Moments of Conception 079 - The Interview Scene from Pollock

August 20, 2014 2:45 PM

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the interview scene in Pollock:

What can we learn?

Rituals to accompany your
creative journey. Pollock
works from within. He trusts himself. He knows that in the creative process,
nothing is guaranteed, but nothing is gained by predicting the worse, either.
So why dismiss rather than affirm his chances? He proves that when we
point ourselves in the direction of possibility, optimistically announcing that
our internal, external and cosmic resources are available to us, we increase
the odds of success. When I started my career as a writer, I began using a
series of affirmations and short cognitions. They pointed my mind in the
direction I wanted it to go. They talked me into a more trusting frame of mind.
And they loosened the grip of my negative thoughts. One example from my daily
centering sequence is the phrase I trust
my resources. When I recite those four words throughout the day, I draw a single deep breath, using my
respiration as a ten second container for that specific thought, matching the
rhythm of my respiration to the symmetry of the words. It’s a small, simple
tool, but it works wonders because of accumulation. Like any routine practiced
multiple times a day for several years, it has a profound effect on your
mindset. What ritual could you employ to
intentionally support your ability to trust yourself?

Trust comes from experience. In the water purification
process, the goal is to remove all the undesirable chemicals, biological
contaminants and gases before the water is fit for human consumption.
Interestingly, trusting yourself works the same way. In order to keep trust
alive, you must start with making yourself trustworthy. Meaning, you have to
endure a process that removes the
mental contaminants, like doubt and fear and anxiety, which prevent you from
trusting yourself. And that purification process, of course, is creating art. Repetition. Dedicated
practice. Daily discipline. Accumulating a track record of trustworthy
behaviors that make your more likely to believe in yourself. Pollock trusted
his unique style of drip painting, but only because he first spent so many
years experimenting with novel tools like enamels and sticks and basting
syringes and paint applicators. That was his purification process. He was
building a bank of experience that deepened and broadened his trustworthiness. By
staying in motion, continually creating everyday, he ultimately accumulated
enough experience to trust himself. Do
you spend your time building up your strength or worrying about whether or not
you’re going to become successful?

We become what we expect. When we trust
ourselves, we tend to prove ourselves right. When we believe in the
availability of our own answers, they tend to show up at the right time. That’s
how expectation works. It’s not magic, it’s a psychological primer for future
performance. It’s been scientifically proven that there’s a positive correlation
between expectation and performance. And so, if we proclaim ourselves as
creative and prolific and artistic, then we’re already ahead of the game. What
if, then, we started
each day of work from the sure place that we were artists, no matter how our current
projects were going, no matter what we saw on the page in front of us? What if
we announced to ourselves that we were well equipped with sufficient
internal assets to be successful? These sorts of expectations can have a
profound effect on our attitudes. Because we can’t always wait for
overwhelming evidence to trust ourselves. Sometimes we just have to act as if.
Do you have a deep belief that everything
you’ve experienced in your life, up until this very moment, will sufficiently
support whatever you do in the next moment?