#005: Beyond Labels: The Truth About Real Community and Authentic Connection

Uh, in, in my personal, in my experience, creativity is a very deep spiritual process, not to be confused with religious. Um, and, and Rick Rubin would agree, you know, for, for me, creativity comes from a higher power, and I'm so tuned in and connected to that higher power that I don't. Ever have creative block. There's never a time when I don't have any good ideas. In fact, the problem that I have is That higher power. Funnels so many amazing and brilliant ideas to me that there is no possible way I could ever act on all of them. Um, in fact, sometimes it's kind of like, OK, please turn it off, you know, I can't sleep, please turn it off for eight hours so I can sleep type thing because they come so freely. Welcome to another edition of For the Love of Creatives podcast. I'm your host, Dwight, and I'm joined by our host. Maddox We're the connections and community guys, and today, we are the featured guests. We're going to be having a a nice little discussion that we're inviting you to join in. So today's discussion is what the podcast is all about and that is the intersection of creativity and community. So we're gonna talk a little bit about what they are we're gonna talk a little bit about what they aren't. We want to preface this with saying that we are sharing our perspective, our opinion, our viewpoint with you. We are not suggesting that this be your viewpoint necessarily. We would like to suggest that you keep an open mind and that you spend some time reflecting on what it means, what community means to you, what, um, creativity means to you, because we believe there's definitely value in that. So, before we jump in to to discuss. I thought it would be interesting to get a broader view of what creativity means so I consulted AI and I thought what I got back was intriguing enough to share it with you. I really enjoyed reading it, so I'm gonna share it with you and um although it differs in some ways, shapes and forms from our own thoughts, there was a lot that resonated. And so here we go, it's brief. Creativity is the ability to generate new ideas, perspectives, or solutions that are original and valuable. It involves thinking beyond conventional boundaries, making unexpected connections, and expressing oneself in unique ways. Creativity can manifest in many forms art, music, writing, problem solving, innovation, and even in the way we navigate everyday life. At its core, creativity is about transformation. Taking inspiration from the world around us and reshaping it into something new. It's both a process and a mindset requiring curiosity, imagination, and a willingness to take risks. Creativity thrives in environments that are that encourage experimentation, play, and collaboration where failure is seen not as a setback. But as a stepping stone to recovery. Now this is particularly my AI so it knows me and it went on to say, for you, Maddox, creativity is deeply intertwined with community. It's not just about what individuals create, but how they inspire, support, and co-elevate each other. Your work fosters a space where creativity isn't a solitary act but a shared experience where artists, makers, and dreamers can come together to explore, express, and thrive. That made little cold chills run all up and down my back. So, um, with that, let's dive in. Why don't you, um, why don't you take the lead, Dwight on creativity and yeah. Sure. Well, there are a lot of opinions about creativity, and I know that in recent years, there was a lot of attention paid to the work that uh famous record producer Rick Rubin put out on the Creative Act, where he had, I believe it was 78 separate ideas on the topic that he featured in a massive book and It's, it's something that we've seen referenced in some of the artist talks that we've attended. And there's, I mean, there's just a lot of meat on those bones, a lot to it. And more recently, I got to see something that was a little bit more condensed and a little bit more organized that I could really hold on to. A famous photographer named Chase Jarvis wrote a book in April of 23 of 24. Uh, that was called, uh, Never Play It Safe, a practical guide to uh freedom, creativity. Um, and in this book, He talked about this principle of there being 7 levers of creativity, and as I was reading, as I was listening to your definition. I heard echoes of how he'd organized the principle. So the seven levers are attention. Uh, time Intuition, constraints. Play, failure, and practice. And you're not reading those, are you? You have those memorized. I, I feel like it's something that I, uh, constantly refer back to. Like it's once a week I'm going and I'm able to, I hear something and I go back and I mine the stuff that's there and it's Just so easy to to relate to because Um, the, the beautiful thing about creativity is The way I understand it now, it's a part of what it is to be human. Like if we look at Um, what it is to fully express, uh, it's what gives us language and culture and what makes it so that we can innovate and solve problems and figure things out. If we didn't have creativity, things would just be dull. It'd be more than dull. I kind of view creativity as. Uh, the energy, the fuel of life, not it's in its entirety. I think there are other things in there that fuel life, but I can't imagine life without creativity. I mean, creativity is in everything we breathe, everything we think, everything we. We do, uh, in, in my personal, in my experience, creativity is a very deep spiritual process, not to