Dear all,
After finding myself in a sudden period of change, I fell into a limbo between the past and the future.
In today’s newsletter, I map out this difficult space and the challenges of:
Completing projects while the future calls
Navigating creative uncertainty
Embracing transitional phases
When you are in transition, remember that you are auditioning life and that it’s an important period to be in.
Don’t rush through it, even if it’s uncomfortable.
Below are insights and strategies which are helping me through this time.
Thank you as ever for reading and supporting!
Jim
You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path.
Where there is a way or path, it is someone else's path.
You are not on your own path.
If you follow someone else's way, you are not going to realise your potential.
Joseph Campbell
INTRO
i.
Each stage of your creative life is bookmarked by periods of uncertainty.
When one chapter has drawn to a close but before a new one has begun.
Life being life, it’s often not as neat as that, either.
One thing tends to hatch out of another.
We find ourselves moving onto the next stage before drawing the previous to a close.
And worse, our last project enters a state of limbo, suspended as its maker moves on.
These albatross projects are dangerous to artists.
They live on our deck, neither living nor dead.
We know we should cast them off, yet remain attached to them, as if to our own haunting.
ii.
I am wrestling with these perils at the moment.
I feel divided between two things:
First is the project I am trying to complete, “The Isolation Diaries”.
The second is a new project birthing in me, though I can’t quite see its form yet.
I am working through this limbo, but to do so means being in it.
Today, I want to share what I’m discovering in this space and what’s helping me.
1/ DARE TO BE YOUR OWN GUIDE
Sometimes, we have to ask the world for help.
In my experience, when we are most in need, it does answer.
But equally, there are times we have to do it alone.
A guide might point you in the right direction.
But the discoveries we have to make ourselves.
It is a devastating moment in our artistic journey when we realise we must enter the cave unaided.
You’d give anything for someone to accompany you.
You would turn back if you could.
But we are called by what we are called. And enter the dark to find it.
We do so because we believe a light exists in its heart.
But dam, don’t we resist the way we have to walk to get to it!
Today is a Monday morning, and it’s precisely what I felt leaving the house.
8 am. Rain beating down. Driving down to Schöneweide to get to the office. Entering the vastness of Mahalla. 20,000 sq metres of silence, iron, concrete and confrontation of Self. What am I doing here?
Yes, what you most yearn for will arrive hand-in-hand with what you most resist.
It will stare into you.
Ask the most brutal questions.
Entering my office, it’s piercingly cold.
Is this what I want?
The test begins.
Your demons line up one by one. And you have to answer each one.
I’ve been in this state for a few days now.
When the oblivion will not fill with meaning.
You want it to tell you what to do.
But the nihilism hisses at you.
Sitting at my desk, I realised I was exactly where I needed to be.
Or rather, it is where I am, and that must be my starting point.
And so I started to write, not as an escape. But because to contend with nihilism, you must stare it back.
To dare to be your own guide.
To forge your own answers.
You can look to the outside for guidance. But you must find your own way.
I recorded this video for anyone struggling with this state…
2/ BARE KNUCKLE THE BEAR
We resist “in-between states” because we don’t know where we are.
It is uncomfortable.
We doubt ourselves.
Before me is something I could be, but I don’t dam well know if I’m up to it. Or, for that matter, how to get there.
It is not a good feeling; to feel suspended.
You hear all the emotional tripe about “letting go”.
But what help does it bring when you feel totally out of control?
And the “emotion gurus” don’t go into it; how fucking anarchic it is to really let go.
I’m free soloing, and if I “let go”, there’s no one and nothing to catch me - so I’ll hold on to this crumbling rock for dear life because below is all hell and eternity and nothing’s coming to save me…
Yes, amidst the mind's mountains, you notice how securely tethered to safe ropes are those screaming let go.
The problem is that everyone wants to resolve their discomfort.
We cling to those with solutions to avoid ascending our own ropes.
And yet, that is the arts.
We want it cosy and snuggly.
And yet, the reality is going bare-knuckle with a bear.
Every single day.
When I am in a state such as I feel today, I know I am being tested.
And you have to up your endurance.
The path to improving that isn’t in what placates us and soothes us.
It’s found in taking a scythe to the darkness and forging a path.
Not back, but through.
Out there is an elixir representing the next stage of your becoming.
You can’t get to it without doing the becoming bit.
The becoming is the act of being uncomfortable.
Of not knowing where you are.
Of wishing you had a compass, but tramping on, irrespective.
I know what I’m writing is uncomfortable.
In an age that wants the dopamine hit, it’s not a smart strategy to deliver a jolt instead.
Yet, there is no artistic creation without doing the difficult bit.
The good news?
The struggle is part of the process.
And it will be rewarded.
As for me, I am struggling because the state of being I worked hard to achieve during isolation no longer aligns with what life is now demanding of me.
That which I became no longer fits.
Now, this doesn't mean my realisations are irrelevant. Quite the opposite. They form the foundation I'll spring from, always with me.
But in life, you don't just 'arrive'; you 'arrive at' as a point to embark from.
I am disrupted because the next stage of my life, spiritually and creatively, is calling.
And resist as I might, I know the path well enough to know that it is time to pick up the scythe and step out again into the woods.
3/ IDENTIFY THE SPACE
The torture of being between two worlds is compounded by our unwillingness to recognise the space we are in.
But it is just that: a space.
One of the reasons we feel so vulnerable is that we think it’s going to last forever.
So, we resist what we are going through.
But you don’t get trapped.
The question then becomes: are we willing to see the opportunity in our time of difficulty?
However, to see the opportunity, we must understand what’s happening to us psychologically.
So, how does light get in?
Through the breaking.
How does something new enter?
Through the cracks.
How is the message distributed?
Through the dissemination of the whole in fragments.
