If you were to live for 1,000 years— I guarantee you would want to be creative in order to avoid boredom, and to let your artistic spirit soar!

1. Slay, all day.

First of all, to be a CREATOR and to CREATE is a war.

You fight the demons of self-doubt, of fear, and laziness.

You must slay, all day.

2. YOU ARE A CREATOR!

To be a “creative” person isn’t a talent you’re born with. No. To be “creative” is to CREATE STUFF. Create art. Create pictures.

I see creativity like the muscles of your body.

We all admire strong, supple and muscular bodies. We disdain the fat, weak, and flabby.

How do we build muscle and reduce fat?

We build muscle by EXERTION- through difficulty. We cannot build strong muscles without difficult weight-bearing stress on our tendons and bodies. We need to INCREASE the weight, stress, or tension in our workouts. We stimulate growth hormones in our bodies, which ask us for more nutrition (meat, protein, fat) to BUILD UP our bodies.

I see creativity the same way. We NEED to push ourselves in our creative and artistic pursuits. We NEED to make it more difficult for ourselves, in order to grow.

For example, in photography, don’t take the same easy pictures. Make HARDER pictures. Shoot more pictures of scenes and people who scare you. Flex your visual muscles, by adding more layers, depth, or soul in your pictures. Or try to SIMPLIFY your pictures— REDUCE clutter in the background. SUBTRACT the superfluous. Look at the background, and cut away whatever you feel takes away from your pictures.

3. Write

In writing, push yourself. Strive to make your writing more compact yet forceful. Seek to make your words and sentences more poetic. Try to write difficult prose, to build up your lyrical muscles.

4. Listen

In music, listen to more “difficult” music. Listen to music that is multi layered, complex, and a little hard to listen to. Listen to music that you gotta sit down, and focus on. I think the best music is the music that you must focus on the trebles, bass, the lyrics, and a song that engages all of your senses.

5. GET READY FOR WAR

So friend, let’s get ready for battle. Put on your bronze helmet, your bronze cuirass, and bronze greaves. Get ready to hurl your black spear through the throats of self-doubt, and your inner-demons.

Life, making art, and going to war is hard. But it is the difficulty which will awaken your inner-warrior.

BE STRONG,
ERIC

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