Book summary: BIG MAGIC by Elizabeth Gilbert

Creating Living Beyond Fear

Great way to become anything that calls to your heart and brings you to life:
Practice it as an act of devotion, love, lifelong commitment to the search grace, and transcendence.

Who may read?

The wisdom and unique perspective in this book could be read by all age groups and from all walks of life.
Whether you are looking to write a book, make art, find new ways to address challenges in your work, simply infuse your every day with more mindfulness and passion.
BIG MAGIC open’s a world of wonder and joy.

5 key definitions related to creativity from the book

#1 Q. What is creative living?
We are all walking repositories of buried treasure. The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see them if we can find them. The hind of uncovering those is creative living.
And, surprising results of that hunt is what BIG MAGIC.

#2Q. What is inspiration?
An intensely emotional and physiological reaction, call it by name: inspiration.

#3Q. What is an idea?
– Ideas are a disembodied, energetic life-form.
– They are completely separate from us but capable of interacting with us – albeit strangely.
– Ideas have no material body, but they accomplish have consciousness and they most certainly have a will.
– Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest.
– The only way an idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner.
– It is only through a human’s efforts that an idea can be escorted out of the ether and into the realm of the actual.

#4Q. What is creative entitlement?
Creative entitlement doesn’t mean behaving like a princess or acting as though the world owes you anything whatsoever.
No, creative entitlement simply means believing that you are allowed to be here, and that- merely by being here- you are allowed to have a voice and a vision of your own.

#5Q. What is pure creativity?
It is magnificent expressly because it is the opposite of everything else in life that’s essential or inescapable. It’s something better than a necessity; it’s a gift.

12 quotes on creativity from the book.

1.  “We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. Without the bravery, you would ever be able to realize the valuation scope of your own capacities.” – Jack Gilbert

2. Argue for limitations and you get to keep them.- saying
(Ask yourself what do you want to do with your life: Do you have the strength to bring forth this work?)

3. “Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.” – Sir Arthur Eddington
(I don’t need to know what)

4. “The best place to pitch a tent will always be the spot marked NO CAMPING.” – Elizabeth Gilbert’s father

5. “Ascend no longer from the textbook!” – Walt Whitman
( there are many ways to learn that do not necessarily involve schoolrooms)

6. “Peple’s judgment ain’t what they call you; it’s what you answer to.” – W.C. Fields

7. “Do what nature demands. Get a move on – if you and don’t worry whether anyone will give you credit for it. And don’t get expecting Plato’s Republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant” – Marcus Aurelius

8. “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don’t bring forth what is within you, what you don’t bring forth will destroy you.”- Gospel of Thomas

9. ” A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” – General George Patton

10. “The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility.” – Francis Bacon

11. ” Any artist who is an alcoholic is an artist despite their alcoholism, not because of it.” – Raymond Carver

12. ” Don’t rush through the experience and circumstances that have the most capacity to transform you.” – Pastor Rob Bell

Major teachings from the book

– Why does fear is boring?
Your dreams and perspectives and aspirations within you are original. But your fear is not original.

– Bravery v Fearlessness
Bravery means doing something scary.
Fearlessness means not even understanding what the word scary means.
You absolutely do need your fear. But you do not need your fear in the realm of creative expression.

– You have hidden treasures hidden within you.
Bringing those treasures to light takes work and faith and focus and courage and hours of devotion.

– Why do we decline inspirations?
Mostly, due to invitation out of laziness, angst, insecurity, or petulant.
But other times you might need to say no to an idea because it is truly not the right moment, or because you’re already engaged in a different project, or because you’re certain that this particular idea has accidentally knocked on the wrong door.

– What to do when you say “yes” to an idea?
You have officially entered into a contract with inspiration, and you must try to see it through, all the way to its impossible-to-predict outcome.

– What would happen if you neglect an idea?
The neglected idea would do what many self-respecting living entities would do in the same circumstance: it hit the road.
If inspiration is allowed to unexpectedly enter you, it is also allowed to unexpectedly exit you.

– You can receive your ideas with respect and curiosity, not with drama and dread. By:
– you can support other people in their creative efforts.
– you can measure your worth by your dedication to your path
– you can believe that you are neither a slave to inspiration nor its master, but something far more interesting-its partner.
– you might earn a living with your pursuits or you might not, but you can recognize that this is that point point
– you can thank creative for having blessed you with a charmed, interesting, passionate existence.

– Do you want to defend yourself as a creative person?
Stand up tall and say it aloud, whatever you are.

– When you are afraid that ‘your creative work has already been done?
Most things have already been done but they have not yet been done by you. But once you put your own expression and passion behind an idea, that idea becomes yours.
If it’s authentic enough-it will feel original.

– Be careful about safeguarding your future but also about safeguarding your sanity.
Free yourself so that you can live and create more freely, as you were designed by nature to do.

– Appreciates being appreciated
Inspiration will overhead your pleasure, and it will send ideas to your food as a reward for your enthusiasm and your loyalty.

– If you want to live a contented creative life.
Say;” My creative expression must be the most important thing in the world to me and it is also must not matter at all.

– When can you start pursuing your most creative and passionate life?
You can start whenever you decide to start. Because your education isn’t over when they say it’s over, you

– Creative living is always possible
The essential ingredients for creativity remain exactly the same for everybody: courage, enchantment, permission, persistence, trust – and those elements are universally accessible.

– Fake it till you make it.
Seduce the big magic and it will always come back to you -the same way a raven is captivated by a shiny, spinning thing.

– Forget about perfection.
Perfect is not only the enemy of the good; it’s also the enemy of the realistic, the possible, and the fun.

– Create whatever you want to create
Nobody is thinking about you. Let it be stupendously imperfect because it’s exceedingly likely that nobody will even notice.

– Definition of success.
Conventional success would depend upon three factors – talent, luck, and discipline.

– Concept of devotional discipline
Do what you live to do, and do it with both seriousness and lightness.

– The world is a place of deep unfairness
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Talent means nothing, connections mean everything, and the world of creativity -like the greater world itself- is a mean and unfair place.

– You must never surrender.
“No” doesn’t always mean no, and that miraculous turn, of fate, can happen to those who persist in showing up.

– Creativity wants a relationship with you.
Think about it: If the only thing an idea wants is to be made manifest, then why would that idea deliberately harm you, when you are the one who might be able to bring it forth?
Nature provides the seed; man provides the garden; each is grateful for the others’ help)

– Your creative work is not your baby; if anything, you are its baby.
You are who you are today precisely because of what you have made and what your creativity has made you into.

– Stop preaching of the passion
Forget about passion. Don’t sit around waiting for passion to strike you.
Because it is our privilege as humans to keep making things for as long as we live.

– Passion v curiosity
Passion can seem intimidating out of reach at times.
Curiosity is a milder, quieter, more welcoming,  and more democratic entity.

– If you can’t do what you long to do, go do something else. Do something. Do anything.
You might think it’s procrastination but with the right intention- it isn’t; it’s motion. And any motion whatsoever beats inertia because inspiration will always be drawn to motion.

One line conclusion to the book

Only when you are at your most playful can divinity finally get serious with you.