The risk of dwelling in scarcity
In my work, I speak to creatives of all types and backgrounds. Some of them are practitioners (visual artists, writers, musicians) who have an ongoing artistic practice; some are people who wouldn’t define themselves as ‘artists’ but want to express who they are in the world by making things that are unique, innovative and satisfying.
Photo by Kerem Karaarslan on Unsplash
They tell me they’d love to create x (fill in the blank—a piece of writing, an art work, a business, a website, an experience of some kind) but, for some reason, they can’t. The reasons they give, the internal objections they hear, are multiple: It feels too difficult. It won’t be good enough. I’m too ordinary (or don’t have enough talent) to create this thing. What’s the point, anyway? No one will care. I worry I’ll look stupid. I don’t have enough x (fill in the blank—time, money, focus, energy, drive, skills, clarity, organisation) to do it.
These are the voices of what Steven Pressfield (in The War of Art) calls Resistance (note the capital R). We experience Resistance, Pressfield says, ‘as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential. It’s a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.’
Resistance keeps us contracted. It prevents us from evolving and achieving more or seeing things from a bigger, bolder perspective; from living with more energy, expansiveness and aliveness.
These voices of Resistance sing the thin, scratchy song of scarcity. They prevent us from experiencing the full-blown, spine-tingling resonance of harmony, the beauty of which takes our breath away or brings tears to our eyes.
This kind of scarcity, in my experience, falls into the following categories:
Limitations of commitment and/or integrity (do I really, truly want to make this thing?)
Limiting beliefs (I’m not worthy enough to make this thing)
Limited vision (I’m unwilling to connect to the potential magic of this thing)
Limitations of structure (I don’t have the systems or processes to execute the making of this thing)
Limited resources (I don’t have the right things in place—confidence, skills, support—to help me make this thing).
Identifying these limitations is the first stage of tackling creative blockages. It can be a tender and fearful process. It involves looking inside ourselves and being absolutely truthful about what we see. It involves looking outside ourselves and making a stand for something—nailing our colours to the mast. It involves moving towards others and asking for help. All these things are vulnerable-making.
I know these limitations and tender areas intimately because they crop up all the time in my own creative practices: writing, coaching, developing a business.
The key question I return to, with myself and others, is this: what happens if I neglect to make this thing? Who else in the world is equipped or qualified to make it in the way only I can make it?
A creative act—any creative act—is an expression of self. Making is mark-making, it is etching a part of our soul in space or on the surface of the planet we live on. It comes from an urge: to put into some sort of form (a stringing-together of images, sounds, marks, notes, movements) whatever we can pull together using the instruments and tools of our trade. To be a creator or a maker is to fill space with meaning; to put a stake in the ground of our identity, to recognise it for ourselves and to express it to the rest of the world—fearlessly, boldly, unashamedly.
If we are courageous enough to dwell temporarily in this place of uncertainty and lack, there are riches to be had. But at some point, we need to step out. An act of creativity is radical; it is more than just our small selves and our individual stories of scarcity. To be a creator or maker is an opportunity to experience the abundance of being—abundant because, through our making, we express our being. We share it with others and it is reflected back, spiralling and looping between you and I, between them and us, as the articulation of a collective gift.
