Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / 13: insecure creatives, gather! Part 1

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13: insecure creatives, gather! Part 1 · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

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  Hello sun shines welcome back to paradigm shift with I understood I am so
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  excited to have you here with me today I'm sending you so much juicy loving vibes
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  you are precious you are not a void waiting to be filled you are whole you are
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  everything you were meant to be if we didn't live in the society that we live in
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  today we are here to talk about creative Vityi something that I think we all have
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  we all are we just are not invited to really see ourselves as creative why
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  because they need to co-opt and capture our imagination and our tendency to view
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  ourselves as imaginative because we are easier to control when we are world
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  take us instead of world builders okay when we conceive of ourselves as such in
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  reality we are always building the world every relationship is a world
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  everything we do in acts a set of principles and norms on the society
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  further normalizes something or queers that thing so we are world builders and
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  we are creative beings everything is an act of creativity whether it be how
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  you relate to other people friendship is a deep act of creativity for example
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  it's a blank canvas with a lot of social conditioning that then could
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  tail restricts the lines that we then color within and Rick Rubin has a book
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  the creative act a way of being which I love and if you're looking for the
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  intersection between spirituality and creativity this is the book for you and
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  it's interesting because a lot of the ideas that I read in the book are things
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  that I apply in my life as a creator and I have a lot of insecurity and anxiety
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  and fear and just attention when it comes to my own creativity I never even used to
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  see myself as a creative person and now I absolutely see myself as a
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  creative person and I would invite you to do the same because the more you
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  identify as a creative person I think the more creative you become it's a very
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  expansive and expanding identity to take on because when you say oh I'm a
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  creative person it opens you up to continuing to fulfill that promise in a way
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  that I think is very hard opening and expanding I think whatever you define
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  yourself as will expand the way that you enact that definition on the society so
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  that's why I think that we should take on the idea of creativity to become more
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  creative so I'm going to be discussing a piece that I wrote called insecure
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  creatives gather for all you creatives out there who have ideas but are
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  terrified of either starting them completing them or sharing them this is for you
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  okay I love you so much and most of the things that I'm saying have maybe been
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  said by someone because you know we're all as creatives going through similar
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  challenges but I just wanted to put my thoughts on creativity and on the act of
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  really excavating yourself and putting it into the world for others to consume if
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  you would like to do that and really like talk through what I go through and how
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  I what wisdom I lean on to be able to press in to press submit you know what I
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  mean to accept imperfection and to reject perfectionism in general this is a
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  constant struggle so the piece that I wrote on my sub-sack is called insecure
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  creatives gather words guiding me this week and actually every week as a full-time
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  creator okay so what I want to say is this this is an invitation this is an
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  offering this is a sign from the universe if you're receiving this it's because
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  the universe is ready for your art we are ready to receive you okay we want to
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  hear what you have to say because literally you have a perspective that only you
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  have and the creative act of being he says the self is like a prism and a
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  prism uniquely refracts light based on the shape and the texture and the
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  configuration of that prism so even though we are part of a community of
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  beings and it is our collectiveness our similarity that allows us to connect our
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  shared consciousness that allows us to connect we need your specific contribution
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  to deepen the ways that we can connect you know what I mean we all are here for
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  a reason we're here to be the fullest expression of our self and in order to
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  do that we need to speak and share our truth it doesn't have to be on social
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  media that's obviously where I'm coming from but I'm not advocating for that at
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  all maybe your goals to just create art for yourself or for your friends or for
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  your family or just literally for your younger self whoever it's for whatever it
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  is I just want to give you a little push a little sign that you've got this
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  you're not alone in your fears and your anxieties and I'm here on this journey
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  with you literally I literally I had to sit on the phone with my bestie today to
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  complete my newsletter this is a beautiful little trick by the way we're meant
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  to create in community so if there's anyone in your life who you can jump on
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  the phone with as you collectively like just do the creative act that you're
