I have been rationing chapters of Rick Rubin’s book The Creative Act: A Way of Being for the last several weeks.   More a philosophy book than an art book.  Something to take a small bite of and chew slowly.

Now I’ve come to the end and am at a loss.  I feel compelled to write about it but can’t put into words how rich it is. I believe that each time I read it I will be in a different place and will get something new from it. 

Don’t let the word “Creative” in the title make you think you need to be an artist to relate.  The word “Being” in the title is just as significant. We are all “being”, even if it feels like we are mostly “doing”. That’s the point, really.  Everything we do is a creative act: the way we listen to our partner, the way we talk to our colleagues, the way we take care of ourselves, the way we notice nature.  We are each unique but part of a whole.  This book helps us to honor our own experiences, connect with others, feel less alone, and pay more attention. 

Okay, now I’m sounding all woo-woo, which is our culture’s way of discounting anything unexplainable.  But there you go: a software engineer seeing the light.

Thank you, Rick Rubin, for writing this book.  You could have written a phenomenal book for music producers but instead you wrote a phenomenal book for the rest of us.