An inspired artist I know confided their frustration in going through a slow patch. As a musician, I can certainly relate—projects do not tend to roll in at the perfect pace.
In fact “slow times” come about for reasons both internal and external: self-doubt, indecision, natural cycles of ebb and flow, mental fatigue, and (southern Europe lately!) lethargy-inducing HEATWAVES.
Whatever the cause, “slow times” can easily induce panic, a chain reaction where a slow period gives rise to fears such as:
- This is the new normal
- Things will never pick up
- I should give up
- I never should’ve started in the first place!
In short, existential panic. Even when your rational mind tells you that your reaction is waaaay overblown, the pit of the stomach can tighten, palms can sweat…
And yet, as the Chinese say, crisis is opportunity. Actually, they don’t say it; it is implicit, because the character for crisis the the same as for opportunity.
So, in a crisis of “slow”, what’s the hidden opportunity?
It is to have the luxury of time, space, solitude or a combination of these to work in peace. To do your work offstage, so to speak. For example:
— to start a new series
— to try something new
— to return to something you once loved
— to generally make a mess without any consequences
All of this, for the time being, can remain “offstage”, in privacy, or even secrecy.
While you are not busy “shipping” finished work, to use Seth Godin’s terminology, you have an opportunity to try new things—and even fail. Or to expand on some part of your work that is begging for expansion.
To be fully immersed in “offstage” work is one extreme, just as to be fully immersed in “shipping” is the opposite extreme. If you’re launching a book, you must be fully immersed in promotion. Between these extremes lie the usual mix of starting and carrying on with your projects.
I propose that both extremes and everything in the middle are necessary. Slow times are just an extreme position, that of immersion in internal work, and as such, they are more mysterious and less “bright and shiny” than other points on the sliding scale, yet they allow everything downstream, all the “production”. Ultimate slow time is rest and recuperation, because producing art is not producing Ford Model Ts on a factory floor! Art necessarily feeds on our imagination, our human (sorry AI) ability to make novel connections and combinations. And for that, we must slow down or even stop. Regularly.
If we accept the slow times, lean into them, relax and enjoy them in spite of our conditioning, wondrous angels of our inspiration might just make a visitation—dusting our minds with new ideas—ideas that can change our work, our world, or even, once in a while, the entire world.
Slow is good, hang in, don’t fight it!