Four lightly held philosophies for living a creative life
by Steve Xoh

Many years back I wrote an article for a magazine entitled “Four lightly held philosophies for living a creative life.”

With most things I create (be that words, ideas, art) I tend to dislike it a couple of years later but this piece still resonates with me as a loosely held way I like to think about living my life so I wanted to re-publish it.

The original article was written as a way of answering the question I am often asked of “What is your process?” My honest answer is that I really don’t know if I have one. I am also very allergic, often unhelpfully, to looking towards repeated formulae for anything creative. But there seemed to be a pattern to how I perceive the world and how I approach things. So instead of a guide to creativity I decided to entitle the piece “Four lightly held philosophies for living a creative life.” Some simple underlying ideas that help me find light in the dark but are as equally useless as they are useful.

So hold them lightly.

Philosophy one: Be Fascinated

An artists* job is to be fascinated. Utterly fascinated. This is different to being interested. I’m interested in sharks but don’t feel compelled to spend my life travelling around the world studying them or taking risks to get close to them. But with things I am fascinated by I cannot not pursue them. When I find a deep fascination with something then there is no need to motivate myself towards action or summon up courage, energy or carefully plan my intentions - the deep wonder and curiosity generated by the fascination generates enough momentum by itself. It is like the fascination takes over and leads the rest of me by the hand towards it. Is it simply my job to follow (and try to not get in the way.)

Being fascinated is to pursue questions and not answers. It is to discover the question behind the question. To regard answers as dead-ends or wrong turns. To regard an exclamation mark simply as a question mark with rigor-mortis. To be fascinated is to give yourself permission to be wholly consumed by the thing that fascinates you. To take risks. To explore. To experiment. To allow yourself to spend every waking moment being fascinated to such an extent that the discouraging, dissenting voices (internal and external) telling you that there is more important stuff deserving of your attention simply fade into the background.

In 2018 I became fascinated by a curious question - “I wonder what the opposite of a podcast would be?” This led me to creating the world’s first silent podcast featuring special guests and all sort of adventures, trials and tribulations in which I met some of my heroes, spent far too much money and time recording nothing and created a weirdly popular cult podcast.

To be fascinated is to tune into the underlying mystery , magic and wonder of the human experience. And we tune into this not through trying but through letting go and allowing ourselves to hear the quite but deeply alluring whispers that have always been there calling to us.

* If you don’t consider yourself an artist then replace the word “artist” with “human”.

Philosophy two: Create windows into your world

Fascinated people are fascinating. Somebody who is in the grips of being utterly fascinated by something is utterly compelling to others.

In 2012 I was in a workshop led by the legendary theatre director Keith Johnstone. Keith set up an exercise in which, one at a time, we were to walk on the stage and do something that would keep the audience engaged. The audience were instructed that the moment they lost even a tiny bit of interest they were to get up and leave the room. Many of us tried this and lasted around 10-20 seconds. (I remember coming up with what I thought was a really great idea to be interesting but it failed miserably). Then one guy got up and captivated us even though he wasn’t doing much at all, other than looking at the marks and holes in the old wooden floor boards. He lasted about a minute and a half before people started to get up and leave. At the end Keith said “He went up and was simply being interested. The rest of you went up and tried to be interesting. It doesn’t work like that. Interested people are interesting!”

Creating windows into your world is simply finding ways in which people can experience you being fascinated. This philosophy runs counter to much of the advice of how to succeed which suggests that we need to put in a lot of effort, structure and work to market our passion and convince others it is worthy of their attention - often to the point where the marketing and sharing begins takes valuable time away from the passion itself.

Creating windows into your world turns all of that on its head. It casts aside the idea that it is our responsibility to sell and promote our work and instead invites us to simply create cracks in the third wall that people can peer in and witness us being fascinated. Some people will walk by, peer in and carry on walking. But others will stop and be captivated. Some will become so fascinated that they will regularly stop by the window to peer in and may ask if they can come and join you. This philosophy completely changed my relationship with social media, especially Instagram. I never make things to show on Instagram. Instead, Instagram is a window through which you can see what I am currently being fascinated by at any point in time.

