THE BOSS OF ME
EPISODE 022: THE BOSS OF ME
Most of us learned early how to behave, how to blend in and do what we were told, but art-making and creativity is no place for obedience, most especially when the voices asking us to play nice are the ones on the inside, telling us to play nice and maintain the status quo. Rebellion for the sake of rebellion isn’t helpful, but obedience for the sake of obedience can kill the creative spirit. Let’s talk about it.
Prefer to Listen Elsewhere?
Listen on iTunes | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher
Do me a favour? Would you take a moment and give this show a rating and review in iTunes.
Want More? A Beautiful Anarchy is published 3 out of 4 weeks. On those fourth weeks you can still get your fix through On The Make, my monthly missive about the creative life. Subscribe now and I’ll make sure you don’t miss a thing, and every month I’ll draw the name of one subscribed listener and send them a signed copy of my book, A Beautiful Anarchy.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
I’ve alluded in past episodes to my college years, studying theology on the Canadian prairies at two separate colleges both set in the middle of nowhere in locations, one assumes that were chosen as much for their remoteness as anything else. I suppose when there is literally nothing for miles it’s easier to contemplate eternity, and harder to get into the kind of trouble that might imperil young and impressionable souls.
Life at these schools was regulated by sets of rules that, in hindsight, seem draconian to me. Hair had to be a certain length. Dress codes were enforced. Earrings for men were forbidden as well, so I got 3 of them. We were forbidden from going to cinemas, or, God forbid, drinking alcohol. Most of all we had to think in certain ways. The Church has long frowned darkly on deviance of thought, and though one hopes we’re a long way from the days of burning heretics, there have always been repercussions for those who stray from dogma.
It probably, then, comes as no surprise to know that my relationship with the leadership of these schools wasn’t always an easy one. My life since then has been one of growing suspicion toward rules, and of rebellion against anyone that tells me what to do, and though I don’t go out of my way to drive on the wrong side of the road just to stick it to the man, I will colour wildly outside the lines the moment I have a chance.
I’m David duChemin, and this is episode 022 of A Beautiful Anarchy, a conversation about the need for a little more defiance in our creative lives. Let’s talk about it.
Music / Intro
Listen carefully to daily conversations and you’ll probably find that there are a lot of “shoulds” that get thrown around. A lot of gatekeepers. Obligations. Expectations to act and be and think in certain ways. There are plenty of people that would like to pretend to have the last word, the ones with the word “should” too frequently on their lips and aimed at others. Inexplicably, so many of them are most vocal in the arts and other areas of creativity. But part of being an adult is taking responsibility for our choices, not abdicating those choices to others, though it’s a hard switch, isn’t it? We spend all those years as a kid being taught to obey, so when we become adults we often just keep on acquiescing. Trying not to rock the boat.
I wonder what ever happened to that kid that used to put his hands on his hips and yell “you’re not the boss of me!” We were usually wrong at the time, we almost always said that to people that were in fact the boss of us, for a time. But now when we’re truly our own bosses, we’ve all but forgotten that defiance. And if you’re thinking that, in fact, you DO have a boss, I want to remind you that power is given to others, not taken, and there is no-one but you in charge of your life. You are still the boss of you.
Someone told me recently she was a coward, as though that were an inescapable state of being. We are all afraid of something. But fear is not what we are. Fear is only a voice. We can listen to it, we can learn from it, we can let it point us in the direction of important (read: scary) work. But we need not obey it. When did we all become so damn obedient? When did we start taking “no" for an answer when we used to be so good at taking the cookie from the cookie jar and pressing the button we were told not to press, just to see what happens? Someone used to insult us and we’d hurl back: sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. It was bullshit, of course. Words hurt more. The scars go much deeper and stay much longer. But at least we were defiant.
The art spirit is a lot of things. One of them is defiant. That word has been rattling around in my brain a lot lately, settling in to some old wounds and helping me find new freedoms. It’s another way of looking at what I’ve long called this beautiful anarchy of art-making and creativity. Not because there’s value in rebellion for rebellion’s sake but because there is danger in being obedient for the sake of obedience. Conformity pushes the human soul in the wrong direction; it only works because it feels safe. Just keep your head down, blend in, it’ll all be OK. But it never is, not if the cost of being OK is the loss of a fuller expression of who we are. I’d rather be completely me than totally OK. Surely life isn’t about keeping the peace and making sure the boat isn’t being rocked, and doing that for as long as we can until we slide out of this life without making so much as a ripple?
