45 pages • 1 hour read
Elizabeth GilbertBig Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Apparent Contradictions in the Creative Process
Gilbert advocates for seemingly contradictory things. These include courage and fear, hard work and inspiration, and creating for oneself and sharing work with the world. She suggests that these qualities can exist alongside one another, and advocates that creatives integrate them so that they can more freely create.
Gilbert feels that inspiration exists apart from humans, which seems to contradict her idea that hard work is necessary in creativity. However, these two elements can coexist. For example, her own writing process entails working hard until inspiration hits. Sometimes she feels an unexplained “force” pushing her, which she views as inspiration. Hard work and inspiration seem to contradict each other, but they feed off of one another and propel her writing.
Gilbert cautions against fear but also suggests that people accept it, as it will always be there. Fear always appears when people do something interesting with an unknown result. She tells her fear that it can exist but that she will be ignoring it. Courage is not the absence of fear, but embracing creativity and acting in spite of it. Courage allows people to create without feeling burdened or ashamed of their fear, while acknowledging that it will always appear when being creative.
Gilbert suggests that people only create for themselves, but also suggests that they share their work with the world. This seems like a contradiction. However, it is another example of how creatives can unburden themselves from creating to help others. If their work is solely for themselves, they can create with abandon and only later share it with the world.
Gilbert’s apparent contradictions are meant to help creatives work with more freedom. Working hard until inspiration hits allows creative people to continue their work but also listen for inspiration. Having both courage and fear puts fear in its proper place, and allows creatives to work in spite of it. Creating for oneself allows people the freedom to work without caring what others think or have a bigger goal, which could become stifling. They can later share their work.
Creativity as Magical
Gilbert focuses on the mystery behind creativity. She avoids outlining a creative process and instead discusses bigger ideas that link to how to channel magic. She argues that the universe inspires people with creative power, and that inspiration is separate from humans and has its own consciousness. She personifies concepts, endowing them with sentient qualities. This provides them with greater weight, making them seem magical.
Gilbert argues that the universe offers people creative ideas. This relates to the concept of magical thinking, which emphasizes the interaction between the universe and people. Gilbert’s magical thinking involves viewing ideas as sentient entities apart from humans. For example, Gilbert argues that her book idea was transmitted to Ann Patchett when she lapsed on it, and that the idea sought a more willing vessel. Her belief that the idea was transmitted through their kiss when first meeting is not based on rationality or reason. Rather, it exemplifies her belief in magic: “And when I refer to magic here, I mean it literally [...] the supernatural, the mystical, the inexplicable, the surreal, the divine, the transcendent, the otherworldly” (34). Creativity is not easily explained and inspiration can just appear without explanation. In that sense, it is magical.
Gilbert’s personification of ideas like inspiration and genius aligns with her view that the creative process is mystical. Personification lends human qualities to abstract concepts, making them more alive. This helps people understand them better, while distinguishing them from human thinking and beliefs. Furthermore, Gilbert believes that inspiration partners with humans, another aspect of sentience and personification: “It came to you, didn’t it? It drew itself near. It worked itself into you, asking for your attention and your devotion. If filled you with the desire to make and do interesting things. Creativity wanted a relationship with you. That must be for a reason, right?” (216). Viewed abstractly, inspiration can’t cooperate with humans, but viewed in a magical sense, it can.
Magical thinking is the basis for the book. It is the foundation from which Gilbert builds her other ideas. It guides people through parts of the creative process that are less tangible and allows them to feel more open to the experience. Creatives must first believe in creativity’s magic, then add their own hard work and persistence. Since everyone has access to inspiration, this capacity to create is possessed by everybody. There’s no need for an education or permission from experts.
The Importance of Play and Curiosity
Gilbert stresses the importance of viewing creativity with a playful and curious perspective, rather than a serious one. Seriousness places an undue burden on individuals and can hinder their work. She contrasts suffering, success and failure, fear, and caring what others think to a mode of playfulness, curiosity, and a trickster mentality.
Gilbert argues that the idea of passion is too serious, but curiosity isn’t. When passion is absent or elusive, creatives can use curiosity to find an interest, even a small one, which they can follow. This may or may not lead to a passion or re-ignite creativity. Gilbert herself became curious about gardening, and this sparked a new novel idea. Curiosity can also help people overcome fear if they remove the idea that fear connects with their identity, like Gilbert did.
The stereotypical idea of a suffering artist is also too serious and hinders creativity. Katie Arnold-Ratliff was blocked due to her professor’s claim that writing requires suffering. When she returned to a mode of enjoyment and play, she became unblocked. Gilbert notes that suffering is not an identity; artists are successful despite it, not because of it. For her, “emotional pain makes me the opposite of a deep person; it renders my life narrow and thin and isolated” (215).
Gilbert emphasizes how becoming a trickster can help one move beyond the need for suffering. This trickster persona allows creative people to play to get past blocks and problems, such as with Brené Brown and Clive James. For James, “by doing something else—and by doing it with all his heart—he had tricked his way out of the hell of inertia and straight back into the Big Magic” (257). Gilbert believes that the universe plays a “trick” on humans by burying creative ideas in them. This challenges the idea of suffering.
Gilbert also explains that creatives should abandon ideas about success and failure. Instead, they should love their work to the point that success and failure don’t matter. She doesn’t think success is the only reason for creativity. Without the drive for success, artists would stop creating, and this does not happen. Gilbert connects letting go of success to the idea of play. Play is free from worry, obligation, or goals. Therefore, the ability to play is hindered by the drive for success. Creativity is a fun rather than serious enterprise. Discarding the seriousness of creative work allows playfulness to occur and more inspiration to appear, as well as more enjoyment.
Gilbert argues that creativity is a uniquely human trait. She explains that the “essential ingredients for creativity remain exactly the same for everybody: courage, enchantment, permission, persistence, trust—and those elements are universally accessible” (158). They merely require openness and curiosity.
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