Life is short,
and craft long,
opportunity fleeting,
experimentations perilous,
and judgment difficult.
- Hippocrates
It was my birthday this week, and so naturally enough, the subject of the passing of time is on my mine. Like every other person on earth, I always feel like I need more time to do the things I want to do, make the art I want to make, etc. Ars longa, vita brevis is the aphorism that perhaps haunts us as creators — how will I ever get good enough in time, how will I ever create enough in time, how will I ever do everything I want to do? The craft itself is always immense in relation to the time we have available. There’s also something so delicious about living in the potential of things: someday, I’ll start that project. Someday, I’ll learn how to write/paint/draw better. Someday…
It’s that flurry of the first tingling of love; what a fabulous moment, when we realise how exciting and new it all is! What it ‘might’ be is so compelling. Then you have to actually make it and face up to how the reality compares to the dream. You have to settle in and realise just how much work it still needs. A novel or a film or an album - these terms feel enormous. How can any of us possibly have the time to get it all done and also, make it any good?
How much time do I really have?
It just drives me nuts… somebody arbitrarily says, 'You gotta do it in two days.' That fucking really pisses me off. It really does. We’re always up against the fucking clock… I’m not working this way again, ever. This is absolutely horrible. We never get any extra shots. We never get any time to experiment. We never get to, you know, go dreamy or anything.
- David Lynch
Time is money. Society glamorises the young. Everyone wants everything as quickly as possible. Even if the term ‘hustle culture’ has fallen somewhat out of vogue with the youngest generations — thank goodness — the thinking gets in: you ought to have got somewhere by a certain age or time, achieving the glory of the established artist before it’s too late. I’ve talked before about the role of “talent”, but I think the missing component to that discussion was around the matter of time.
I do this exercise sometimes in some of the workshops I teach. It starts with a simple question: what factors influence whether or not your art gets done? Take a minute to think out your own answers for yourself. This comes directly from a therapy session I had with a CBT therapist once upon a time, but I’ve seen it repeated in a number of writing workshops. Answers might include:
Work commitments/scheduling
How much free time you have
Family duties and commitments
How much time you put in to your art
Whether you’re feeling especially self-critical
Whether you feel inspired
Whether you feel motivated
Your environment where you work
Etcetera.
Next, I ask participants to create a table with two columns: one labelled ‘in my control’ and the other labelled ‘outside my control’. If you had to place all of your listed items in one of the columns, where would you place them? Inside your control? Or outside your control?
This always generates a really rich discussion. There’s no exact right or wrong, but it’s a good one to really think over. After all, most of these things are not entirely in your control — your family duties, work commitments, your feelings, even your environment, may not be things that you can actively change. However, there’s one item on this list that stands out as a possibility to me: how much time you decide to put in. Only you get to decide what that number is. And of course, it comes in relation to all the other items on your list - your work schedule and other commitments moderate the amount of time that is ‘free’ to be used on art. But let’s say you know you have four free hours every Saturday. Still, you might choose to put that time into something else. That’s okay. That’s a choice. This choice is not without consequences.
The stark reality is that if I made no dedicated time at the desk whatsoever, the words would never meet the page. And so I have to find a balance between prioritisation of the many elements of my life, many of which are outside my control, and the desire to get things done (acknowledging the need for the time to do that work). Regularity appeals to me in this way, though not, perhaps, in a rigid sense. I can certainly find something to write about every day, but I also need to build in other kinds of dedicated practice, which involve living my life.
What will you spend time on?
You need to write about the life you’ve lived. It can’t all be aspirational. It’s part of your job, as a poet, to write out of experience. To name what matters to you. You’ve only got one life to draw on.
Edward Hirsch, The Paris Review
We don’t know how much time we will have. And as much as I feel my work could consume up every other inch of my existence, I find this quote from Edward Hirsch compelling. You’ve only got one life to draw on, he says. And while you might imagine many other lives in your work, this reminds me of the importance of living alongside making. I don’t want to remain chained at my desk to the detriment of the rest of my life; if this makes me a bad artist, I can accept that.
I’ve mentioned it before, but Ann Patchett told a Wall Street Journal interviewer quite recently that she does not write every day; that the whole joy of being a writer is that she has flexibility, and that her practice grows up out of her life. I like that idea, not only because I value flexibility more broadly, but because it hints at the notion that my life is part of my craft. And by extension, my time is therefore no longer rigidly compartmentalised into art-making versus non-art-making time. Of course there will be more focused, more productive moments. But my whole life can now tally up as part of my creative process. That gives me a heck of a lot more time.
For another element to this, I turn my attention to one of the greats, who I often draw from when I talk about this in workshops: Toni Morrison. On the matter of her dedicated writing time and routine, Morrison said:
I am not able to write regularly… I have never been able to do that—mostly because I have always had a nine-to-five job. I had to write either in between those hours, hurriedly, or spend a lot of weekend and predawn time.
In other words, she didn’t have a bunch of time to spare. She was a single parent while she held down her day job throughout a lot of her writing life. She continues:
When I sit down to write I never brood. I have so many other things to do, with my children and teaching, that I can’t afford it. I brood, thinking of ideas, in the automobile when I’m driving to work or in the subway or when I’m mowing the lawn. By the time I get to the paper something’s there—I can produce.
This tells me so much about Morrison’s work ethic and approach, and it’s one I always return to because I find it practical, realistic and humble. These are methods I can also employ; this is an attitude I too can adopt. I don’t brood at the desk because I am in the process everywhere I go. If my time actually at the desk is limited, at least it can be maximised. Time gets bigger, more generous, and suddenly, there’s room to breathe. Room to get a bit dreamy.
If I can view my time differently, this helps include much more within the practice of creativity. But beyond this, I also have to accept that what I give my time to is a demonstration of what I value. I don’t think we can value a lot of things at once. For me, having only a few core values that dictate the rest makes it simple to decide where I should place my time. I care about my relationships and I prioritise my art; I do work on my craft most days (if not everyday) because I find joy in it. I know there will always be trade offs. To quote Doris Lessing:
You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.
Ultimately, there is only a finite amount of time for each of us to do what matters to us. And we are not entirely in control of that process. Play and dreaming are so undervalued in a system that prioritises productivity and output. But we can make some choices; we have the capacity to decide in some key ways.
So, how will you make your time reflect what you really value?
Until next time,
Be well.