“Sometimes I think that the difference between a tormented creative life and a tranquil creative life is nothing more than the difference between the word awful and the word interesting.”
p. 246, Big Magic
If I haven’t mentioned lately that my hometown of Santa Barbara is awesome, and I love it, and I’m grateful to live here…there you go.
This time I’m heaping accolades on our public library for participating in a program called SB Reads. Copies of Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, in English and Spanish, were made available for FREE. A live author talk was scheduled with Ms. Gibert. An open community discussion was organized (virtually).
What all of this means to me is that at some level, the place I live (at least, its library) cares about things I care about: Literacy. Creativity. Discussion. Ideas. Magic.
And that is what I loved about this book as a Fantasy/SF reader: although labeled as “non-fiction” and “self-help,” it includes a thoroughly researched and fully explored magic system, practice-able in our real world.
Big Magic, indeed:
Ideas are a disembodied, energetic life-form…Ideas have no material body, but they do have consciousness, and they most certainly have will. Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest. And the only way an idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner.”
p. 35, Big Magic
If you’ve ever been assaulted by an idea that will not stop kicking your ass, but that you just cannot give up on, you know what Gilbert is talking about here. I whole-heartedly buy her premise that ideas are alive, looking for the person who can make them real. And even further, I know firsthand that a symbiotic relationship with an idea–a mere thought, a spark of energy–brings humans more alive.
In ancient Greek, the word for the highest degree of human happiness is eudaimonia, which basically means “well-daemoned”–that is, nicely taken care of by some external divine creative spirit guide.”
p. 67, Big Magic
What Gilbert is sharing is magic that only arises when we agree to be in relationship with an idea. When we see it as a partner in the crime of creativity.
To be a good partner, just like with any work project or marriage, Gilbert’s creativity is about practicing the antithesis of “magical” thinking: there’s no hoping, waiting, pining, or self-medicating.
There is ritual preparation (pen buying), devotion (Pomodoro timers), and arrogance:
I believe that this good kind of arrogance–this simple entitlement to exist, and therefore to express yourself–is the only weapon with which to combat the nasty dialogue that may automatically arise within your head whenever you get an artistic impulse.
p. 93, Big Magic
This book is both practical and entertaining. The stories are surprising and delightful.
I feel a bit guilty for the years I pooh-poohed Elizabeth Gilbert because I was not “the sort of person” who reads Eat Pray Love sort of books. I know, from reading Big Magic, that she is a kindred spirit in all the best ways: A writer dedicated to writing, a person dedicated to helping people around her, and a magician, teaching those who crave the magic, how to practice and perform the tricks.
What do you think?