I have a new theory about why it’s almost impossible for true artists to find a job in today’s corporate world that aligns with who they are and still feels enjoyable to them. And it’s a shame, because I also genuinely believe corporate business desperately needs more real artists co-creating with them to become more meaningful, resilient, and coherent.
Artists usually know how to co-create naturally. They feel the emergence and the energy around them in a shared way from the start. They probably couldn’t even explain to you how they do it, but they often master and embody the process of creating in collaboration with the 'field' or others without even realizing it. They just do it—and it works.
But what exactly do they do, and how or why does it work?
...
Artists know that they never really create alone. A true artist has the humility to realize that everything is co-created. They’re at peace with their ego, knowing their creations never belong solely to them. For their art to truly exist, it can only be co-created. They have no choice but to surrender to the emergent process of what is. They cannot exert intimate control, authority, or influence over what’s being co-created.
Sometimes they co-create with their soul or muses, sometimes with their 'clients,' sometimes with overflowing emotions or deep suffering, and sometimes with other co-creators. It doesn’t matter with whom or what they co-create; they still understand it’s an emergent co-creation process.
Not everything can be ‘planned’ or ‘strategized’ in such processes. Raw co-creation is often highly chaotic, unpredictable, and wild. Real co-creation will always surprise you and open you up to something bigger than yourself. It might inspire or depress you, but this process will inevitably 'work' and influence your limiting beliefs, emotional contractions, and deep insecurities.
The emergent co-creation process has the potential to profoundly change your reality, instantly transforming your sense of self and purpose.
The power of authentic co-creation is mind-blowing (and potentially soul-crushing if not handled with care and wisdom). However, it’s also the only way we can address the collective mess we’ve co-created so far. To truly deal with our social, environmental, and economic challenges, we have no choice but to learn how to master emergent co-creation processes in highly collaborative ways with others.
In other words, we have no choice but to play with fire to transform the system. The co-creation process can be dangerous and risky, but it’s a risk we must take if we want to continue evolving and stand a decent chance of transforming our shared reality in deeper, more efficient, and more meaningful ways. The risk of not transforming the existing system and leaving it as is actually outweighs the risks that emergent co-creation deals with.
Doing nothing new would be playing with an even more explosive ‘fire’ than the risks of authentic collaboration, innovation, and co-creation processes.
Transformation or change is scary and risky, but not doing it is usually even more dangerous. We should still consider innovation as a powerful tool to help us evolve and regenerate natural and human systems faster and more coherently. The risk of deeply transforming ourselves and our shared system is still worth taking.
What do we usually do when we face a risk we must take?
We develop and implement mitigation and adaptation strategies that align with the risks we’re taking. If we understand the co-creation process, what’s at stake, and how it works, we can learn to do it with fewer risks—meaning more safely and efficiently, but also with much more pleasure and deeper meaning.
Transformation and change don’t necessarily need to be painful, complex, or difficult.
If we’re unfamiliar with the process and don’t understand how it works, change can be frustrating, confusing, scary, and destabilizing. If we’ve never practiced authentic co-creation with others, it can feel vulnerable, fragile, unsafe, and uncomfortable. But when we truly comprehend the mechanics and dynamics of systemic transformation processes, we can learn to co-create with others in a simple, enjoyable, and expansive way—with minimal risks.
...
I love music. Even though I don’t know many songs, don’t have much musical knowledge, don’t play any instruments, and have been kicked out (by myself or others) from most spaces where I tried to learn music. That said, observing musicians and trying to understand the subtleties and nuances of their co-creation processes has always fascinated me.
Growing up, I did mostly solo arts—drawing, sculpting, and creating all kinds of things with my hands and mind. I mainly co-created with the invisible. Even if I was in a class with 20 other painters drawing the same thing, my art and creations were unique, influenced primarily by my inner world, not by what others were doing.