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  trying to do it's so helpful in fact maybe on my subside we should do like a
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  zoom day where we just like work on our projects together and it's like we're
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  alone together you know what I mean because I think it just gives you that
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  energy that spark because we're meant to do this together like ideally we'd
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  have like this warehouse that we all go to and we meet up and we support each other
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  someone if the beautiful comment on my subside recently basically imagining
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  what this could look like and I will comment that at the end of this they were
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  so precious and beautiful they may take a few deep breaths because I'm so
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  excited that I'm not breathing
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  what a gift to be alive sometimes okay so let me start with the first idea for
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  my fellow insecure creatives I see you we see each other wait I missed that
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  I see you you see me we see each okay so my first view on creativity the world
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  needs your voice your art and your perspective just as they are wait let that sink
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  in just as they are the world needs your voice just as it is you don't believe
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  me you think this three books you need to read before you write that essay you
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  think you need to refine and re-edit that video you think you need to double-click
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  and re-edit and rewrite the poem because it's not good enough no no if we all
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  insecure creatives especially if you are black brown Asian queer disabled fat
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  trans marginalized imagine we all just hit send today on our work on our
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  draft we would create a literal renaissance okay we would literally change
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  consciousness because culture is not only in today's world where we have access
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  to these platforms is also a manifestation of those who are willing to share
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  their consciousness but the problem is the society embeds who's willing to
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  share their consciousness with the value system of who has power in that
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  society so then you hear a lot of straight cis white men being very confident in
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  what they have to say and therefore putting out what they have to say more and
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  more so you have the self-fulfilling prophecy exclusion leading to insecurity
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  anxiety self-doubt leading to less sharing and on the opposite side people
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  are made to be overly confident sharing their work in their art creating
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  culture and then becoming more confident because they're represented in the
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  culture so to break this we need to understand that we as we are could change
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  the world with our consciousness and we are doing that already and that is why
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  I think Tiktok is such a unique platform because you're seeing more of those
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  voices who in previous media platforms were silenced were cut off from having
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  a voice or platform at a large scale or having it and we know of course Tiktok
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  has a lot of anti-blackness anti-fatness anti-abolism or I'm sorry abolism in
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  all of these things so it's not perfect at all but I think it's an insight into
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  what would happen if we expanded the aperture of voices that we listened to
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  and that we uplift and amplify so what I say in this is that very often as
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  creative people we avoid our projects by telling ourselves we are not yet
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  ready we need to read a few more books or we need to edit a few more times or
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  maybe we need to work on our speaking voice before we share our voice let's
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  throw this mentality away immediately gone out because you know what I told
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  myself before I recorded this episode that you're listening to now I'm not
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  ready to make this I'm uncomfortable I don't want to do that maybe another day
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  I just it's not the right day I'm not ready I need to do it like fix a few
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  things first we are a future self of one of our youngest selves who wanted to
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  know more there's the paradox okay you know more you are more you felt more
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  you've experienced more than you once did so if yourself now could enlighten
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  could entertain could in live in your past self if you know one thing that you're
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  past self wish then you then you're ready then you have all that you need my
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  darling because you are always someone's version of wise of thoughtful of
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  introspective of sensitive of creative of entertaining we are all selves like
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  we are literal like your past consciousness is a version of someone's current
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  consciousness and I don't mean past as in its linear I'm not saying yours is
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  better than this is better than that it's very cyclical and it's very holistic we
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  are part of a collective consciousness and it only works if we share our
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  consciousness okay so let's do that and oh I forgot to start with a disclaimer okay
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  the disclaimer to this episode is that this is about how to overcome creative
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  resistance and start complete or share your work this is something I battle with
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  daily but I want to say that I am speaking to those of you who have already
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  decided that you want to start complete or share a project I'm not trying to
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  convince those of you who do not want to do anything more to do more that's
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  not what this is about I'm not trying to get people to create more be a bit
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  of self no no no no no no I'm trying to encourage people to be
