You don’t create work, you share it

Elizabeth Gilbert has a fascinating look at this.

For centuries, the Greeks and the Romans viewed our milieu as a place where ideas visit you.

That each of us has a genius or a muse reaching out. You acted as the conduit for ideas to flow. You didn’t have the responsibility to create. Your job was to bring the work from the imaginative world to the real one.

It’s not a bad way to look at things if you are feeling blocked.

Each of us is capable of great ideas that can change the world. Each of us has had a moment of inspiration where you can see with your mind’s eye the very possibility of a world that doesn’t exist.

But we don’t follow through.

And sometimes, we see that very idea executed by someone else later down the road.

The difference was that they said Yes. They said Yes to pushing through the dip and shipped the work into the world.

It turns out, the term, “Butterflies in our stomach” didn’t come from nowhere. Our viscera has a brain of its own and can send signals to influences emotions.

Whether it is a muse or a feeling in our stomach, you have the call to action. Don’t ignore it. Trust your gut.

And when it seems like the well of ideas has gone dry, keep working. And when all you are writing is bad ideas, keep typing.

That is when great work shows up.

Salto mortale. Dare to take the leap into the unknown to see what happens.