Dancing Like Nobody's Watching (and May Never Watch) - That's What it's Like To Be a Creator

A lot of writers have been given credit for coining the short poem, 

Sing like no one is listening,

love like you've never been hurt, 

dance like no one is watching, 

and live like it’s heaven on earth.

…so I won’t take a chance and give any credit here. 

If you’re someone who has never intentionally created anything in your life, this verse may seem like revelatory advice. It encourages us to create, free of any worry about what others might think. But if most of your time is spent pulling something out of nothing, it describes an everyday lonely experience, without the benefit of that last line.

When I sit down to write, there’s no guarantee anyone will ever read what I’m creating (much less like it), so that can’t be my reason for doing it. I have to write knowing full well that no one might read my prose, except possibly my ever supportive husband. My work could be that tree falling in the forest, whose demise may or may not be acknowledged as real, depending on whether or not someone heard it fall.

I was a musician in my former professional life, and that’s quite different. The only thing I was creating was my interpretation of the notes I was playing, and anyone within earshot heard me - they had no choice. But with writing, something I began in earnest after realizing that my playing career was coming to an end, it’s much scarier, much more demanding, lonelier, and much, much more focused on me and what I have to offer.

As a violinist, I could play my heart out (and always tried to), but unless I was in a solo recital or the featured soloist in an orchestra concert, I was essentially just a cog in the wheel. I had to work to blend in, not stand out, and for the most part needed to go along with what the group was trying to express. My creative ideas weren’t worth much, and in fact could keep the group from getting where they needed to go. 

Being a solo instrument in an orchestra (flute, oboe, trumpet, for instance) is somewhat different. There, the musician is expected to bring their ideas to the table, ideas that could be rejected or accepted by the conductor, but which start with the musician’s interpretation.

Violins in an orchestra section need to play as if they are one player, for the most part. Renegades are not welcome or looked upon kindly. Even in a string quartet, or other chamber music group, performances are worked out in great detail ahead of time, and deviating throws everyone into chaos. Chamber musicians essentially create the unique performance of the piece, not the piece itself. At some point, we performing musicians must face the fact that we are not the creators, we are the interpreters. Jazz and rap musicians, however, are doing things I and many of us don’t understand, a pure form of creating that uses some of the best qualities and strengths of the human brain. We are just beginning to study the brain to see where these miracles come from.

So this creating writing business is different, and has taken time and soul searching, loneliness and courage to figure out. The one thing I’ve come to realize is that, even when I’m despairing that nothing is coming together or making sense, if I wait a little bit and have patience, everything starts to come into focus, and I can tentatively put my favorite blanket back in the closet.

You cannot deny yourself. You ask, am I painting myself? I'd be a swindler if I did otherwise. I'd be denying my existence as an artist. I've also been asked, what do you want to convey? I'd say, nothing but my own nature. How can one paint anything else? Hans Hofmann

It’s understandable that more people don’t become creators. It takes tremendous bravery and a rock solid belief in one’s ability to say something that maybe will matter, something that will perhaps move humanity forward a billionth of a centimeter, and if and when that happens, the knowledge that you, the creator, may not be around to see it. Whatever you are creating is a direct reflection of who you are, and now you’re putting it on display for people to potentially pick apart and (in some cases) do their best to shoot down.

But for some unexplained reason, we keep going. All odds point to our throwing in the towel, but that doesn't often happen once a calling is answered. There is too much of humanity’s unquenched curiosity at our backs to give up or give in, too many unanswered questions to wrestle with. So we paint, compose, write, sculpt in a fleeting attempt to understand and come to terms with those queries, and to show the world the nakedness of who we are.