A friend who writes films told me, “it really is like you are a channel for something bigger when you create. The first time it’s really difficult, but then the work just flows through you.”
I’ve heard this before from artists and writers. That they just channel a greater creative force, be it God, the Universe, Universal Consciousness, whatever you choose to call it.
And I believe it. It’s a very humble idea as well. The artist and the ego are not wholly responsible for what they produce, they just help bring something beautiful into the world. Birth. Delivery.
But if that’s true, what is the place for the art or literary critic? We don’t look at a natural landscape and say, ‘I think the universe could have done a bit better with that shoreline’…
And in the same way, how can we be judgemental of ourselves? If we too are the work of a greater, or divine, or universal creative force, how can we think ‘I’m awful, or stupid, or no good etc etc’?
And we shouldn’t feel that because we aren’t artists or writers that we shouldn’t be involved in this great Creative Act of channeling some greater creative energy.
Every minute of our life can be a great creative work. The way we live, the way we treat others, the way we treat ourselves, the way we work, think, ‘be’ – all this can be as much a channeling of something universal and beautiful as a great novel, screenplay, painting… or outstandingly beautiful landscape.
Our lives are a work of art of exceptional beauty. All we have to do is set our compass in that direction.
Notes from Ben 
Your words, my dear Ben, are indeed a work of exceptional beauty. I speak not as a critic but as a fellow wayfarer. Bless you.
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Amazing how so much can be summarized with just two letters: be. Thank you.
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