Lit eZine Vol 4 | p-2 | AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT | Creative Non-Fiction by Evan Griffith

We bring to you our featured writer Evan Griffith
with his articles
CELEBRATE,
SILENT WALKING: On the importance of walking without sound in your ears
and
RANT OF APPRECIATION
plus
AN INTERVIEW with Evan Griffith

CREATIVE NON-FICTION

CELEBRATE

When I read how an artist broke through into the style that defines them, I feel elation for them. Dude, I feel excitement when I’m simply listening to an artist relate a small but critical evolution in their work. It’s like the gods have drizzled ambrosia on your tongue — it’s something to celebrate.

So many pivot points worthy of recognition spring up. A sale — a gig — a breakthrough — a favorable review — a connection that moves you forward — an iteration that advances your work — marketing that produces results — someone appreciating what you do — a new tool — a better approach for anything in your creative realm — an improved schedule…

Do you take a moment to celebrate your small wins? Your triumphs? Your support ecosystem? It’s critical. A scorned path won’t be traveled long.

Rule One is to celebrate yourself.

As often as you can, in meaningful ways. Call your Mom. Take a friend out to share the news, it’s insufficient to simply post it digitally. Dance a jig. This is your life path. Magnify those moments, it will help carry you through the bitch-hard skirmishes sure to come.

Rule Two is to celebrate others.

There’s little uglier than one creative tearing down the work of another. There are 10 billion pathways for creative expression. And once humanity seeds itself among the stars, there will be 10 trillion. Why pollute someone else’s arc?

Dive into Elizabeth Gilbert’s social media feed. Here the author of mega-best seller Eat Pray Love is in a near-constant effusion of praise and sharing for others. She could use her feed to amplify her own accomplishments; instead, she chooses to celebrate others in the most generous of ways.

It’s such an outpouring of affection for all things literary, all things female, all people creative, all acts good and worthy and revelatory, that it is a kind of social media church for the spiritually creative set.

Celebrate the success of others! Shine your heartlight on them. 
Celebrate yourself; celebrate others — it is the path of light through the thicket.

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This is an excerpt from the bookito:

The Seven Promises of Art
An Invitation To Embrace Your Calling

It’s for those who want to embrace their calling, at any age, at any pace. Brimming with stories, insights, wit and warmth from my decades in creative fields— it showcases how creatives embrace their calling. 

SILENT WALKING:
On the importance of walking without sound in your ears

Walking with sound piped into your ears is an affront to clarity. And to immersing one’s self more fully into the act of walking.

At first I was slow in putting this together. After I began my walking program, I bought earbuds. I started listening to personal growth and spiritual audio programs. To do this occasionally will add novelty and knowledge. To do it habitually squelches originality. Your exquisite and singular creator self gets suppressed. Instead of coming into your own thoughts, outside sources steamroll through your mental pathways.

External stimuli overlays much of our day. To take this brief pocket of time and make it completely your own is an act of liberation. Like a fine tea, you’ll steep in yourself. 

What about music, some might ask? In a different era, this might have provoked a different response. Music is ubiquitous now. It’s in your car or on your commute, in stores, in restaurants, even at work. It’s in video games, on TV, in memes, in malls, in elevators and lobbies. It’s on your computer and on your phone. 

To walk without music or podcasts or audio of any kind is to unfetter your mind. Free yourself! Walk without bringing sound with you! Walk with you and your shallow thoughts! Walk with just you and your random mental flotsam. Walk with you.

When you walk with sound ported into your ears, you walk mesmerized, controlled by what others have created. This is not a bad thing from time to time. To sharpen your thoughts by tapping into the brainiacs who’ve tunneled seriously into a subject is the hallmark of civilization. It’s bettering ourselves by accessing the refined creations of others. 

But — 

To do only this is to relinquish space for originality. Walking without artificial sound prompts brain play. Think of it this way: natural sounds coming to you randomly are gifts — nutrients enriching the soil from which your thoughts spring. 

In time I came to understand this … and freed my mind to serendipity. 

As that jauntiest philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche stated: “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”  

Not one of these renowned thinkers walked while listening to the creations of others — Dickens, Tesla, Woolf, Socrates, Jung and so many more. They understood you need to steep in silence, immersed in your surroundings, that you need to let your thoughts go. These thinkers understood that true originality is best facilitated by a walk — a silent walk.

The best way to gain insight is through a silent walk, immersing in the surroundings, and letting thoughts wander aimlessly.

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Excerpted from
It Is Solved By Walking
How World-Class Creators Solve Life

It Is Solved By Walking Blurb from Amazon
Looking for simplicity?
Frustrated with a thousand and one practices to optimize your life?
Wish there was one single activity to spur creative solutions, spark spiritual wonder, and amp up your vitality — all at once?
There is. One simple method has been used for millennia to summon the best within us.
Creators of all stripes do it. Innovators, mystics, business titans, artists, writers, thinkers . . . .
Richard Branson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nikola Tesla, Peace Pilgrim, Beethoven, Steve Jobs, Virginia Woolf, Carl Jung, Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Henry David Thoreau, Soren Kierkegaard, Madonna, Gandhi . . . .
One simple activity elevates you — physically, creatively and spiritually — and you already do it.
It is walking.
Step into these pages to see how world-class creators harness its power. For solving vexing problems, to think through an issue clearly. For epiphanies, for insight, for ideas. For turning dreams into reality. For health and spiritual connection too.
This short book brims with ideas, wit, and stories of transformative moments precipitated by a walk.