be confused with religious. Um, and, and Rick Rubin would agree, you know, for, for me, creativity comes from a higher power, and I'm so tuned in and connected to that higher power that I don't. Ever have creative block. There's never a time when I don't have any good ideas. In fact, the problem that I have is That higher power. Funnels so many amazing and brilliant ideas to me that there is no possible way I could ever act on all of them. Um, in fact, sometimes it's kind of like, OK, please turn it off, you know, I can't sleep, please turn it off for eight hours so I can sleep type thing because they come so freely, um, there are times when they're more likely to come. Uh, all, all the creative ideas come while I'm meditating. They come while I'm in the shower, they come while I'm walking in nature. But they also just come in any random time. Those are times when they are stronger. Um, and they come in from sources like. Mm, overhearing a conversation at the next table in a restaurant. Somebody says something and just even if it's out of context and I didn't hear any of the other conversation. I might hear something that sparks that creative part of me. It could come from the words on a billboard as I'm flying down the freeway. It could come in the a single line in a song that I'm listening to on, uh, my streaming channel or it's a, a lot of it just has to do with being open to where you're going to find the inspiration or if you're just, if you're tuning in to the messages they're all around us all the time. They are. I, I think where people maybe get hung up, this is just an opinion once again is. We try to force creativity, right? You know, we've got a deadline, you know, we're looking at, we're writing a book and our publishers bearing down us and we've got a deadline and we're trying to force creativity and that could be largely the source of of creative block because creation is not something you can force it it's an energy all its own. And it's something that you have to open yourself to receive, not something you can order like a pizza online. Right. Yeah, it's creativity is something that you need to um Just be open to. It's not something that you can turn on and off, and I, I've seen if we apply it to things that are Considered to be removed from creativity. Just anytime we're having to deal with something that requires uh an intense thought, we know that we need to have moments of focus. But we also need to have those moments where we are. Doing anything other than that one thing that's dogging us. And that's the way progress is made. We, we know that there's wisdom from sleeping on a problem because we're able to uh approach it with fresh eyes and a renewed perspective. Yeah, when something is not coming to me, I just walk away. I just walk away and do something else and just let go of it and boom, before I can even hardly turn around. What I needed appears. Yeah. Um, I had something I wanted to say and it just drifted away. Hm. Keep you, you, you keep going. OK, back to me. Sure, yeah, I, I've learned to appreciate that there's definitely value in just, just kind of being a, a passenger in in the uh little story that's your life sometimes and just kind of hanging out and not, not really being too uh invested in the outcomes. Because the magic happens when you're, you're just a casual observer. If you can gain that third party perspective, then you can see all kinds of things that That the tunnel vision of just being so. So dependent on a specific outcome, blinded to. You know, I love what you said about a third party observer because that applies to so many things in life, you know, when, when we're in it, it's hard to see it. It's like not being able to see the trees for the forest, not being able to see the forest for the trees, however that saying goes, um, sometimes when we can step out of our situation and look as a, as a third party observer, um. It changes everything, you know, I, I too think that creativity is something that we have the ability to multiply. And the way I believe we multiply that is in community. Yeah, I believe that when we can sit down rather than sitting and trying to think up the ideas that we need, when we can sit down with one or others, one or more. And start to bat it back and forth like a tennis ball. It's not just, you know, 1 + 1 equals 2, it's more of an exponential thing you put two people in a room and you don't have double the amount of ideas you have exponentially more ideas, um, this, this just really drives home the power of community. Uh, I think that group brainstorming sessions. Hm. would be fabulous, absolutely fabulous, and I can't wait to to host those. Yeah. Yeah, um, do you want to slide into, uh, talking more about community now? You know, I kind of think you said you had some thoughts about what creativity isn't. Let's, let's talk about that for a minute. