The Creative Act: A Way of Being: The Sunday Times bestseller

Distraction is not procrastination. Procrastination consistently undermines our ability to make things. Distraction is a strategy in service of the work.

Nothing begins with us. The more we pay attention, the more we begin to realize that all the work we ever do is a collaboration.

you are never alone when you’re making art. You are in a constant dialogue with what is and what was, and the closer you can tune in to that discussion, the better you can serve the work before you.

When meditating, as soon as the mind quiets, the sense of space can be overtaken by a worry or a random thought. This is why many meditation schools teach students to use a mantra. An automatic, repeated phrase leaves little room in the mind for thoughts that pull us out of the moment. The mantra, then, is a distraction. And while certain distracti

When we go inside, we are processing what’s going on outside. We’re no longer separate. We’re connected. We are one.

Art creates a profound connection between the artist and the audience. Through that connection, both can heal.

There’s great wisdom in transitional realms between wakefulness and sleep. Right before you fall asleep, what thoughts and ideas come to you? How do you feel when you wake from a dream? In the wisdom tradition of Tibetan dream yoga, among others, lamas say the dream state is just as real—or unreal—as the waking state. Keeping a dream journal might

If you make the choice of reading classic literature every day for a year, rather than reading the news, by the end of that time period you’ll have a more honed sensitivity for recognizing greatness from the books than from the media. This applies to every choice we make. Not just with art, but with the friends we choose, the conversations we have,

There are practices that can assist in accessing this deeper well inside yourself. For example, you can try an anger-releasing exercise where you beat on a pillow for five minutes. It’s more difficult than you might think to do this for the full duration. Time yourself and go hard. Then immediately fill five pages with whatever comes out.