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The Creative Act

A Way of Being

Audiobook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 4 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 4 weeks
The #1 New York Times bestseller.
"A gorgeous and inspiring work of art on creation, creativity, the work of the artist. It will gladden the hearts of writers and artists everywhere, and get them working again with a new sense of meaning and direction. A stunning accomplishment.” —Anne Lamott
From the legendary music producer, a master at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book many years in the making that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us.

I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be.” —Rick Rubin
Many famed music producers are known for a particular sound that has its day. Rick Rubin is known for something else: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. He has made a practice of helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable. Over the years, as he has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn’t, he has learned that being an artist isn’t about your specific output, it’s about your relationship to the world. Creativity has a place in everyone’s life, and everyone can make that place larger. In fact, there are few more important responsibilities.
The Creative Act is a beautiful and generous course of study that illuminates the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It distills the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime’s work into a luminous reading experience that puts the power to create moments—and lifetimes—of exhilaration and transcendence within closer reach for all of us.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 7, 2022
      Grammy-winning music producer Rubin debuts with a meditative manual on how to boost one’s creativity. “Your entire life is a form of self-expression,” Rubin contends, applying lessons he’s learned in the recording studio to inject creativity into everyday life. Observing that listeners sometimes require time to come around to a novel new song, Rubin suggests that the “ideas that least match our expectations are the most innovative” and encourages readers to consider “radically new” ideas even if they turn one off at first. A project is only done “when you feel it is,” he posits, entreating readers to seek out the perspectives of others when nearing completion while recognizing that not all feedback will be helpful because innovative work is “likely to alienate as many people as it attracts.” Rubin stresses that readers should find what works for them, as when he urges readers to incorporate into their routines creativity-inducing habits that might include exercise, meditating, or “looking at sunlight before screenlight.” The dispatches read like ancient spiritual texts in their Zen-like wisdom, as when Rubin writes, “Accessing childlike spirit in our art and our lives is worth aspiring to.” Music fans will rejoice.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This meditation on how to access our creative potential is from an iconoclastic hip-hop music producer known for his ability to bring out the best in the artists he records. It's a highly personal audiobook, one in which the ideas and worldview expressed can't be separated from the author, so it's fitting that his performance was captured close-microphone and sounds intimate. The power in his beautiful baritone voice combined with his dramatic elocution may sound overwrought to some. Nonetheless, his commitment to these ideas is audible. Overall, the presentation works to provide accessible tools for becoming more alive, along with encouraging us all that we can be artists in the way we connect with the world and make choices based on what we draw from it. T.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

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Languages

  • English

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