What is home for you?

On creative motifs.

Dear friends,

This past Christmas, Jose surprised me with a copy of Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being.

I’m only halfway through it, but already I know it’s going to be a book I return to again and again, as much of a bible as Bird by Bird and Letters to a Young Poet. 

One of my favorite chapters so far is titled “Crafting,” and in it, Rubin writes:

“Once a seed’s code has been cracked, and its true form deciphered, the process shifts. We are no longer in the unbounded mode of discovery. A clear sense of direction has arisen…

Where the earlier phases were more free and open-ended, the inspiration and ideas that appear now are more directly related to issues at hand. We are looking for a shape that fits a specific hole, whereas before we were just looking for shapes.”

— Rick Rubin