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  themselves and to be yourself is to to to be your art it doesn't have to be to
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  share your art but it's to create your art when we are suppressing ourselves we
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  can feel it you know ha you know when you're suppressing yourself when you're
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  suppressing your truth when you know you have something meaningful to say but
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  you are avoiding saying it that's a form of self suppression so I'm speaking
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  to those people I do not mean to it motivate anyone to do that which they
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  haven't already decided they want to do because there's enough of that
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  content and I don't want to add to it at all that's not my purpose on this
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  earth okay so back to the idea of the world meeting your art as it is as it is
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  and I'm telling you I mean to say this today it's 16 18 it's 4 18 pm where I am
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  and I mean to say that whatever art you have as of this moment is ready I'm
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  telling you now the myth is that okay so I said we are a future self of one of
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  our youngest selves who wanted to know more we know so much we hold so many
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  stories and ideas and perspectives within us that could serve the world ourselves
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  and each other and when I say we know so much I don't mean in the Western you know
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  text sense like you know so many facts I mean we know an embodied a spiritual
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  an emotional a divine knowing you know so much intuitively you know you have
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  experienced you have been told you have been taught so much right and why not
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  if you want to why not put that into your art and shared with people the myth is that one day
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  we will arrive in a state of readiness to create or share our creations I'm here to tell you
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  you will never be ready until you allow yourself to believe you already are oh my goodness
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  bars I said that it's me wow it's us okay you will never be ready until the day that you decide
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  that you already are that is so true because I've told myself so many times I'm not ready I'm not
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  ready for this I'm not ready for this I am not ready to impose this video I'm not ready to do
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  anything like this no no no no no I'm not a writer why am I writing did I not write this is this
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  not my words listen we are so powerful creativity is the form of power that is non exploitative and
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  non toxic okay in its pure sense not in the media market sense but in the sense that we when I
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  say you are powerful I mean that you have ways of being seeing feeling relating thinking feeling
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  within you that need to come manifest into the world and there's a big power in giving birth to
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  that idea especially in our world there will always be more to read more to learn more to understand
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  then we could ever possibly hope to in one lifetime and I do this all the time I'm like no
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  I'm not ready to write this because I need to read this book this book this book and this book
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  when I've already read that book in that book or I just know something intuitively now this is not
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  an anti not I'm not saying don't google anything don't research anything I'm just saying
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  they can become a fetishization with knowing everything when it's a myth that you could ever know
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  everything they will always be more and in fact because we're part of a collective creation
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  creative consciousness you don't need to know everything because you're contributing to knowledge
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  that's already been produced and when I say knowledge I mean like a body of work an art form
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  whatever it is you're not the first one and so you don't need to know everything you know
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  you just need to bring your perspective into the into the arena and let it sit okay let it sit
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  let it say what it has to say okay we need to realize that our ticket to creativity is our
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  aliveness oh my word I'll stand up and say that again okay our ticket to our creativity is our
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  aliveness oh I love it we are alive we have senses through which to receive the universe
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  each other art everything wow and we have an inner world with which to process what we receive
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  and we have so much to give within ourselves that's what I mean by power and within our experiences
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  our aliveness is our readiness to create when we silence that aliveness what are we effectively
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  doing we call it perfectionism but if we zoom out and look at the macro scale of this force
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  what is perfectionism okay this takes us to idea too perfectionism is self repression
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  what happens on a mass societal level when a bunch of us especially those of us who are
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  women or films who are black who are marginalized in some way are convinced we are not yet good enough
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  what are the socio cultural implications of this self silencing when we know culture moves society
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  and society moves culture what does it mean to exclude ourselves from this life force of change
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  as I said in our podcast episode a few episodes ago Angela Davis says that we do the work
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  of the state through our interior lives so we do the work of the oppressor through our own
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  perfectionism and we know that perfectionism is related to both white supremacy and patriarchy and
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  ablism and colorism and so many others and so in the face of a society that wants to silence us
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  this means that number three imperfect creation is part of our rebellion against a repressive
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  status quo imperfect creation is part of our rebellion against a repressive status quo I really
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  stand by those words like if you feel like your work isn't good enough great incredible present