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, 11 concept that I think anyone can appreciate is there's definitely something about uh the dishonesty that comes from. Trying to duplicate at work and and pass it off as your own original creation. You know, we've seen it called out and in academia, it's a very serious offense to, uh, to do that very thing. Um, it's uh something that, you know, it's the easiest way to lose any kind of credibility or respect when you're on any kind of a stage. Because you're exposed for being. A total fraud. You know, I also think that this warrants a conversation about AI. I use AI a lot, um, but I don't use it to write my things. I, I don't use it to write my emails. I don't use it if I write a blog post or uh social media content. I may ask it for some ideas. Um, and it's great about that, but I think when we start letting AI write our emails, our blog posts, our social media content, a book. That's a kind of convoluted form of plagiarism. That's not really something you wrote. Uh, and I think people are smart enough to spot that a mile away, a mile away. So I think anytime we do that, we shoot ourselves in the foot. Now things that I'm not trying to pass off as my own, I, I rely on AI to help me come up with, um, titles for our podcast episodes. I rely on AI to help me write the show notes because I'm not trying to pass that off as my own. It's a summary of what the show is about. And so there's a lot of applications where AI can help us, but when we start. Like letting AI do the creativity for us because honestly anybody that trains and knows AI, AI is not creative. Right. AI doesn't have that, this is where humans come in. We, we have an ability to do something that AI can't do and may never ever be able to do and that is. The true form of creativity, right? Yeah, and most of the, the, the language learning models that we have ready access to have a lot of guardrails on them that that limit what they would be able to do and as a result, a lot of their output is, is kind of predictable. Yes, like it has a dull quality to it. Yes, it has a definite quality most of the time anything I read, I can tell you pretty clearly whether it was an author, you know, that that wrote it or whether it was AI. It's just that obvious to me. So, well, I, I think unless you have something else we pretty much sufficiently covered, um, creativity. If you're ready, we'll move on to community. Well, I, I, I do want to just put a pin on and one nuance to what I was saying about uh duplicating something isn't necessarily creative. I know that I want to honor that there is a process whereby when we're learning something. All that we have is to copy. Right, I mean, it's the way that we, we figure out how something is done if we don't have ready access to a master to teach us. And I, I think that's something that's uh uh kind of an, an honored tradition. A lot of, I, I've had the experience of going to the Louv pre-instagram. And seeing artists that would stand in front of the tiny painting of the Mona Lisa, and they would duplicate it. And I know that that was most likely a part of how they were mastering their craft. They were getting as close as they could to, uh, a master that they respected who, you know, was, you know, several generations gone. You know, I think it is also worth saying. That we borrow from everywhere we can, you know, it's been said that there's not really anything new at this point. It's, it's a taking a little bit of this over here and a little bit of that over there. Even what I read that AI said about creativity said it was collecting things from varying different sources and putting it together in a way that it hasn't been presented or put together. You know, you look at visual art, when somebody does a a multidisciplinary piece of art, if that's the right word, or, or, um, Yeah, where, where they have taken old pieces and scraps of this and that findings on the street and and they have put them in one piece of art that can be absolutely fabulous. Did they generate any of that like. You know, From scratch Probably not. So it just need to say that, you know, There's a a nuance in there. There is, it's kind of creativity is kind of like the, the, the classic, uh, definition of uh of porn. You don't necessarily know it, but you know it when you see it. Yeah. When I think about all the conversations that I have when it comes to. You know, personal growth work. It's a culmination of every book I've read, every class I've taken, every workshop, every retreat. Um, and layered in with my own personal experience. But it all came, a lot of it, a lot of it came from somewhere else. Yeah. OK, there's nothing, there's nothing new under the sun. Uh, not much. You're right, pretty much. Well, let's move into um community and, and I think that I'd like to start off with. What community isn't before we define what it is because I think it's gonna take longer maybe to tell what it it isn't um. You wanna go first or you want me to? Well, you, you wanna take the turn of saying what it isn't. Um. Well, and we can both speak on this, but, you know, I community is a word that's thrown a lot out a lot, a lot, and I think that it's a very misunderstood and misused term. Sometimes purposefully. We, we talk about the LGBT community. I won't do the whole letters, but. Um, And we talk about, you know, the, the black community or the Jewish community or any community and Oftentimes those people have maybe one thing in common. You know, I'm a gay man, so I have that in common with every other gay man on the planet. You put us in a group, but. I don't know any of those people necessarily, right? So to me that's not really a community that's a group, yes, that falls under the category of group. You're a black man. There are black men all over the world. I mean, what's the tiny percentage of black men that you know personally, but it's called the black community when it's really a group. Because you don't, the only thing you have may have in common with them is is the the skin color. Sure. So Um, You wanna add on to that? No, I, I think that's a, a bright distinction that has to be drawn, and I think a lot of people get sucked into, um, believing that there are uh similarities that people have because they