Success in the privacy of the soul

It isn't popularity, money, or critical esteem. Success occurs in the privacy of the soul. It comes in the moment you decide to release the work, before exposure to a single opinion. When you've done all you can to bring out the work's greatest potential. When you're pleased and ready to let go.

Success has nothing to do with variables outside yourself...Most variables are completely out of our control. The only ones we can control are doing our best work, sharing it, starting the next, and not looking back.”

– Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

Hiya!

Anytime I hear about the music producer Rick Rubin, I inevitably get the opening lyrics to Spank Rock’s song Rick Rubin on repeat in my head (a true classic). The lyrics are literally just the words Rick Rubin repeated over and over, so you can imagine why. Rubin is promoting a new book, so his bits of wisdom are floating around the internet a lot as of late. I listened to an interview with him on one of my favourite podcasts, On Being, this weekend, and he certainly does have some gems to share. There’s an added bonus in the episode: you can hear the waves outside his door, which really perpetuates his Yoda-like reputation.

The idea that success occurs in the privacy of the soul is one that I can really get with, but damn, is it hard to put that into practice. For many years I’ve been so hyperfocused on success (or my lack thereof). It has felt elusive and challenging to figure out how to ‘succeed’ in the traditional sense. I’ve bemoaned my inability to achieve financial stability, artistic success, long-term relationships, 2.5 kids and a 2-car garage (do I even want that version of success? Jury’s out). My poor friends and family, who have had to listen to my moaning and sobs. I have often engaged in an entirely unhealthy comparison — looking at what my peers have in the way of career, finances and relationships that I simply do not. Arguably I achieved GOAT-level success in the whole nearly dying and then building my body back to health. But that doesn’t pay the bills, baby.

When I really boil it down, I know that I’ve felt my most successful when I was working on being in my body, sitting in meditation, connecting to my higher power, swimming in the ocean, writing for no one but myself or being with my friends, laughing my head off. The artistic success I’ve longed for already happens when I write a poem and share it with absolutely no one. Financial stability will happen one way or another. Relational success is already present in all the long-term friendships I’ve managed to maintain.

But those outside factors I’ve so often been obsessed with don’t matter (excuse me whilst I go tattoo that on my forehead so I don’t forget). It’s the hole inside me that needs to be tended to, instead of filling it with habits (good or bad). None of the other things will matter if I don’t tend to it. I will still somehow feel inadequate if I don’t.

Rubin shares the popular philosophy that we are but channels for the work we make — that we have to show up to it and let it move through us, but we must be willing to keep showing up. He also brings up a salient point in his interview with Krista Tippett, one that bears repeating here: ‘Most of us think if I get a project to a certain point, and now if I work on that project for another six hours, or if I work on that project for another six weeks, or if I work on that project for another six months, well it’s either six days, six weeks, or six months better. And that’s not the case. There is no connection between the amount of time invested and how good something is. Now, that doesn’t mean that it happens quickly. Sometimes it happens quickly, and sometimes, it doesn’t. Sometimes it takes forever.’

Sometimes I agonize for weeks and months (and yes, years) over something I’m working on and it doesn’t make it any better. Sometimes I write something without thinking too much, and I go back to it later and wonder who wrote it, who was that woman who came up with such great words in succession that made so much sense? It’s a relief to think that the coming back to it over and over is the thing that matters. I can manage that.

The point is this: I want to figure out how to live a creative life with longevity. I want to know how to keep showing up and committing to creativity in whatever form it takes. I want to make things — both good and bad. I want to simply create. I want to strive towards my success in the privacy of my soul. I want to share it, too. And trust that the rest of the pieces will fall into place, they always do.

With love,

Nora x