Road Trips and Resistance
A Creative Changemaker’s task is to move people to take action through the art of storytelling. It’s a parallel journey. Both the artist and the audience are on a journey from the world that is towards the world that could be.
From the artist, this journey demands commitment to a craft- be it speaking, documentary making, or even something like cooking. (See: Andres, Jose) Meanwhile, the audience is called to action. A sustained, significant action. Planting trees. Speaking out against bigotry. And so on.
To keep that sustainable, it helps to link that action to a state of flow: the activity that you love so much, participating in it makes time start to breeze by. So, how does one keep that momentum?
In my newest Creative Changemaker episode, and the following post, I dig into a metaphor that’s helped me out a whole bunch.
Steven Pressfield says, “the more important a call or action to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”
How do you get past that resistance?
Here's a metaphor that's helped me. I think of creative movement like a road trip. Just like how you need a vehicle, destination, fuel, and a key to get it all started... you need different elements to get your creative work going. You need a vision for the world you want to make, a craft or call-to-action that gets us there, the motivation to get started, and something that gets you in the flow state to keep at it.
I’ve found it helpful to think of these things as similar to the components of a good road trip.
You need to have a destination. A sense of where you’re going. I think that’s comparable to having a vision for the world. A sense of what the world looks like when its restored to justice. When the problem you are addressing is finally solved.
You also need to have a way to get there. So does your audience. A craft and a call to action.
That’s your vehicle.
Do you write songs to inspire people to participate in major social movements?
Do you make documentaries so people know how to donate their money effectively?
Think about where your craft meets your audience’s call.
The two other parallels I’ve found helpful to consider: A car needs a key to catalyze a spark to get its engine started. People also need a spark to call them out of homeostasis into looking for something to do. Over the past few years we’ve seen plenty of people discover things in the world that make them angry and ways to get started in taking action.
You also need fuel (or perhaps a battery charge) to sustain that action. To keep in motion, it really helps to turn your craft from simply a chore into an act of joy. When that activity becomes something that nudges you into a state of flow, where you gain deep joy and lose track of time, that makes it pretty sustainable.
The reason why I find this metaphor so helpful is that maintaining creative momentum and overcoming resistance doesn’t take just one of them, but all of them running into each other. Shifting your focus from one to the other can also be a powerful way to get unstuck. If you’re having trouble improving your craft, try and simply focus on enjoying it. If you’re stuck and unable to get into the flow state, remember why you started. What moved you in the first place?
The process of creating change invites all kinds of resistance. But having the tools to move beyond that can be significantly helpful.