can. I recognize that most of what I have accomplished has come from a combination of preparing and practicing and developing — and then there is a point of collaboration. Someone helps me. Sometimes I reach for the person; sometimes they just see an opening and are helpful. Sometimes someone just gives you a chance.
People often ask me how I do so much. I apply myself; and I have help. I mean, I really have help, which thrives in a environment of compassion and appreciation. Because I have that help, I can be here for you and offer myself fully to you.
Jonathan Cainer is an example of someone in my life who recognized my talent and created an opportunity for it to work for both of us, or rather, for all of us. Many times my clients have found me horoscope gigs; in fact it seems like any time I get hired to write the horoscope for a magazine, or any time there is a real conversation about a book project, it comes through a subscriber. Then as a result, the magazine benefits, and thousands more people find out about my work.
My best gig at the moment came from a reader who purchased a subscription for someone who was the chief sub-editor of a national magazine; who then hired me as the horoscope writer. Did she personally benefit? I don’t think she’s getting any checks, but she’s benefiting from the knowledge that she actually accomplished something; which is an essential part of life that we need to sensitive ourselves to the beauty of.
We live in a world where we make these things the exception and not the rule. What if we turned that around? I’m not talking about sacrificing ourselves for one another but rather precisely the opposite: doing what we can, because we can. I know the mantra of most people on the planet is scarcity – withhold – scarcity – withhold. If that’s your mantra, that’s what you make. You make it for you, and you make it for the people around you. You could just as easily chant about having plenty and offering plenty. It’s hard to do that — often because there is so much withholding going on!
To support one another we would have to give up our petty jealousy first, and our fear that nothing good can happen to us; the people who do creative and positive things for one another are what I would describe as people of faith. They simply have faith and live by that faith; it lights the way and makes plenty more seem possible. Indeed, it is faith and faith alone that makes the impossible seem practical. The reason I’m here at this conference is because someone recognized my work, perceived its value and asked me if I was willing to present here. I said yes and we created it.
So why exactly should it take five or eight years for my photography to be recognized and rewarded for its value? There is no reason at all, unless the people who have the power to contribute choose not to, or I choose not to receive what is offered. Why should Planet Waves not quite break even when it can thrive wildly? No reason at all — unless people decide for themselves that ‘free’ is better than participating, or if I decide to be unreliable and unethical. Everything, and I do mean everything, happens or does not happen in the context of a relationship; because of what two or more entities offer one another in relationship.
Personally, I make it a yoga to be as supportive as I can be of everyone in my life. It was helpful when my friend JJH taught me the word dharma: to act as if to hold the world together.
I mean supportive in conscience and I mean writing checks or giving someone a camera or a chance for their work to be seen. I mean supportive as in making sure that every word that I write is designed to create clarity and understanding and remind you that you can do what you want or need to do, if you choose to. I take this approach because it’s more fun, it’s logical and it makes my world a more pleasant place to be. I thrive on the people around me being happy, or for those who don’t seek happiness, at least constructively engaged with their lives.
I think we might all want to ask ourselves whether this is true for us. I say this as a person who has dragged around plenty of resentment, guilt and anger. I’ve made it my business to work through and rise above these things to the extent that I can and leave the unfinished work on the agenda.
We don’t need to wait for ‘the world’ to catch up with anything. One by one, we need to start doing what we can for one another and asking for the help that we need. There is guilt associated with both sides of that equation and we need, for our own health and sanity and for a chance to enjoy our lives, to give that up for something better. Something, by the way, that we already have, but which we are blinded to by our own refusal to love. We just miss this basic point, which is that the more love you give the more love you have. And if you think you’re giving love and you don’t have any — it might not be love that you’re giving.
Years ago, my husband – a painter – and I began to gather an amazing art collection. Early on, we had no money and would sometimes empty our bank account to buy art. One time we bought a painting from an artist friend who was broke too. Hard to believe it, but worse than us. It left us with $10 for food. I noticed when we did this, someone would buy one of his paintings and we would be fine again. One time, we went to the pub and had to share a meal and beer we were so broke. An artist we had bought a painting from noticed and paid for our meal. It all comes back 10 fold. The more you give, the more you get.
I work in sustainability and we call this idea ‘abundance thinking’ which centers around the main premises that a) there’s enough to go around (rather than fighting for the last scraps of a diminishing resource); b) that we can create more of what we need if we work together with the right intent and c) that we should leverage what we already have in abundance that is free or low cost to everyone. Like you are saying Eric, it costs us nothing to be supportive.
The fear of not having enough – scarcity thinking – is about there being a small pie – the more we give, the less there is for us. In abundance thinking, its about making the pie grow so there’s enough for everyone. Success and recognition are not diminishing resources. If one succeeds, we all succeed.
