We talk much about physical health, mental health, and spiritual health. Why does nobody talk about artistic and creative health?

The paradigm shift

A life without art and creativity isn’t a life worth living. Consider once we have all our basic necessities out of the way, what luxuries do we indulge ourselves in? Fashion, art, galleries, interior decor, architecture, aesthetics, design, etc.

Above all:

Once you’ve secured all the basics of existence what brings us the most joy? The opportunity to create, be creative and make art!

How to prioritize your creative health

How does one prioritize their creative health? Some thoughts:

1. Sleep

Sleep is godlike. One cannot have the spontaneous impetus to make art if one is sleep deprived, or in poor physiological health.

2. Creative workouts and exercises

One can only be “creative” by creating things. I do not define “creativity” as having some godlike ability to phenomenally innovate in art. Creativity is the propensity to create. The more you create, the more creative you are.

As with physical strength and health, one needs to lift weights, do body weight exercises, move, or any form of “stressful” muscular activities in order to become stronger. For us artists, it is the same:

Over the long span, the more “reps” (repetitions) you put in, the stronger you will become.

Or in other words by Arnold S:

Life is about reps.

3. Don’t be afraid of repeating yourself

Heraclitus once said:

If it be true, it is good to repeat oneself.

With art, photography and creativity — much of the fundamental principles are true and good. For example in monochrome, simple concepts are the strongest and most “battle tested” and “battle hardened” (to quote the literature surrounding Bitcoin and Digibyte [Crypto 2035 Book]).

I believe the *worst* advice anyone can give to an artist is:

Don’t repeat yourself.

Or to somehow play down your work by saying “someone else has already done it before”. But just because someone else has done it before (like give birth to a child) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t! Or even a more ludicrous example:

Refusing to drink coffee because others have “drank coffee before”.

4. Make your art and creativity your #1 priority

Technically there can only be one priority in your life (Essentialism book). Thus if you make creativity your #1 “god value” (Soren Aldrich) then you will always be able to engage with creativity.

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