happen to share a trait or there's something about them that that they have in common when that's that in most cases couldn't be further from the truth. Um, I look and, you know, you, uh, the examples that you called out, you know, we, we talk about the, the gay community, you know, we, we happen to, um, We happen to live in close proximity to the, the big strip in in Dallas, you know, gay culture, the gay, the Ghood. And the, the thing is, um, a lot of that is, is just veneer. It's just for looks. It is, uh, something that's completely hollow and um it's just a collection of business owners that are doing their best to try to make the most of the associations and the history of that area. Those that are hanging on and we, we can see that there are signs that it's it's moving to be something else within a generation where I'm not sure how much of that that history is going to be preserved. Exactly. You know, when we um There there's a lot of professionals that have what they call a community on Facebook. Mm. But even Facebook doesn't call them communities. Facebook calls them groups. People say join my Facebook community. I've been in a shit load of those and usually it's just a space where that professional can market to the group and the group, yes they have something in common that brought them together. But it's not really a community, not in, not in my definition, it's not a community. Right. I mean, do, do you have other ideas about what a community isn't or are we, or have we? Covered it No, no, I think it's really important to highlight how it is that uh people that might want to mislead might try to, uh, paint a picture of there being a community where there isn't one because they can lump people into demographics. And that that is not, that is not really a great way of understanding or appreciating people for their complexity and richness. Well, and I can use myself as an example. I mean we've already spoken about me being a gay man in the gay community. Yes. With that group of people, the thing I have in common is that I'm a gay man. But when I think about beyond that. I have a very small, small, small group of gay friends that I'm close to. Um, we rarely ever hang out in, in a group. It's one on one that I hang out with these friends mostly. And other than that, I'm not involved in the part of our community that calls itself a community. I, I don't go to the nightclubs. I don't, I don't go to all the fundraisers. I don't go to, I don't go to any of that stuff that's deemed as community functions because it's just not, it doesn't interest me. It's not who I am. Um, but yet I'm still labeled as being part of the gay community. Um, You know, for me, when I think of community, and this is something that's developed over the years. When I think of community. We may not have. Our sexual orientation in common, we may not have our skin color in common. My form of a community are people that are dramatically different from each other. People that are uh diverse from in every way, diversity of age, diver diversity of gender, diversity of skin color and race and and background and education and you, you name it. Um, But we find things in common that are not demographic. We find things in come that are psychographic. I love hanging out with people that I would call heart-centered people. Dwight and I both have deemed that we are, we set our goal for our close circle of friends and the people that we associate with. We are seeking heart centered people and now we use the word heart centered creatives. I don't care what age you are, I don't care what skin color you are, I don't care what religious background you are, what you do for a living, none of that matters. If you're a heart centered person and we can have meaningful conversations, to me, community is about people that have come together for a purpose. Yeah. You know, our community is about creativity. They come together to create create community is about people that know each other, you know, there was a time when churches were communities. Not so much anymore. People come in, sit down for one hour, leave. They may know a tiny handful of people, but It's not, not that way across the board, but churches are not the communities that they once were. Well, you know, as you were describing what community is, I, I could not help but think of what was outlined by, uh, Charles Vogel. Uh, he wrote about the topic of community and talked on it extensively. And he outlined 7 principles that kind of defined what it was that made up that belonging. You know, the first and most basic of them was a boundary principle. And the name is what it, what it says. You're in or you're out, you're a part of it or you're not. And, uh, another big part of it is usually there's going to be some kind of an initiation, you know, something that makes it so that you're a part of it. The church example, in a lot of faiths, there's going to be like a baptism, right? There's a definite crossing of the threshold where you being saved. Yes, yes. Yes, or, or coming of age, you know, a way of being. Welcomed into the the group being a full member, if you will. Um, and that kind of speaks to, uh, another one of the, the concepts. Another one of the principles is that of rituals. You know, there are certain things that you do and certain ways that you do them. And it's really easy to lean on the examples from churches to, to see those because we know that if you go to any, uh, Catholic service, you're going to be standing up and sitting down a lot. You're going to be hearing the homily. Uh, if you go