Doubt is a prerequisite (five more thoughts on art, mindsets, and creativity).

Embrace doubt.

If you doubt, you can believe.

If you doubt, you can find faith and it will be meaningful.

If you doubt, you can make and create something new or different. It means you don’t know and you’re bumbling ahead, testing, experimenting, trying, and searching for the new.

Certainty will stall you. Doubt will give you the courage to keep going.

The most beautiful art isn’t static.

It might, from a concrete standpoint, be static. Mona Lisa, David, Messiah are static pieces in the sense that they were created, and now exist to be interpreted and appreciated - the first two to be interpreted and appreciated solely by the viewer of audience; Messiah to be re-interpreted anew.

But all are static in the sense of being completed, yet possessing an ability to keep giving and giving, over long periods of time, despite being done. They are layered and nuanced and keep you coming back. They may be static from a concrete standpoint, but they are fluid, dynamic, and effervescently-evolving from an embedded meaning standpoint; a well to keep drawing from.

You have to do work.

Stop mucking around with what the word “work” means.

It means you keep doing the work and stop making excuses.

Stop waiting for inspiration and start working. And keep working.

There is music you love.

At least once a week, listen to it loud, and move to it. It’s called dancing.

If you can move, you can dance.

If you can dance, you are alive.

If you are alive, then you have the capacity to imagine and to make. Dancing to the right music at a loud volume will do nothing but good for you. Unless you break your hip. Don’t do that.

History is important in every discipline.

Don’t just pay attention to the contemporaries in your field.

And don’t just pay attention to the pioneers and luminaries and well-knowns in your field. Develop an appreciation for what has gone into your discipline over the years, past to present. Find what you gravitate to and learn from it. You’re not beholden to it.

But you can learn from it.

Learning something about the history of your discipline will provide a sense of humility, clarity, gratitude, and appreciation for what came before.

Even if your intent is to burst forth and break all the rules.