The Artist-Creator’s Office (Dispatch No. 10)

In the first instalment of this series of essays, we explored the aspects of new information that make it so difficult to accept and allow it into our lives for its transformative impact. But, as we become comfortable with all these different uncomfortable facets, then we can cross over into the space of meaning. Here, we create avenues for intention. And when intention enters into our relationship with new information, then chaos slowly becomes an ally within the creative process, instead of something to be afraid of.
The chaos of new information pushes us immediately to fear because that’s how we’ve been taught to engage with it. I think of Bible narratives where angels always begin their heralds with “Be not afraid.” Aliens in sci-fi blockbusters reveal themselves with the encouragement, “We come in peace.” Human beings are predisposed to fear upon encountering new information and experiences. And it can be a protective force. But, I believe one way we can begin to create space for meaning during these beginnings is to adopt an attitude of faith.
What is faith? I think faith is the trust that everything, including our lives, are part of an ultimate good. In this way, I think faith is the trust that the good things we desire, our dreams, our desires are within reach, on their way towards us, and abundant in the world.

I read a tweet recently that essentially said that both fear and faith are concerned with things that haven’t happened yet. This made me realize that both are attitudes that impact the way we collaborate with possibility. When fear is the lens through which we approach new information, any possibility is a threat. When faith is the path, then perhaps there can be a greater capacity for wonder, for joy, and for beauty in the sense of things culminating in a wholesome experience and outcome. When this expansion happens, making meaning for transformative impact can take place with more ease. When fear contracts our relationship new experiences, the meaning we make from this state can only further perpetuate the feeling that the world and everything in it is out to get us.
Ironically, making meaning of new information isn’t something you can read yourself into on a blog post. It is a lived experience. And this is part of why trading fear for faith is an important part of the process. Fear sends us further into the terror of the world and the effects of the traumatic experiences we’ve had. Faith expands us to accommodate truth and imagine better and try better for ourselves and others. When we orient our modes of meaning through fear on external points, we will find that those definitions are only relevant to others and the terrors within. We shortchange ourselves when we make these points the arbiters of what is (or can be) meaningful or not. We trade out valuable personal narratives when we allow them to tell us a moment doesn’t matter.
Making meaning is a deeply personal thing. One time last year, I was having a deep struggle with writing poetry. I’m a poet and a poem, so this really is my domain. It was strange for me to be struggling with this medium. In time, I needed to submit what I’d been working on and so I met with my editor at the time. During our session, they lit a candle and some incense. As they kicked the check-in off, acknowledging the spiritual presence of everyone and everything who longed for the poetry to succeed, it made me feel such a deep sense of community, that the poetry flowed out of me with ease from that moment on. In making meaning of the new information I’d received (that so much more than me was interested in the things I was creating), I began lighting candles to acknowledge this truth last year.
Anyone witnessing this would probably write it off as me being overly mystical. And if I allowed their perception (or even my fear of their perception) to guide the way I make meaning, I place more importance on this than on the value of the new information I’m synthesizing. In this way, I reject the opportunity to make meaning of my personal journey with creativity, I put off the opportunity for greater self-expression, and I stall my evolution as a creative being.
Beyond fostering greater self-expression, making meaning allows us to enter into partnership in creative community. When we’re creating and sharing, we invite others to be involved in the process of our art-making by receiving it, informing it, and creating their own work. Meaning invites us into the greater ecosystem of creativity. It doesn’t matter who doesn’t resonate with our creations because the greater audience of the beings who do outnumbers the former group by far. No matter what you create, the wonderful thing about creativity rooted in meaning is that there is always someone who will appreciate your efforts. (And that someone could be you.) However, if we’re all taking the backseat, allowing mainstream media to create meaning for us, if we’re sacrificing our creative agency for homogenous existence, there can be no appreciation for the old thing that already exists.
Continuing in community, making meaning helps us builds a personal narrative that is inspired by the art that came before us and the art that will come after. When I read about the personal narratives of writers I admire like Octavia Butler, Akwaeke Emezi, and Ursula K. Le Guin, to name a few, I am inspired by the way they made meaning of the information they received on their creative paths. We are in partnership because their work breathes life into my own. Their ways of seeing the world inform my own and help me become more confident in my perspective.
Here’s the thing about being artist-creators: we are all special! The only real difference between you and the great artists who realized and embodied this is that they accepted their responsibility to this information. They lived into the realizations that came with new information. They made meaning of their moments.
Questions To Ponder
What does faith mean to me? What definition can I give to the concept that makes me expand as opposed to shrinking?
What is my personal narrative about myself? What is my personal narrative about my creativity?
What meaning am I ignoring for the purpose of seeming more same/homogenous to the people around me?
Fear speaks: what is my fear telling me about the meaning inviting me to make it? What if fear is correct? What if fear is incorrect?
Whose stories inspire me? Why?
What aspects of the stories that inspire me are already present in my own personal narrative? How does this make me feel?
Where (what area of my life) do I give up the agency I possess for making meaning? How does this happen?
Am I afraid to be special? Am I ashamed to be special?
Who told me to be afraid to be special? Who taught me to be ashamed of being special? What words did they use? What do those words mean to me now?
If this post has been meaningful for you, please feel free to buy me a coffee. Your participation in creative community is vital to this work!