[Intro music]
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Little Oracles podcast, an oracle for the everyday creative. I’m Allison Arth.
So I did a hot takes episode back in Season One, kind of debunking the notion that there is a “right time” to enter into a creative project, and also the essentialist and even gatekept definitions of “creativity” and “creator” — and I’ll link that episode in the show notes — so I thought I’d do one again this season for the [sing-song voice] drama. [laughs] No; I mean, these takes probably aren’t gonna ruffle, you know, any feathers, but they are– I guess you could call them convictions, that I hold about creativity, and things that might get you thinking or rethinking the thinking that you’ve been doing about your own work or hobbies or creative practices.
So, let’s get right into it, shall we? Hot take number one: inspiration isn’t a location. Now, lemme give you a little bit of context, here: so, I’ve been doing these Creative Chats — basically, conversations with other cross-media creatives, and we talk about their practices, and their backstories, and their current work, and, naturally, where they go for inspiration. And I’ve been asking this question a bunch — not just on the podcast; this is something I talk about with virtually everyone I know, [chuckles] and I’m sure you do this, too: the “what’re you watching, what’re you reading, what’re you listening to, where’re you traveling” questions. The questions that, at least for me, make up a considerable part of talking with other human beings. [laughs]
Because I– I, personally, love to know what lights people up. What books or movies or albums or games or natural landscapes or whatever are exciting them, because maybe I might like to have those experiences, too. [laughs] Like, it’s, you know, kinda selfish, in a way; but I love to hear people talk about what they love, or what moved them, or what gave them pause, or what helped them recontextualize something in their own life, and, you know, why; it’s just, you know, like, basic human connection, I guess. [laughs]
But this might not come as a surprise, but those affecting experiences — the ones that effect that type of interior alchemy, I guess you could call it — aren’t sited somewhere; they’re everywhere; they’re anywhere. And I know that sounds kinda silly in its, kind of, generalized ubiquity [laughs], but all I’m getting at is that my premise when I ask this is flawed: “where do you go for inspiration” and “where do you look for inspiration” imply this inherent locality and almost a permanence — as though “inspiration” is an object, or at least something that can be planted or placed — and I think that’s why, when we answer this question, we so often gravitate toward categories of creative expression that have been societally sanctioned as worthy sites of inspiration: things like literature; like visual art; like music; like literal cultures we can experience through travel.
And that isn’t to say that those categories are bogus; obviously they aren’t; obviously there is plenty of inspiration to be had and found in those places. But aren’t we kind of limiting ourselves by creating, through the words of our very question, these, like, unspoken boundaries? Like, maybe I get inspired to build a better cornhole board for my backyard after watching the American Cornhole League Championships, you know? [laughs] Maybe I’m getting really into weightlifting, and it’s inspiring me to — I don’t know — write a roleplaying game about the gradual ratcheting of expectations for the steward of a solarpunk community during the onset of a secondary apocalypse as expressed through the medium of quilting. [laughs] Do you see what I’m saying here? Like, inspiration doesn’t have to come from somewhere, and it doesn’t have to come direct; inspiration is just the spark. It’s agnostic; it’s multivalent; it’s polyglot; it’s kind of a constant.
And so I’m trying to rewrite the question, and maybe you’d like to, too, if this is something you find yourself falling into as well: rather than asking where people go or look for inspiration, I’m trying to ask, “What inspires you? What excites you? What makes you want to make something, too?” And do you see how removing that little word — that “where” — kinda refashions the whole premise? Focusing on the “what” over the “where” frees us up to all these new avenues, and these paths to drawing the connections among weightlifting and solarpunk stewardship and quilting, you know what I mean? [laughs] So maybe next time you’re tempted by the where of inspiration, ask after the what instead; I know I’m gonna try to.
And that takes us to hot take number two — I mean, kind of [laughs] — hot take number two: I’m your Bucklebury. [laughs] Yes, I said “bucklebury,” not huckleberry — and some of you out there might be wondering why I would say “huckleberry” anyhow [laughs] — but just corral your horses, or maybe send them up upriver about 20 miles, and lemme explain to you.