Innovation and creative thinking, and the making of any new thing is a movement away from what is and what has been done. It’s going to encounter resistance. It must. In fact if it doesn’t encounter some resistance from some direction, it’s a good sign it’s not worth the time. It’s going to draw out those that prefer the comfort of what is and has been, over the uncertainty of new and different. And it had damn-well better cause some ripples.
We need more ripples, and less status quo. We need people who are a little less careful with their words and a little more honest. We don’t need more jerks, I’m not arguing that we set aside kindness or compassion; I’m arguing that it is a conspicuous lack of compassion to ask ourselves and others to be and do what is not in their hearts where their life and art are concerned, to spend their lives in service of something they don’t have the freedom to question and toward which they have the chance to take a contrary position.
A healthy spirit of defiance has always been part of making art, and though creative efforts have been used just as often to reinforce the status quo, we usually call that propaganda. The impressionists exhibited defiance in exploring the new techniques and forms that they did, they weren’t exactly stuffing rags into bottles filled with fuel and burning cars, but they were defiant. Picasso was defiant in painting Guernica. Frida Khalo was defiant.
But for so many of us these examples feel a world away, so let me suggest another voice against which creatives need to be defiant and that’s our own inner critic. For some of us it’s not even a single voice as much as it is a choir. They tell you you can’t. They tell you you shouldn’t, that no one wants what you make so you might as well stop the making. They tell you you’re getting worse, not better. If it feels like I’m in your head, it’s because I hear, or have heard all of these voices. We all have. And you can either acquiesce or defiantly remind them: they’re not the boss of you.
Too many of us are living by rules, expectations, and obligations that we never signed off on. We just kind of eased into them, and when we woke to the reality we were told just to keep our heads down, don’t make a fuss, and don’t rock the boat and everything will be OK. Well it’s not OK. It is not alright that the things we need to say go unsaid. It’s not alright that it’s easier to sustain apathy than to care deeply. It’s not alright that you have a unique way of seeing this world and so far as we know, just one chance to explore that and hold the mirror up for us, and your own choir of critics is telling you to hold your tongue.
At the risk of sliding into a sermon, you have one short beautiful life, and it’s already picking up speed as it heads for the finish line, and no matter how many days you’re lucky enough to have, they won’t be enough and none of us knows how many we have until it’s too late. There are no prizes handed out at the end for the most cooperative, the ones who risked so little that they got to the end unscathed, but also unknown to themselves and to others because they never took the chance. The only blue ribbon goes to the one who lived fully and on their terms.
Showing the world, even the ones we love the most, who we really are, is not only a profound act of vulnerability, but of defiance. It’s an act of rebellion against the voices that say you’re not good enough, that the people you love can handle the lighter parts of you but not the shadows. To forgive others and yourself and to move on, are acts of defiance. So is love. It’s an act of all out anarchy to live and love on your terms and to make whatever it is you make from that place of courage and transparency, to give the world not what it thinks it wants but what it needs, and to take the chance that that gift will be received about as well as the socks your grandmother gave you every Christmas.
In the world of creativity there are no rules, but there are plenty of voices trying to clamour for our obedience all the same, telling us to sit down and shut up. To play it safe. To just be normal, for God’s sake. Bruce Cockburn said it well when he sang, “the trouble with normal, is it only gets worse.” And if that’s where all this rule-following is leading us, then, friends, I aim to misbehave. I hope you’ll join me.
Thanks so much for letting me keep you company for a few minutes today. If these short conversations are helpful to you I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a note at talkback@beautifulanarchy.com if you get a moment. I release new episodes of A Beautiful Anarchy 3 out of every 4 weeks but if you still want your fix on the 4th week, I’d love to send you the latest issue of On The Make, which is my monthly chance to encourage you in your everyday creativity by email. Just go to aBeautifulAnarchy.com, hit the link in the bar at the top, and tell me where to send it. I’ll also send you a copy of my eBook, Escape Your Creative Rut, 5 Ways to Get Your Groove Back. Thanks ever so much for being part of this with me. Until next time, go make something beautiful.
Music in this episode: Acid Jazz (Kevin Macleod) / CC BY-SA 3.0