to any, um, you you gathering, you're gonna see that someone's going to light a chalice. Um, and there's also the principle of there being a place or a temple, you know, a, a, a place where people gather that are a part of the community and communion, many communion. Yes, exactly. Exactly. You know, when I think about the community that I want to be in the community that I want to lead, it is people who take the time to get to know each other. They are interested in. Elevating each other, lifting each other up, you know, a community where I know that the other community members have my back. I know in those moments when I am finding it difficult to believe in myself that my community around me will believe in me if I'm having that moment of falter. Mhm. People that are interested in who I am, what I'm about, people that support me, and people that see me. I mean, really see me. Yeah. Well, that that's a basic human need to be seen. That's my vision, yeah. You know, a place where for us a creative community where. People support each other by giving feedback on on their projects, um. And Enter into brainstorming sessions when maybe they don't particularly have something they need to brainstorm, but they've showed up to help others. That do need brainstorming. Um, we love the idea of a mentor program. Oh, absolutely. I think it's essential. I, I, I think that, you know, we said for a long time that the solution to any problem can be found in community and believe it with all my heart, no matter how insular a person might be, no matter how much they feel like they have to be on their own, there is something that they gain from Being able to contribute to a larger group. Absolutely. You know, at this point, we have recorded perhaps. A dozen episodes of this podcast. And Every single without fail every single guest has talked about the importance of community. Many of them, how they would not even remotely be where they are, they would not have remote remotely gotten to do the things that they did if it had not been for their engagement, heavy engagement in community. Now, it also warrants saying that it's not all about one community. It's just not, you know, as much as we, we are working on it night and day, we want to be community leaders. It's coming soon. We don't think that you can find everything that you need in one community. If you really stop and think about it, all it takes to constitute a community are 2 or more people, so we have tiny little communities, you know, during the pandemic. When we couldn't be around others, uh, Dwight and I didn't know each other at that point. I was living alone, locked in my house for 2 years. I was very, very isolated, and what I did was I reached out to a tiny handful of friends. Sometimes there was just 2 of us, sometimes there were 6 of us, but every weekend we would go to a local lake when the weather would allow, pull up lawn chairs, sit at enough distance from each other that we were comfortable. And we would just. Hang out and be together and have long discussions there on the banks of the lake. And that was a community. And it was the saving grace. I mean, I did a lot on Zoom to keep my sanity while I was locked in my house, but I don't know what I would have done if it hadn't been for. You know, the trips to the lake and the little group that hung out, um, in particular. One of the men and I have become exceptionally close. He lives in Mexico now we don't get to see each other, but maybe once or twice a year, but we jump on a Zoom and we talk every Friday morning. And That all started back then, you know, our, our friendship was forged. We met. Before the pandemic, but our friendship was really forged during the pandemic. And he and I are a two-man community. Mhm. So community is you can have as many communities as you want and they don't always look like a community, you know, if you've got a little book club, it's a community if you've got a knitting club, it's a community if you have some friends that you play. Uh, pick a ball with, it's a community. It's not maybe a formal community. But it's still a community. And it's I think it's important to Embrace the opportunities to be a part of communities and To um Be open to the gift that comes from. Uh, being able to share moments with others. Absolutely, throughout my life I've been involved in communities that were about personal growth and spirituality. Um, And I would come in and out of them. It wasn't like they were necessarily lifelong permanent things. At one point I was involved in an organization called the Mankind Project, which is a global thing for for men. It's about growth and getting to know yourself better, and I did that for about 3 years. We do something. You know when it's serving us and when it's no longer serving us we move on and that's OK. That's all right, you know, there's that old saying about, you know, sometimes you have things in your life for a reason or a season or a lifetime, or a lifetime. Yes, yes, absolutely. Well, I think we've covered it pretty well. Can you think of anything else you want to add Dwight? You know, I, I think that, uh, these are probably uh topics that are going to pepper, uh, a lot of future discussions, and, uh, I think this is a, a nice place to, to put a pin in it for now and. You know, allow our listeners to hear other things in our feed. Yes, the topic's not over, just the discussion. Yeah, it's cause it's a big topic. We appreciate you tuning in and listening. Uh, we got all kinds of things that we're excited to bring you, so keep listening. And keep creating.