Tango - man and woman with art behind

“I think people ARE an art form – like art we love them, not because we understand them, but because of how we feel in their presence.”

by Dixie Dynamite.

Dixie Gillaspie is a local St. Louis tweep. She’s all about helping you succeed. Beyond Twitter, she can be found at Energy Synergy Harmony.

Dixie is always encouraging online as well as off. Making connections, she attends and plans local St. Louis events as well as online events.

She’s got my recommendation as a must follow.

Hugh writes without apology. He’s telling you how to keep that creative spark alive.

His 39 tips (really 40) are all about defending your creative spirit and your right to have it. The tips are typically short, numbering no more than a few paragraphs each. A handful are longer where he relates personal experiences.

The book isn’t meant to tell you think right and you’ll win. It doesn’t tell you the world will line up to help you succeed. This is not a law of attraction book. This book makes you feel like having a creative spark puts you in an eternal war. Beyond that, he tells you everyone has this spark, and most of the world is out to crush it.

Sounds a bit depressing but quite the contrary, it’s uplifting and funny. It challenges you a bit though, and Hugh isn’t afraid to use a rough word here are there to make his point.

Best takeaways? Keep your day job and apply force and focus to your creative endeavors.

I’m reminded by reading this book how few people challenge themselves in the creative area, but settle to just be another bystander in life.

Cheers Hugh. A fan.

PS. I’m giving away a copy the last week in June.

“Are You Stuck?
One way to wake up your heart is to try new and different things. Maybe you don’t even know what your heart-bursting activities are. We bury them deep inside. Try this. Make a long list of things you loved to do as a child, things you would like to try and things you love to do now. Take pen and paper and quickly, don’t think about it. No censoring. Yes, 100 things. Quick! When you run out of ideas keep writing the list of things you might have liked to do as a child, then add to it things your friends liked to do. Activities, even creative ones, are the road to your purpose, they are not your purpose. Painting may be something you love to do, and perhaps you are gifted, but if you make the mistake of believing that painting is your purpose, and then when you might lack inspiration for the day, you’ll feel without purpose, maybe even depressed. Better to find a new outlook on purpose and consider that creativity, or designing beauty, or visioning are more closely related to your “

(Via My Friends Rock! Michelle Vandepas: Divine Purpose Unleashed | Remarkable Parents.)

Those words have drawn me in. I often wonder what happened to me. Why am I where I’m at. Yes, there’s a path, and ultimately there’s leading by God as well. But I do believe that God has gifted us with desires and passions. He’s inspired us throughout our lives. But left to our own, these things often die slow and under-nurtured deaths.

In that spirit, here’s my list:

• design things
• figure out what makes things tick
• read
• write poetry
• create stories
• draw
• make games
• make computers work
• design race cars
• design cities
• dream up cool new inventions
• learn martial arts
• preach
• teach
• become a warrior
• discover something
• understand how the universe works
• learn languages
• earn degrees
• become a lawyer
• understand art
• be brave enough to color outside the lines
• cure illness
• become a great chess player
• become a scientist
• save a soul
• learn to drive a race car
• learn to fly
• write a novel
• write plays
• write articles
• write comics
• collect cool things
• design fun things for people
• learn to make and break codes
• magic and illusion
• act
• become a hero

  …. oh there are more, and more from my later years as well. During my life I’ve had the chance to live some of these dreams, but many are unfulfilled desires. Like the quote above though, these aren’t purposes, they are activities that can play a part in my purpose.

  One of my deepest desires currently is to inspire people through sharing, teaching, and more. I love to see a light come on inside of others. That wraps up more than one of my childhood dreams and desires.

  What’s on your list my friends?

I asked my Twitter buds to tell me one thing they’d like to pass on that could change the world.  Interesting responses followed.

• YatPundit - don’t vote Republican
• gloriabell – tolerance
• srdill - Be a host to love, not a hostage of fear.
• onedadslife - Be nicer than you have to. Nice counts.
• jonahandjude - Awesome question! Accept God’s love and get to know Him.
• ConversationAge - love.
• rambls - people need to stop worrying about the things they can’t change and change the things they can.
• GlendaWH - patience
• rjmoriarty - There’s plenty of wisdom that could change the world; the only issue is abiding by it
• addbeads - One thing of inportance? …..Forgive. It is the most difficult yet the most liberating thing.
• BarbinNebraska - Just simply be kind!
• onedadslife - More wisdom: Leave room for desert!
• Roseyland - Support the economic development of everywhere. Developed contries usually don’t bomb each other.
• abiteofsanity - Always know where your towel is.
• glendaWH - I’d like to respectfully take @gloriabell’s tolerance further to understanding and even acceptance.
• shutterbitch - 1 thing to change the world- try to leave the place better than when you arrived. Applies to relationships too.