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  press submit okay our creativity in all its glorious imperfection quote unquote if we actively
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  want to claim it as such which we don't have to is part of how we bring a new world into being
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  wow and how we participate in co-creating society and become the world builders and paradigm
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  shifters that we each are how do we add to the collective is a question we rebel against the
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  structures that do not serve it which includes perfectionism right so how do we add to collective
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  consciousness we rebel against the structures that don't serve it and we build up the structures
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  that do so creativity is exactly one of those structures every surface area of our hearts remember
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  the Ruha Benjamin episodes where she said this she said that the more we feel heartbroken the
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  more surface area there is to connect with someone with a community with people with the land with
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  the earth so therefore we find power in that surface area of heartbreak we can so I bold my eyes by
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  the way right before that episode recorded because I was so terrified and I was just so afraid
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  because of all of this because of creative anxiety and resistance anyways so we use the surface
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  area to connect to other people and this is an act of rebellion because so many systems want us
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  divided separate silence and holy imaginative so this is part of what it means to bring a new
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  world into being you may have read a book that changed your life that author may be sitting in
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  their house saying oh that book could have been better damn chapter five though wasn't so good
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  chapter nine needed a better resolution and it's like imagine they hadn't shared the book
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  just imagine how much you've benefited from people who are willing to put out work that they
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  are insecure about and so for me that's the offering because so many hearts souls minds have changed
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  to mine through their work which in our society it was probably an associated anxiety with that work
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  because that's the society we live in there was shame that they had to work through and because
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  I'm so grateful that they did that my offering back to the collective is me also sitting with
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  and just creating through that feeling ideally we live in a society where this feeling doesn't
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  exist and we can bring that into being hopefully together whatever you are trying to create
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  which could be art it could be a movement it could be a protest it could be a methodology it could
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  be a organization a workshop could be an episode a podcast it could be an essay a book it could be
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  a video a platform if you do not have the perfect plan for this creation great great amazing
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  because what things don't have perfect plans subversive things you know things that reimagine
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  things that reframe things that are paradigm shifting it means that what you are doing
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  exists outside the bounds of the architecture of our current world wow your world will that
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  literally it therefore challenges some of the world's underlying assumptions or attachments
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  maybe your struggle is that you don't think of yourself as a creative person that means that in
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  the context of the society that conditioned you you exist outside the mold of an identity
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  that it serves the status quo to define as inherently limited what do i mean by that it serves the
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  status quo the way things are for us to think of a creative person as someone over there like not me
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  why because creative people create they create the future like all the technology we use they create art
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  all the art we observe all the movies all the shows so the creative people are over there but if they
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  define what a creative person looks like sounds like acts like does then they can limit your ability
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  to tap into your own pun perceived creativity as in the creativity within you lays dormant because it's
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  by design because imagine living in a society where everyone thought they were creative they would
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  be anarchy which is incredible you know what i mean in a sense like we would be self-governed like
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  we would be like no i don't want to live in your gender construct no i don't want to live in your
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  i don't want to live in a state why these lines are made up what do you mean that's why they
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  reprise our creativity is why they don't teach you to be creative you know what i mean and that's
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  why they put so many barriers to living a creative life making it only accessible to the wealthiest
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  who are least likely to oppose the structures of the status quo right so it's very important to
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  understand how subversive true creativity is because it asks why and why not x you know what i mean
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  if why why must we live in this limited fashion why couldn't we just why couldn't we just
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  vibe why do we have to work you know what i mean why can't we just the earth has everything we need
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  we have enough people who like doing different sets of things why couldn't we just
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  be part of a joined community and do everything we need it creative people would change the world if
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  we all literally saw ourselves as creative we would live in a different society i believe that
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  basically it serves the status quo to say they are creative people you're just not one of them
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  bullshit bullshit we are all creative i believe this with my whole being it is our birthright it
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  is our way of being we could not be otherwise even if we tried creativity is a force within us
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  that some of us actively choose to tap into and harness and share outwardly with others if we want
