Do Not Just Love Your Art. Have an Affair With It
Yeah, I know.
I know you are thinking why loving your art is not enough.
After all, if you are an artist, no matter whether you are a musician or a dancer or a writer, you do love your art. No doubt about it.
I am a writer. I have been writing for 8 years. I swear that I love writing.
Because I know it is only by loving my art that I can thrive.
And this applies not only to me and you, but also to every single artist operating in any field of art.
Love is tempting. Love is alluring. Love is irresistible.
I know it. You know it. We all know it.
But an affair is more tempting. An affair is more alluring. An affair is more irresistible.
And affair is forbidden, which actually makes it even more irresistible.
That is a key reason why people who are in love and committed relationships develop affairs. They know it is illicit, but still they get involved.
They give in to the thrill of new romance, and get hooked.
It is no secret that human beings have a strong craving for anything that is forbidden.
And if it is forbidden love, the intensity of that craving becomes too extreme.
In fact, it becomes so extreme that it eventually overpowers love.
That is the kind of craving you need to develop for your art.
Because if you have that, you will become inextricably attached to your art — like the partners in an affair — despite setbacks that you will undoubtedly face during your creative journey.
Making your art matter to you
American bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert talks about the idea of having an affair with creativity in her 2015 book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear.
She explains that there is a reason why people who are in an affair make whatever sacrifices it takes to be with each other.
“Because it matters to them,” writes Gilbert.
When you deeply think about it, you realise it is so true.
If it did not matter to them, they would not even get into it in the first place, right?
If it did not matter to them, they would not bother managing time to meet each other.
If it did not matter to them, they would not continue the relationship.
Think of building intimacy as continuously making the conscious choice of allowing yourself to spend as much time with your art as possible. Whenever. Wherever.
In essence, they really care about the affair. They find endless reasons to validate it. They are not bothered at all by its illegitimacy.
That is why it matters to them.
That is why it matters to them so damn much.
And the same has to happen between you and your art.
Your art has to matter to you so damn much that you will find every reason to pursue it, no matter what.
You have to make sacrifices. A lot of sacrifices.
In fact, you have to make any sacrifice needed to get obsessed with your art.
This will set you on the path to develop an inseparable relationship with your art that is akin to an affair.
Build a spicy intimacy with your art
I said earlier that you need to be inextricably attached to your art.
Once you do that by developing an affair with it, it is now time to build some intimacy.
Sex between the partners in an affair is often short.
But it is always hot. It is racy. It is hella steamy.
And that is the kind of intimacy you need to have with your art.
Gilbert writes in her book:
“Even if you have only 15 minutes a day in a stairwell alone with your creativity, take it. Go hide in that stairwell and make out with your art!”
Think of building intimacy as continuously making the conscious choice of allowing yourself to spend as much time with your art as possible. Whenever. Wherever.
An affair is more tempting, more alluring and more irresistible than love.
In other words, you prioritise art in your life so much that you make sacrifices that others around you will find gruelling, or unnecessary.
Feeling exhausted after completing 99 percent of the sketch?
Do not put it off until tomorrow or later. Finish it now, or after taking a short break.
It is the weekend and spending it without doing anything productive sounds OK?
Nah, do not do that. Write the song you have been thinking about writing for the last few months.
Feeling so sleepy that you cannot but go to bed?
Defer your sleep. Write the article that you have been thinking about since morning, like I am doing now.
It is almost dawn, but I am not turning off my laptop without finishing this write-up.
Yes, I not only love writing; I have an affair with it.