This Revolution Will Not Be Advertised

Certainty is everywhere. It’s in the veins now, it’s in the internet’s blood.

Everyone is selling the perfect this thing or that, and everyone else is opining the best this thing or that. The mentality has taken Instagram from a fun way to make photos look old to the Infomercial Channel of every first idea that strikes.

It’s also taking the creative process from intimate adventure of self-discovery to case study for optimal, strategic productivity.

Run a search for “how to be more creative” and you will find no shortage of articles, podcasts, videos, courses, lists, and social media posts certain they will unlock a more productive—that is, more controllable—creative process.

That such a number of experts exists may be indicative of expertise worth questioning, but conversely, it reveals just how many creatives lack the confidence to find their way.

A road is to be driven

Over the past few weeks I have been car camping regularly. Warm enough temperatures have reached the midwest. Cool enough temperatures are still hanging around. I made myself window covers out of gaff tape and reflective insulation and bought a portable power station that can keep my stuff charged up a few days at a time.

This is a long way from the last 15 years of my life, which saw me typing away at a desk for upwards of eight consecutive hours at a time. If anyone is in search of certainty, it doesn’t require the purchase of other creatives’ routines. If anyone is out for certainty, type away at a desk for upwards of eight consecutive hours at a time.

Out in the wild, though, I have no idea what’s going to happen.

View from a picnic table desk.

At night the stars come out over the midwest, the people come out all across it. They are never the same stars; they’ve burned slightly onward in life since I saw them the night before.

The people come out the same way. Sometimes it’s dads heavy-eyed, popping out of minivans for beef jerky and the bathroom, sometimes it’s houseless adventurers lighting a grill in the shade.

I do my writing at parks and campgrounds and truck stops and big box stores within a couple hours of my apartment. I do it in the passenger seat and at picnic tables and I take long, slow walks after short, quick bursts of creativity.

I wave at people sometimes. I move away from poorly-behaved dogs sometimes.

At night, lying face up in my SUV with my feet toward the front, man, there can be the vroom of a big old truck off to somewhere important—and much more faintly, the sound of my breath, up and down like the universe expanding and in a trillion years contracting again, or whatever the hell it will do one day.

A process is to be gone through

I’ve been writing in the wild for nearly a month. I’m rarely at home anymore. I shower, I shave, I grab some clothes. I cook a couple of meals for the next few days.

My words feel so tiny this way.

Look at all of the words out there. How could any of them be big these days?

How could any of them be big against experts with a downloadable PDF?

How could any of them be big to tired dads and vrooming trucks?

But they are a breath in their own little universe—me—making a sound up and down until whatever the hell they’ll do one day. □