But a window can be anything that you want it to be. Social media is an example but, in my experience, a very limited one as algorithms act as traffic police, directing people to the content that it favours from a profit making perspective. A window could be a blog, a workshop. Even an actual window in a studio or an office.

Over the last five or so years I have experimented with creating all sorts of windows into my world - weird talks in which I tell stories about my fascination, public art installations, everyday spontaneous conversations in which I share more than I habitually would about what I am up to and how I perceive the world, sitting in parks on a rug painting sticks with a sign saying “Free sticks - please take one.” All windows are experiments and we never know who will look in. But the important thing here is that the window allows all of your attention and energy to be devoted to being fascinated.

Philosophy three: Learn to live below your means

I read somewhere many years ago, that the advice to “Simply follow your passion” is problematic if you also want lots of nice things and financial security. (This may have been from one of Austin Kleon’s books but I can’t seem to find the quote anywhere so I equally may have dreamed it.) But, wherever I read it, it stuck with me. Not like some sort of demotivating hopeless reverse mantra, but a helpful articulation of how the world (at least the western, capitalist world) is pre-disposed to a particular model of what it means to be a productive and successful human being.

It can feel like if we don’t have a clear plan of how to turn our fascination into profit or growth or have a big audacious end goal or be seen to be growing a huge monitizable following then we are deficient in some way. If expressing our spontaneous creative selves doesn’t translate into some sort of progress or commercial achievement then it should simply be relegated to being a hobby that there is only time for when the urgent and productive work has been attended to. (I find the concept of hobbies simultaneously lovely and sinister for these reasons)

At the same time though it is important for our basic sustenance and wellbeing to be able to earn a living and build some sense of security (be that a roof over our heads or financially. Many artists I have spoken to say “I don’t care about the money” which is a noble statement but, at the end of the day, everyone needs sustenance and shelter of some knd.

When I first painted sticks in Regent’s Park one of the most frequent questions that I would get asked is “What are you doing this for?” or “What are you hoping to get from this?” Occasionally I would get some unsolicited advice that I should start selling the sticks or set up an Etsy shop to make a profit from them. (I was simply painting sticks because I was bored, lonely, house-sitting in Camden and with only black and white paint which felt like a good enough reason to be doing it.) I was doing it “Just for nice”.*

I’m aware that who I am, where I am from, my age, gender and many other factors mean that my means are greater than others (and also less than others) and living below them is contextually and economically different to others who live in different circumstances. It is important for me to continually acknowledge this whilst, at the same time, asking myself the question “what is enough?” Through doing this I am continually learning to let go of anything more than enough in order to create space for fascination and spontaneous self expression that, most often, doesn’t directly lead to a monetary reward.

* Just for nice is a lovely phrase attributed to the Pennsylvanian Dutch that refers to an activity or thing having no purpose other than being “for nice”. (e.g. What is the point of having that vase of beautiful flowers on the table? They are just for nice.)

Philosophy four: Hang out with other weirdos

If we spend our lives being fascinated, opening windows so other people can see what we are being fascinated by, whilst trying to live in a way that means we can exist outside of the financial structures of modern capitalist society, it can end up being a lonely place. If everyone around us is working in a more structured and traditionally effective way then it can feel like we have maybe lost the plot a little. Over the years I have been attempting to live my life in this way there have been many times where I have thought that it would be so much easier (financially, psychologically, motivationally) to return to the world of the seemingly stable and predictable “normal”.

It can feel like a somewhat isolating experience if we are choosing to live our lives in a way that is generally counter to society and what our friends and family regard as normal. We can feel like we are going insane when things get hard or complicated or we have to resort to somewhat desperate seeming measures to make ends meet or find ways of coping with uncertainty.

The importance of finding other weirdos to hang out with is therefore critical for our mental, emotional and philosophical wellbeing. To seek and hang out with others who are experimenting with living their lives in a similar ways that allow them to put their creative self expression at the heart of all they do.

Having an understanding and empathetic cacophony* of fellow weirdos is vitally important for our own resilience, sanity and to remind us of why we are doing this. The weirdo/outsider can be a comforter, a kindred spirit, an encourager/darer. They can also be a huge inspiration. I have been inspired more by weirdos and outsiders than experts and authorities in every aspect of my creativity.

*The official collective noun for a close cicrle of weirdos