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  to make this offering open to the collective is a voice inside you that knows it must be heard
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  that you must create that you are a creator uh within this process we must not be the silencer of
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  our own voice of our own creations let the world do that to us if it must i tell myself this every
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  single day this is because it is unnatural number four i think for any organism to silence its own
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  for list expression this is a very important idea to me if you think of a tree a tree grows and
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  grows and grows to its fullest and it blossoms trees and leaves and it does everything imagine the
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  tree said i don't want to grow as high or i don't i don't want to blossom flowers that's too much
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  people will judge me there'll be like how day you blossom these flowers you know what i mean no
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  the natural expression of the tree is to be its fullest treeness with us who have a certain kind
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  of consciousness this means the natural expression of us is to be in our fullest consciousness and
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  to make offerings to each other because we are moved by these offerings art moves us creations
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  move us technology moves us research moves us all these human creations and in concert with nature
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  which we are a part of move us so much of our society is deeply unnatural is deeply toxic to our
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  ability to exist within it and shame is a core part of what is so unnatural about our world that
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  we are made to live with so much shame that we are brought up in a culture of shame
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  if we want to move towards a more natural way of relating and being we have to acknowledge
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  how unfortunate is that we are human beings that feel we cannot fully live out and express our
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  humanity hmm out of our humanity is our creativity like a tree saying i must not blossom the flowers
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  who seeds i hold within me because the onlooker might judge me too harshly we deserve to be our
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  fullest and most expansive selves each time one of us chooses to embody that expansiveness that
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  fullness we light the way for another that's how it works we are each other sparks and each other's
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  extinguishes unfortunately this means that if we have poems or songs or stories or videos inside of
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  it is most natural for us to express them in the universe somehow whether it be by letting
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  it sit on a page have you ever seen how powerful it is to have a scary thought of yours expressed
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  in a journal it's very powerful or sharing it with a friend sharing it online enacting it in the
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  real world bringing people together in this act of creation knowing that self doubt connects us
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  to every creative soul that is ever lived self doubt is something that exists within the collective
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  consciousness and so it exists in the consciousness of artists even the ones you admire so dearly
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  you love them you're like wow you've changed my life in that process of changing your life
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  something in them suffered that's unfortunately the society we live in i'm not saying that i wish
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  it was this case the case but i just know that it's very difficult to be unscathed by the shame
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  of our society so we can use our imagination and say even the greats that we admire
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  whoever that may be for you probably faced some sort of suffering that's not to glorify suffering
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  and i don't believe in like the tortured artist being something we should aim to be all i'm
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  trying to say is you're not isolated in this feeling in fact you are so so so conjoined by it
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  we all feel this and i'm sending you lots of love if you feel it
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  i'm going to break this into two parts because i'm feeling a little bit like my energy was like
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  peaked and then it kind of is starting to plummet so before it completely plummets i'm going to
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  like rest and come back with part two but just know your art matters as an act of self love and it's
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  an act of self acknowledgement to recognize that you deserve to be heard and you deserve to be
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  listened to or received if that's what you seek i love you so much paint the world with your
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  consciousness yes you are ready yes it's good enough yes we want to hear it yes we want to see it
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  yes yes we want to be part of whatever you have to create yes we want to reimagine society the way
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  that you want to yes we want to join you yes we want to support you yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
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  okay you're delicious you're precious you are magic literally look at the universe and try and
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  tell me how is it that if there are literally stars in the sky there's a galaxy there's a
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  Milky Way there's trees there's forests breathing and collective consciousness as trees okay i'm
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  reading the book the hidden life of trees there are clouds in the sky we are living a magical
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  existence really and there's suffering and pain and you already know this but what i mean by that
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  is if you can look at a cloud and say wow that's magic why would you not at least be able to see
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  that you are the exact same source you are exactly magic like literally if you think the
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  Milky Way is magic why would not you be why wouldn't you be magic if a tree can look astoundingly
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  profound to you how is that not you also we are a mirror okay and every magical part of the universe
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  is us and is in us and is in you the world needs your voice and i love you and i'm sending you so
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  much love and you've got this i promise you and know it's scary but you're not alone we're all
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  terrified i'm so scared like literally literally literally i love you have a beautiful day and i'll
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  see you at part two okay love you bye