CREATIVITY SPARKS^TM
October 2007

The Cost of Inaction
The Economics of Creativity
by Beth Barany

How much does it cost you to do nothing?

Put another way: how much do your excuses cost?

Cost. Money. Economy... Not words most artists even want to think about much less read. Nevertheless, ignoring the economics of creativity--of life--would be a real shame, since all we ever do is spend and receive energy.

Everything we do, or don't do, has a cost; everything we have has a price someone paid. And who we are is the currency.

How does this directly affect our creativity, our ability to sit down and write?

My inaction comes when I spend my time in anxiety paralysis, bleeding energy to phantom worries and half-whispered fears. When I finally realize what I'm doing, I can see what is going on: I've been trapped like a moth to the fire by my fear of failure or success. In my case, it's usually the fear of failure, of appearing dumb, naive, stupid that when revealed will banish me forever from the halls of the smartly creative and abundant folks I most like to hang around with.

Write to Reflect
Which do you fear? Failure or success? What is the worse thing that can happen to you? And how would you recover?

We are our currency. More specifically, our emotions and thoughts are the currency we spend and receive. Buy and sell. Fill up with inspiring art and let out by writing a novel.

Write to Reflect
How do you fill up to then spend on your art? How do you resource yourself?

I like to go to art galleries and museums to see what resonates, what fills me with such joy it's as if that painting reached out and poured itself into my heart. Touching stones and crystals and tree bark and rose petals works too. The visceral, kinesthetic that takes me away from the swirling internal chatter. Music that I play on the piano. My body hears and feels, cries and rejoices. An instant recognition of beauty that thrills me. Lastly, the novel writing itself satisfies me like sunshine. I soak it in, these words I type, the story I weave in the service of my beloved characters. I am full of creative juice, ready to face the next creative challenge, ready to spend wisely my energy.

We often spend unwisely, that is not spending on the things that really matter, because of unconsciousness, blind spots, lacunae. Afterwards, I wake up to the fact that I was just doing email for 40 minutes. What? Why? How useful in the long run was that? Nine times out of ten not very. Timothy Ferris, in his book, The Four Hour Work Week, gives great tips on how to reduce the clutter on our lives, starting with email. In 30 minutes today, I reorganized all my yahoo groups (lots of writers groups online to be a part of!), making most of them not come into my email program at all. Now if I want to read them I must go to yahoo groups. I even unsubscribed from a few groups. Gone for good. I'd only been filing them away unread for the last six months. Now I won't have to see them ever again. Whew!

Write to Reflect
What administrative details regarding your email can you eliminate or reorganize?

Life is meant to be spent having fun and doing what we love. At least that's what I think. For me, that's being creative and sharing my creativity as a story teller and a teacher with others. And traveling, speaking French, gardening, playing with the cats, and cooking a good meal. Of course, reading a good novel too that takes me away into that sweet other world. How about you?

Write to Reflect
What are you doing that you love? What would you like to be doing? How can you make that happen?

Get juiced. Get jazzed. Get excited. Be filled with enthusiasm, excitement, joy. That is the way you will fill up your bank account of creativity currency, to then spend where you choose. Live is fun. Live it up!