Thanks for applying this idea to art and creativity.
peace,
firegirl
I’m with Eric on this point of Karma.
Unfortunately, the nature of the relationship between religious language, ‘faith’ language and language used commonly to describe our mundane realities, has become murky at best.
Immanuel Kant made some interesting observations about the problems that ensue when God-concepts prayer-concepts etc develop too much objective reality as making actual reference to a metaphysical idea.
Karma falls squarely into that arena as does talk of heaven and hell. It seems to me entirely permissible that believing folk retain such constructs in their faith repertoire if they so wish. However, once people speak of karma or hell as if they have a reality as objectively verifiable as the existence of our native star, the sun, we run into endless problems.
All faith-language must be provisional or else faith is no longer faith, rather a form of certitude. A need for certitude is a pathological psychological driver of our times and regularly leads to bigotry, exalted as some virtuous ‘pledge from on high’, that serves to inoculate us from our insecurities.
We choose to appropriate religious terminology because it feels conducive – if we take the step of reifying it, we create the chains that somebody else shall soon after be shackled by.
Creativity is a wonderful fountain where we can bathe and, surely, set aside our dogmas (and acquire cleansing that is fit for purpose as well as nourishment). In fact, all language starts to feel tired and weary when it feels its incarceration and sees it reflected in the fountain’s shimmering waters.
Let’s not even speak of love prematurely. Let us DO love, by first loving our selves based firmly on self-acceptance, then nurturing and affirming ourselves and allowing our purpose to be unearthed. Let us move forward with faith and commitment and as we align with the creative energy let us share from our surplus with others.
I leave the recipients of such giving to inform me as to whether they experience it as love. That is enough..
Eric, re: your comments about karma. If you think of karma in a linear way, then, yes, what you say makes complete sense to me. But if you believe that time isn’t linear – sheesh, how do I explain this?! – then it’s no accident that astrologers are saying what they are to the people that they do. The people come first, then time. So, essentially, you’re the right person, talking to the right audience, at the right time. Time fits purpose.
Okay, now even *I’ve* lost track of what I’m saying! 🙂
S x
Priya, if karma allots a fixed amount of success, then what are we doing as astrologers? Helping them deal with their lot in life? This sounds too much like a psychiatrist helping a woman adjust to an unhappy marriage.
I do not profess to know the ins and outs of karma; but I suspect it’s more flexible than we think. Karma as it’s often used is a way of keeping people “content” to understand what caste they are in. This is an idea with a history and I don’t think it comes from Lord Krishna himself…
Thank you Eric, for your eloquent reminders.
I feel success is karmic, while the “idea” of success is relative to each person.
Personally, I’ve never been an “ambitious” person – however there has always been the awareness of living out my potential. the time in my life that I was not living out my potential nor on the road to it is when i felt unsuccessful or rather dissatisfied.
But I am of the belief and experience that “success” in the broader sense is Karmic.
Loosely translated there is a saying my father always said to me :
“No man receives, more or less than is his destiny, nor does he get it before its time. Faith and Patience are the way”
now patience need not imply inaction – but if you are doing your best, “success” is sure to follow as much as is written in the stars…
My two cents anyway : )
xo priya
http://www.priyakale.com/blog
Brilliant post, Eric 🙂
I like the idea of that triangle, but in my view faith follows passion(love) and its expression in the artform(creativity). To take your eye off of those two and try to navigate by faithlight too early can only get you so far.
————————————————————————
Just to apply my previous to this: Yes, in line with your view Mystes, faith does of course follow passion(love) and its expression in the artform(creativity) but…
…must it not also precede it?
In our culture we experience saturation with ‘faith’ as related to action outcomes. But whatever happened to action precedents and faith be-ing? If you take the whole perspective, faith must have the spirit of the pioneer about her, as well as the usual resilience passivity of stoicism.
Surely?
HdW wrote:” … in practice, the creativity impulse and actuality has often been crudely buttressed by a doctrine of faith that has вЂ?justified’ an unrealistic blind optimism (and that disappointment and art for art’s sake, even when receive zip recognition, never mind cash, are at the artist’s vital core). ”
I like the idea of that triangle, but in my view faith follows passion(love) and its expression in the artform(creativity). To take your eye off of those two and try to navigate by faithlight too early can only get you so far.
Eric’s shrug of ‘there’s no reason for that 5-8 year number’ was a curious gesture. There is a reason and it has to do with the noise in the artmarket and the fact that the Silence of a particular body of work has to work its way through that.
So yes, “faith” for most artists (those who haven’t been pre-cynicized by artschool) is to keep holding the work as whole while they put down the layers of time, attention, glad-handing, submission, submission, submission (you start to feel Islamic after a while) in that game.
