Everyone benefits from the things that creative people produce. But the heart of creation – the fragile dance of emotion and cognition that every creator knows – is rarely discussed.

Every creator – every composer, painter, songwriter, poet, videographer, screenwriter, author, set designer, comedian, comic book artist, game designer, social media “influencer,” and so on (the list is vast) – knows the balance between thought and feeling.

But there is so much more that may not be immediately apparent when you think of a “creator.” Someone created the device upon which you are likely reading this. A creator came up with the idea of the Internet and 5G and WiFi and Bluetooth and fiberoptic data transmission.

There was a time that the things you take for granted did not exist.

Your car and the roads upon which it travels and the machines that make those roads. The building that houses your favorite coffee shop and the drinks therein. The app you use to pay for those drinks. The job you do to earn your pay and money itself.

Everything you see and use everyday, from your toaster to your espresso machine. Your toilet (NOT designed, it turns out, by Thomas Crapper) and your water supply. Your clothes and the clothes under them and unspeakables like condoms and tampons.

All came from nothingness to concrete function at the hands of a creator. In every case, the person(s) responsible for these things lived in the etherial intersection of function and form, of esthetics and practicability, of logistics and inspiration.

Of head and heart.

The Muse

Muse, whether noun or verb, refers to both the method of allowing inspiration to manifest and the inspiration itself. Your muse is a being – real or mythological – that brings ideas to you, that inspires you. That allows you to breathe life into that which previously did not exist. (The word inspire literally means “to breathe.”)

This is the act of creation itself. The moment that ideas emerge from silence. The Aha! that brought about Beowulf and the light bulb and E=MC².

This is the moment that a song appears from random guitar noodling. That a (literal) blank canvas manifests a masterpiece. The muse is the psychospiritual state that enables a composer to sit at a keyboard in a dark room and conjure a soundtrack out of the ether.

Your muse is a personification of the mercurial and mysterious process that enables the “flow” state. And enabled the book Flow that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote about it.

To invoke the Muse is to evoke a state of receptiveness.

To be receptive we must be open and to be open is to be vulnerable.

We sit in this vulnerable, receptive state – whether in quiet meditation, in study at a laboratory bench, or while listening to Metallica – and clear our minds of distraction. The closer we come to a tabla rasa of thought the more room we create for the muse to appear.

The moment those new ideas appear, we have reached the heart of creation.

And as soon as we reveal those ideas to the public, we invite the slings and arrows of outrageous jealousy and negativity to pierce that heart.

The Warrior

Rare indeed is the creator that brings forth heretofore unseen revelations in a critical vacuum.

Today’s creator is unlikely to be sponsored by a royal government to go forth and discover as was Charles Darwin. (And, of course, On the Origin of Species – Darwin’s creation – was absolutely besieged by critics and other ne’er-do-wells.)

The creative in modern times must be willing and able to exist in both the fragile, receptive state of the muse, and the steadfast, logical guise of the warrior.

An idea is born. The creator deems the idea worthy of manifestation in the material world.

The first hurdle is to develop a proverbial “thick skin.” We must survive the endless “that will never work” and the evergreen, “Why are you wasting your time on that? Get a real job.”

The next task is to bring the newly-hatched concept to the people who could benefit from it.

Now the creator must be savvy in business, in copyright and intellectual property protection and marketing and sales and distribution and social media and Facebook ads.

Two events are guaranteed for a truly good idea:

First, the idea will be publicly ridiculed and discredited.

Second, people of lesser capability will do anything to steal the idea. In many cases, the would-be thieves are the very same ridiculers and discreditors.

So the creator must possess both the receptivity of the muse and the toughness of the warrior. If it sounds exhausting, it is. Even worse, the muse and the warrior occupy mental and physical spaces that are not only unrelated, but the mindset required by each sits in stark contrast to the other.

The Heart of Creation

And now we see that the Heart of Creation refers not only to the emotional heart of the creator, but also to the heart of the creative process itself.

There is a battle at the heart of the creative process; a cognitive dissonance in the heart of the creator. Every creator who brings a creation to the public faces a categorical imperative: simultaneously embrace the vulnerable openness of the muse and don the armor of the warrior.

The receptive, so-called “right-brain” that brings forth an idea can feel very much at odds with the logical, organized “left-brain” that brings the idea to market. (While this conceptualization is useful for semantic purposes, the neurophysiological notion of hemispheric specialization of this sort has been largely disproven.)

As a creator, I understand fully the schizophrenic duality of birthing ideas and then bringing them to public life.

As a counselor, I get the internal struggles that creative types face, and the damage that can be done by a burden of that magnitude.

If you can deal with both personas, bless you. Go forth and create.

If it all begins to feel like “too much,” reach out for help. Then go forth and create.

The message is simple: No matter what, go forth and create.

The world needs your ideas.

As always, I welcome your thoughts. You can reach me through the comments section on my Substack or Medium accounts or the blog section on my website. If this article as of value to you, please follow my Instagram and Twitter accounts. And be sure to subscribe to my River Of Creation podcast – The Podcast for Creators! – coming later this year.

Be well; do good!

• JWW