The 3rd Self
With Rick Rubin, Aristotle and Mary Oliver
Hi Readers. Thanks again for being in the Dormer Window with me and Luke.
We’ve reached the half-way point of this 10-issue series, and to my surprise and excitement, one of the world’s most influential music producers, Rick Rubin, has released a book called The Creative Act that converges with many of the themes we’re discussing here. And the world is going crazy for it!
The print run has already sold out, with his Malibu Santa vibe flooding the podcast world and TV, making it impossible to buy the book in Canada.
He’s flexing on the idea that, in his words, “Creativity is not a rare ability only found in those preternaturally inclined. Creativity is a fundamental aspect of being human.” Yes!
From what I can see, creativity is having a moment.
When we consider what we’ve been through, how vigilant and reactive we’ve had to become to endure and grapple with a serious public health threat over several years, I expect it’s natural to assume our subconscious is asking us to return to a different form of attention to balance ourselves back out…an attention that is more playful and inviting of unknowns.
On this note, I’m going to circle back to the science of creativity, because it is becoming more and more concrete that creativity is an important part of who we all are, and need to be.
Experts say, being in “Self,” as opposed to staying in “small self,” or the parts of self, is recognizable to us when we’re feeling calm, connected, compassionate, courageous, clear, confident AND CREATIVE. The Cs.
In our creative intelligence, being correct isn’t the driver or the goal. In our creative mind, we’re seeking to uncover what is not yet known or fully understood, and organically connections forge, both inward and outward. We meet our bigger thoughts, and this attracts new energy, new people.
From these 2 selves, we go to 3, taking the concept to the next level.
The great poet Mary Oliver wrote about the 3 selves inside of her: the childhood self, the social self, and the third self that isn’t as tied to time or culture, that is more free floating and able to move outside of how she’s been brought up or how she sees herself. She says:
“Certainly there is within each of us a self that is neither a child, nor a servant of the hours. It is a third self, occasional in some of us, tyrant in others. This self is out of love with the ordinary; it is out of love with time. It has a hunger for eternity.”
Aristotle referred to this third way as well, framing it instead around growth within individuals and community. The scholar Maryann Wolf highlighted this in a recent New York Times interview. She explained that Aristotle believed society needed three lives.
“The first life is the life of productivity and knowledge and accrual of information. The second life is, and in the Greek sense, leisure, entertainment. One has to have that. But he said the third life that is essential is the life of reflection. He used the word contemplation.”
She goes on to explain how critical the contemplative life is to insight, to giving ourselves the space and time to reach into the full scope of our wisdom.
It is within this third space, a contemplative space, that we find our creative intelligence. It’s here that the power of witness flourishes.
Our creativity intelligence is a form of bearing witness. A way of holding our attention in a different way.
There are many in the world teaching us how to be contemplative. I find this description by Richard Rohr helpful:
“Contemplation is a panoramic, receptive awareness whereby you take in all that the situation, the moment, the event offers, without judging, eliminating, or labeling anything up or down, good or bad…
It seems we are all addicted to our need to make distinctions and judgments, which we mistake for “thinking.” Most of us think we are our thinking, yet almost all thinking—even among highly educated people—is repetitive and immensely self-referential. That is why all forms of meditation and contemplation are teaching us a way of quieting this self-protective and self-aggrandizing mind. After a while, we see that this repetitive process cannot get us very far…”
In a brilliant interview with Malcolm Gladwell, Rick Rubin explains how, “We build very small worlds for ourselves with our reason.”
“The goal of art is not to see what everybody else sees. It’s to see what is possible.”
“Anything that takes you out of the ordinary to take you to a wilder potential is good when you’re making art.”
Any insight I’ve gleaned about life and who I am, came to me as an experience of awe, and only when I was young, and after turning 40. My 3rd self was largely hibernating inside of me during my 20s and 30s. It came forward slowly, out of a dull but desperate need really, and after finding myself dropped into new environments that were either pretty enchanting or tremendously destabilizing and disorienting. The awe inside these moments, was the slow cracking open.
Rohr says: “To let the moment teach us, we must allow ourselves to be at least slightly stunned by it.”
Rick Rubin makes good music by drawing out the artist’s humanity. He’s able to do this by engaging with a softer, contemplative self, his 3rd self. He describes how it takes getting quiet, and being patient and willing to give up control. It’s only then that something opens that’s been taught to be closed.
Artists may start unconsciously with a drive to feel seen, connected, loved, encounter beauty, meaning and hope (smaller-self stuff), and then the creative process helps them move into True Self. I imagine Rubin as the elder, helping them through this.
“It takes a tremendous amount of patience to wait for it to reveal itself.” He says about a song finding its way. “And I guess I have the wisdom to know this…I have the discipline to stay with it for a long time,” Rubin says to Rich Roll in another interview.
“While you are in it for a long time, there are usually clues, and it might be a radical course change.”
It’s all very affirming. Our reflective, maker side needs support, love, patience and quiet.
I hope you’re feeling this up here in Dormer Window world as we move into the second half of the series.
Though before we leave this elevated view, a small hack from Rick Rubin and Malcolm Gladwell to get the creative muscle going: They advise that whenever you catch yourself saying “I can’t do that,” shift to “I haven’t done that YET.”
And a song! I must end with a Rick Rubin produced song!
You’ll see Rubin at work in this clip from the Judd Apatow documentary on the Avett Brothers band.
Thank you Nadia. I really needed this last week. So inspiring and empowering!
Excellent Nadia. Very thought provoking!