That process is part of the burnishing of the artist him or herself. To say it isn’t necessary? makes my head spin.
***
And Shanna, yes, the process is intense. As redundant as it may have seemed, where I began was in response to Eric saying he’s going to drive down one afternoon and go get a gallery in Manhattan. If any gallerist *in* Manhattan sees that statement it could provide some interesting feedback. Might be good. My cautionary signals were really a kind of hmmmm, not for lack of wanting the man to be successful in those terms, just knowing that *that* success has links to some other processes. He knows them well in astrology and journalism. The Artworld can make those look like time in the sandbox.
But my friend A tells me she knows a woman who painted roses for a living and was materially-successful within 3 years (one to three was her actual figure).
So I am schooled.
Back (up) to my vertigo…
M
Imaging! Feeling the potential…and believing it. Here, here! Go, Eric!
… maybe not the Bermuda Triangle, you understand! 😉 Or, maybe, that IS precisely where we should be venturing?
“Sometimes we only see the whole, once we have delineated the parts..” Quote by me.
The thread before this one spoke from a platform at the faith/creativity interface. This particular thread speaks from a platform at the creativity/love interface with the faith predicated more upon them. This draws out that faith is active, not merely a mental attitude. In the context of the developing ideas, there is a love-faith-creativity triad that resembles the vertices of a triangle.
Interestingly, none of these carries ultimate pre-eminence. For analytical purposes, we may explore each of them in isolation (or be driven by one over the other in our experience) but the point is surely one of equilibrium and the interesting space is the one mapped within the triangle’s area.
Of course, mystes is reminding us how, in practice, the creativity impulse and actuality has often been crudely buttressed by a doctrine of faith that has ‘justified’ an unrealistic blind optimism (and that disappointment and art for art’s sake, even when receive zip recognition, never mind cash, are at the artist’s vital core). However, the exponents of such ‘faith’ have tended to be working the passive axis of “I do something then have an attitude of faith to *wish* it into existence” and thus using a faith-concept as some sort of magical guarantor of their actions’ meaningful fruition.
Of course, 3D faith is in the seed of being, not merely action. Our etymologies of faith and love, it seems to me, require urgent consideration and our dictionaries need updating. Creativity, on the other hand, needs to be uncorked from its bottle by risk takers who will give it the thorough airing it so badly needs, right across the culture.
Could it be that each of faith, love and creativity has suffered terrible loss because it misplaced, somewhere along the line, its vital connection to the two other vertices it needs, in order to maintain the productive tension that makes the triangle fit for geometrical purpose?
Once we have stabilised the co-ordinates maybe we can begin to courageously traverse the high seas?
Truly the most amazingly to-the-point (heart) article I’ve ever read from you Eric! And that means a lot, because you almost always touch my senses – including the making sense in a big way. I guess I had to read that today.
And Mystes, if I may give you a very detached thought: the way Eric and you have touched each other in the remarks has led to the most beautiful thing ever…a combination of teacher and student with changing the roles in it. That too is relating.
For what I see in his article, I don’t think you discouraged him with your well ment remarks, I think you encouraged him to get beyond his own hesitation.
Warm smile,
H.
One final note: my understanding and cautionary figures have nothing to do with, as you say, petty jealousy, scarcity or fear. THey have to do with the fact that the Art Market has become rather an (throat-clearing noises here) interesting place.
Which actually means that Artists go after what they want with eyes wide open, and a gusto that joyfully wrangles the process – or not.
I’m just suggesting a thicker set of waders. And as for whether it is love that speaks this view, I’m gonna go with the choice between Yes and Of course.
***
Reporting live from Fever Central,
M
Eric, as the source of that number I am astonished that you would hear me with such a suspicious ear. 1) I do not *want* that number to be true, and 2) Christine has not spent year after year tracking down connections, cultivating relationships with gallery owners, *being* a gallery owner, submitting artwork, etc. I have. It takes time. And luck. And money. And –here’s where you have an edge– a Necessity for the social body.
The fact is, artists do the work and have to love it for the doing of it. Period. The $$ recognition and representation take place when you have reached a saturation point, which takes years.
I have known far too many truly excellent artists whose sense of exceptionalism led them to the week or two or five in Manhattan with a paucity of results. Followed by a long, grey season of WTF. Before I quit last year, I’d been doing this for 15 years; and I know dozens of others (curators, critics, dealers, reps) who to at it for years at a time for their favorites. Not one, not even the best, has launched someone in a single hit.
That said: You go, darling. You go be the exception to all of this. I truly wish it for you, and hope you can lob it across the outfield and into the bleachers. It’s brilliant work and deserves everything coming to it.
e.
Isn’t the success the fact that we are creating in the world, as well as creating the world we live in?