We are addicted to the idea of oneness, wholeness, and completion.
And yet, life’s shatters our fixity.
Not out of sadism but because it’s how it changes one form into the next thing.
Thus, opportunity is in the cracks.
For me, I am closing just as I am beginning.
And yet, the previous chapter is not over, and the new one has not yet begun.
It is easy to get spliced between times.
Hence, the confusion of states.
But you can only get to something new by challenging the previous version of yourself.
There is a shape we can be potentially.
But it must be provoked by life itself.
Even though this condition does not feel good, it has a purpose.
It is an oppressive idea:
That we are healed by our suffering.
Yet, at the end of any phase in life, we are asked dreadful questions.
Do we want to continue?
Is it time to change course?
This question arrives with metronomic precision in the arts.
Usually at critical points and between projects.
Why?
Because it’s asking you to make new vows.
Are you ready to recommit?
It’s utterly savage in the way it tests you. But it is not fickle in its torture. It is just rooting out your true motivations.
You will only survive the journey if they are true.
It’s why so many projects fail after launch.
Life weeds out falsely motivated things.
And so, between two projects; confrontation with Self.
In this confrontation, old and new selves battle for our future.
One day, the question of “what might I be?” fills us with hope, excitement and determination.
And the next: dread, fear and resistance.
A cycle of birth, death and resurrection plays out in us.
We grip on to what we have been, even as the future wrests us forward.
I see so many artists experiencing terrible torment in this state.
But once you understand this state is a part of the process, it is far more navigable.
Though transition feels uncomfortable, even painful, by levying with its presence, we understand its role in our betterment.
This does not alleviate the pain in the short term but does charge it with meaning.
And if we understand that pain has a purpose, it is no longer pointless.
Instead, it has meaning.
By recognising the meaning of our suffering, we arrive at the breakthrough life asks of us.
Reconciling with suffering is our greatest spiritual challenge.
But it brings with it compensation, too.
Grace.
4/ ACQUIESCING TO THE SEESAW
In my experience, a great sense of levity proceeds from the confrontation of Self I’ve described.
Okay, I’m meant to be here.
What? It’s okay that I am here?
It takes great courage to welcome doubt.
Courage, because at first, so many demons rear their heads.
Yet afterwards, there’s a freedom.
You are no longer in the dungeon of doubt but in an open field of play.
That is, you are ready to audition new things.
Yet before breakthrough, you seesaw like hell.
It’s where I find myself currently.
Doubts. Demons. Auditions. Attached to something I must finish. Progressing to something new. Momentum meshed with static. An anchor down. But detached from the boat in the storm above.
My challenge:
To be in this difficult state for as long as it asks of me.
And simultaneously, not to attach to the idea that it has to be difficult.
And so, I acquiesce to the see-saw, dizzying as it is.
5/ AUDITION NEW THINGS
In the last month, I’ve had vast moments of uncertainty and mornings filled with self-doubt.
But in equal parts, I have also experienced lightness and moments of synchronicity.
These are compensations of the process.
When you wholeheartedly embrace your destination, it tests and cares for you equally.
The process of creative transition is challenging but not sadistic.
The joyful part, for me, has been to welcome “the new”.
What does the new mean?
It means things we have not done before, and with it, to become things we have not been before.
The modern advice is always: you have to commit.
It is as if the only voice we should listen to is that of the instructive father.
Yet our lives must not be conditioned by “you musts”.
Yes, there is a time for commitment.
But what about auditioning life?
Sometimes, you need a period of trying different things.
Do exactly what they don’t tell you to do!
Dip your toes in.
Skim it.
Sample it
Nibble it.
Pilot it.
In a world shouting “niche down” and “commit”: be an outlier.
At the moment, I’m doing this.
In my mid 40’s, I’m doing exactly what I shouldn’t do.
I’m doubling down on my creative path.
But I’m not doubling down on where I’ve been.
I’m doubling down on where I’m going.
And so, not knowing where the hell that is, I am again auditioning life.
Life always has an instruction for you.
But you cannot presume to know it.
You have to walk into it a little first.
Play its game.
And so, at the moment, I am living with an intentional vagueness.
I might start a business. I might try YouTube as a medium. I might go hell for leather in music again. I might give up my primary form of income for something unknown. Doesn't a "Yes" always need a "no" first?
The point is, there are times in your life when it’s okay not to know.
People advise you only to talk about what you will do once you do it - what if you fail?
My reply?
And so what if I fail?
Evolution works by trying things.
That is its nature.
It is an endless series of testing, adapting, learning, resetting.
What makes your heart skip a beat?
I’m not talking about what you think you should be doing.
I’m talking about what makes you want to live!
What protects you when the darkest demon is pulling you around on one of those mornings and you have to dam well hold on for dear life?
That’s what should be in your life!
More of it, at least.
You will not be protected by the success you accrue on the outside.
But you will be renewed by the experience you have on the inside.
So, at the moment, when life is vast and the Berlin gloom impregnable, I ask, what makes my heart skip a beat?
If you are still determining what that is, then that is life also teaching you a lesson.
Because once you get back into the unknown and start auditioning new things, your heart speaks to you again.
That potential is always in you.
It can be repressed but never defeated and never destroyed.
PRACTICAL TAKEAWAYS
Embrace Transition: Creative transitions are often messy and uncertain but hold growth potential.
Be Your Guide: Sometimes, you must navigate the creative journey alone and find your own way.
Complete Projects: Finish what you start to avoid creative limbo and maintain momentum.
Embrace Challenges: Embrace discomfort and uncertainty as part of your creative process.
Work Through Doubt: Don't wait for inspiration; work through doubt and resistance to find creativity.
Explore the New: Audition new ideas and experiences to discover what excites you.
Be Patient: Transitions take time; allow yourself to evolve and grow.