Steven Pressfield calls it the Muse. Rick Rubin calls it the Source. Some call it God.
Their point is that creativity and ideas come from somewhere or someone else. It does not come from the artist. It’s otherworldly. The artist is the listener and the conduit. The typist.
I, myself, have briefly experienced this otherworldly Source (I call it God, by the way) twice that I can remember vividly. One time, as a teenager, sitting behind my drum kit. Another time, standing at the front of a room talking to a group of people. In both cases, the sounds that came out were special, or at least felt special.
I didn’t know where it came from, but for sure, it wasn’t me. I felt like a conduit. I felt tuned in. It’s definitely “flow,” but also different than the normal flow state, which is pedestrian by comparison. It’s full-out channeling. I’m hoping it/he/she visits me again.
The bottom line is maybe we need less “I did this” and more recognition that it is, in fact, not us. Our job is simply to listen.