So, a couple things you need to know going in: “I’m your huckleberry” was famously uttered on the silver screen by the inimitable Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday, the Old West gambler and gunfighter, in the now-classic 1993 Western, Tombstone. It was actually a popular saying in the 1800s, it turns out, and it basically means “I’m the one for the job.” And Bucklebury is the name of a very crucial ferry that Frodo Baggins and his cadre of Hobbits use to escape the deadly Nazgul in The Fellowship of the Ring; and it’s in a moment of extreme peril that Merry (Meriadoc Brandybuck) has the wherewithal to point the Hobbits toward that little raft — that little ferry — so that they can cross the Brandywine River, and force the Ring-wraith to ride, hellbent for leather, the 20 miles to the nearest crossing, the Brandywine Bridge, and they effectively escape this evil thing’s clutches, at least for the moment. So, the first two pieces of this puzzle. Here’s the third:
So, when I was a junior in high school, I was in this English class, and teaching this English class was the most coolest woman — I’ll call her Ms. B; I was just so enthralled with her: the way she spoke, the way she inhabited space, the way she interacted with us, the students — just everything, it was just effortless. So, after we turned in our first essays of the year following her prompt about symbolism in that J.D. Salinger story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” — I dunno if you’ve ever read this — she asked me to stay after class, which terrified me, [laughs] because I was a kid who, at the time, responded to structure, and to systems, and to parameters, and, in my 16-year-old mind, being asked by this teacher whom I basically idolized to stay after the bell was indicative of some failure to function [chuckles] within the given structure or system or parameter. So I was, like, freaking out. [laughs]
And Ms. B, she sat me down, and she said something to me that changed my course, like, for real; it did more than just reroute my path: it kinda reinvented my compass, actually. Because she said to me that, after reading my essay on Salinger and symbolism based on a prompt that she’d developed, she wanted to untether me, so to speak, and give me the option and the opportunity to write essays based on my own prompts for the rest of the year. So, like, I’d write to whatever source material everyone else was writing to, but I could come up with my own framework; and develop my own theory and thesis; and just write about what resonated with me, and what grabbed me, and what got me excited about a piece of literature. And so that’s what I did: for the rest of my junior year, I came up with my own essay prompts — and some of them more realized and more viable than others, obviously [laughs] — and it was this massive paradigm shift for me: because before, every assigned prompt was just a goal; it was a brass ring to catch; and after, I entered into every reading assignment looking for something, you know? Trying to pull the threads together, all on my own.
But it wasn’t until I started this podcast — you know, 25 years later [laughs] — that I really recognized the significance of that offer as a creative prod, and an invitation to shift my rule-following mind to a more open and curious one. It gave me the space to explore my own critical thinking, my own synthesis, my own argument; it was the ultimate gift, you know? Permission to trust my own judgment, and my own creative insight. It was permission to just swing, and to swing as big as I wanted; and to expose myself to critique, and to questions, and to challenge; and to stretch, and to search, and to find my own voice as a thinker, and as a writer, and as a creator.
And, you know, “permission” is a loaded word, right? Like, we’re all our own people; we’re all these lively, lovely, creative individuals. And, like, you, for one, don’t need permission to enact your bold and your beautiful and your wild ideas; you don’t need permission to experiment and explore.
But sometimes, we all need a little push, right? We all need that prod; we all need that Ms. B energy. [laughs] And guess what: for that, I’m your huckleberry! And, since I love a good portmanteau that transduces its component parts into something even more meaningful — and, in this house, a Lord of the Rings reference is never unwelcome — I’m your Bucklebury, too: I’m here to encourage you, and to cheer you on, and to say that I have faith in you. I’m here to give you that push you need to escape the Nazgul of your negative self-talk or impostor syndrome or whatever is keeping you from your own awesome, creative self — to outsmart that part of you that says you shouldn’t or couldn’t or you can’t; I’m here to give you the green light to explore, and to search, and to accept challenge.
So if there’s something in your life, right now, that you feel like you need permission to do, that you feel like is a stretch for you — like, maybe you want to do a painting, or maybe you want to start a TikTok about board games, or maybe you wanna learn how to make Beef Wellington, or maybe you just want to read a book and post your thoughts about it on Instagram — consider this your permission, your push, your Bucklebury Ferry to the banks of creatorship. [laughs] And if you start that TikTok and you make one video and only six people watch it and then you decide that’s not for you, that’s great. You did it. You gave yourself a prompt, and you answered that prompt, and that’s worth celebrating, because you trusted your judgment. You trusted your insight. You trusted your creativity; you trusted your voice. And you trusted yourself.
And that’s it for this week. Thank you so much for hanging out. If you’re groovin’ on Little Oracles, maybe someone you know would, too, so share a this episode; share another episode; leave us a rating or a review wherever you listen. I would certainly groove on that. [chuckles] Get more big book energy and creativity content over on Instagram (at) little oracles, and the blog at little oracles dot com. And, as always, take care, keep creating, and stay divine.
[Outro music]
[Secret outtake]
…teaching this English class was the most [trips on tongue] effortlsss– was the most [trips on tongue] effortlessly– I can’t say this word– was the most effortle-le– the most effortle-luh– [laughs; makes nonsense sounds] bluhluhluh–