Reflections from The Artist’s Way, Week 4: Recovering a sense of integrity
As we become more aware of our identities, we may realize that defining ourselves may be difficult. That is also true for me. At this point, I'm confident in my identities as a writer and artist, but I still struggle with aligning those identities with my professional career choices, believing that I need a profession first (an academic one) and then do artistic things on the side, rather than making them a priority.
Speaking of integrity, this is how Martha Beck defines it in The Way of Integrity. Finding the Path to Your True Self:
“The word integrity has taken on a slightly prim, judgemental nuance in modern English, but the word comes from the Latin integer, which simply means <<intact>>. To be in integrity is to be one thing, whole and undivided. When a plane is in integrity, all its millions of parts work together smoothly and cooperatively. If it loses integrity, it may stall, falter, or crash. There’s no judgment here. Just physics.”
And here’s more on what I’m experiencing and worried about at the moment:
“When you pursue a career that pulls your way from your true self, your talent and enthusiasm will quit on you like a bored intern. Every task will feel as distasteful as poisoned food, and leave you just as weak. You’ll probably have a sequence of mistakes and unlucky breaks at work (actually these are lucky breaks, your true self stopping you from wandering further into the dark wood of error, but you won’t see it that way at the time). I’ve coached dozens of people who’ve gone into engineering because they loved inventing things, or academia because they loved learning, or journalism because they loved writing, and then got promoted into management or administration - which they hated. At that point, having left their integrity by doing things they didn’t want to do, they flamed out spectacularly.”
This week was also a week of reading deprivation. Cameron explains its importance as follows:
“It is a paradox that by emptying our lives of distractions we are actually filling the well. Without distractions, we are once again thrust into the sensory world. With no newspaper to shield us, a train becomes a viewing gallery. With no novel to sink into (and no television to numb us out) an evening becomes a vast savannah in which furniture - and other assumptions - get rearranged. Reading deprivation casts us into our inner silence, a space some of us begin to immediately fill with new words - long, gossipy conversations, television bingeing, the radio as a constant, chatty companion. We often cannot hear our own inner voice, the voice of our artist’s inspiration, above the static. In practicing reading deprivation, we need to cast a watchful eye on these other pollutants. They poison the well.”
I can really see why focusing on creating rather than consuming is important. Making zines helped with the lack of reading at first. However, as the week progressed, I need to admit that I cheated without remorse by reading graphic novels.
Synchronicities: While researching the field of graphic medicine this week, I found out that one of my favorite authors lives and creates in Chicago. Even better, the next conference on graphic medicine will be held in Chicago this summer too!
Morning pages: As I pay more attention to my ideas, writing without being distracted is becoming increasingly difficult for me. While writing, I often find myself scrolling through my phone, ordering books or researching a newly discovered author, for example.
Artist date. After reviewing the list of activities that I enjoy doing from week 2, I went exploring my new neighborhood. Driving around, we accidentally ended up at the College of Dupage's Cleve Carney Museum of Art. I had no idea such a cool and creative space existed so close to where I live.
We saw the exhibit I Wish I Could Be You More Often with bold artwork by Ayanah Moor. I have a feeling this was not my last visit to this place.
