Creating is merely inhaling and exhaling

Stravinsky was not only considered one of the most important and influential composers of the twentieth century, but also one of the most prolific.

He ranged in subject and emotional temper, and restlessly diversified his style throughout his career.

But the volume of his musical output wasn’t just an urge, a task, a project, an occupation, a compulsion or even an addiction. It was simply who he was. In his biography he explained that composition was this daily function he felt compelled to discharge, and he made things because he was made for that, and could not do otherwise.

This is where prolific people live. The abundance of their creative expression, inspiring and even intimidating to some, is merely inhaling and exhaling to them. Making things is the most natural way for them to engage with the world.

Creating is the activity that is the biological extension of their personality. It’s something they make part of normal life, rather than something special and separate from it.

In the creative process, we don’t just make things, we make ourselves. We metabolize our lives and the world. Discovering what is going on inside of us through the process. Without any goals out ahead other than that the place our creating is taking us.

But it’s not the kind of thing you can bottle and sell. Reading books on the habits and daily routines of highly creative people and applying those techniques to our own process won’t suddenly make us prolific.

Because for some people, it’s not even creative, it’s constitutional. For some people, all they’ve ever known is just to keep making the next thing.

And the best thing we can do is step back and let them go.

What are you so good at that you make look easy?