Music is different. If you jam or play music with others, you have no choice but to adapt to what others are doing and stay attuned to what’s happening in the shared space. You need to be fully immersed in the process while also being highly aware of what’s happening around you. You have no choice but to co-create with your surroundings and others when engaging in a jam session or musical project. And this process is even more emergent and time-sensitive than visual or written arts. Being perfectly attuned to the moment and space is far more crucial in audio or movement-based co-creation than in visual arts. The frequency of colors, textures, or light is usually more stable, predictable, and spatially static. Sound is more dynamic, complex, and constantly changing over time.
You don’t process the energy of sound in the same way you would with physical objects or visible frequencies. Because of this, co-creating with ears is a very different process from co-creating with eyes. Each art discipline hones different aspects and unique skills of emergent co-creation processes.
Music is special. Collaborating on music, especially in a band, is a unique and profound transformation process. Yesterday, I had the privilege of observing a recording session of a talented band. Sensing what was happening, talking to the artists, and deeply observing the musicians in action revealed to me the mysteries of true co-creation. Each of them had their own signature, talent, and style, yet the mastery of their shared language was becoming an integrated, coherent musical and visual composition, making sense as a whole.
They were all authentic, true to their personal integrity and contribution, but they also knew how to synchronize harmoniously with the whole. Each was free to express themselves, but they had no choice but to listen, respect, and adapt to what others were doing. Each musician had to be highly independent and attuned to themselves while being completely dependent on others and fully immersed in the shared space.
What fascinates me most is how musicians develop their brains and how their thought processes work. I believe this capacity for personal and collective harmonization in real time positions musicians as some of the most skillful practitioners of co-creation. Their brains are naturally shaped to understand and meaningfully process multiple perspectives simultaneously. They hear individual frequencies while simultaneously hearing the combined whole—the co-created result.
And it doesn’t stop there. While doing all this, they must master their bodies, movements, breath, and instruments. To make their music truly engaging and transcendent, they must also be deeply connected to their emotional world and express it authentically during the co-creation process.
Do you even realize the kind of magical skills and powerful abilities their brains are developing when they simply play music together and have fun? In the simplest, most efficient, and enjoyable way possible, they’re developing the most effective methods to interact with collective consciousness and they even develop and learn how to master a shared nervous system between them.
When they’re innocently jamming together, they’re also improving their personal mind-heart-body coordination and coherence. And they’re practicing how to create this mind-heart-body symphony collectively. They’re constantly juggling multiple perspectives and contexts. They master systemic thinking and the holistic harmonization of various types of information and energy with precision, clarity, and coherence. Thanks to this, their minds are highly flexible, adaptable, and interconnected. They perform magic with their brains and bodies all the time, often without realizing they possess such astonishing inner powers or how they do it.
They might not have the language or logic to explain what’s happening in their nervous system and mind when they play music together, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t extremely intelligent and skilled in the most sophisticated co-creation processes known to humanity.
And to answer the question from the beginning: why can’t most artists have conventional corporate jobs? It’s because they’re incredibly smart, with mind-blowing brain superpowers that aren’t yet fully understood, valued, or recognized. They can’t conform to something that makes no sense, especially if they already know how things can be done easier, faster, and more enjoyably.
If the workplace or job environment doesn’t understand that the biggest advantage of having an artist on the team is to help everyone become more creative, coherent, and smarter, they won’t be able to recognize the artist’s authentic contribution. They’ll try to change the artist, make them conform to a dysfunctional system, and reject their co-creative super capacities and systemic intelligence.
They might even shame or judge the artist for the most meaningful and impactful contributions they’re offering. Artists have the magic recipe, natural talent, and mastered capacity to teach how to co-create and innovate authentically, meaningfully, with real fun, and in a highly collaborative way. They embody the emergent co-creation processes and teach the entire team just by participating. Their mere presence is already the inspiration, talent, and strategy that most companies are looking for to help them innovate better and more safely in today’s world.
To learn the openness and flexibility of the mind and to master the deep synchronization between personal and collective, body and heart, visible and invisible, rational and sensitive, we should look at those who already know how to do this naturally and with no effort or super complicated, boring, and risky strategy.
And, who would be better suited to know how to do exactly that—not only with mastery but also with much pleasure, fun, and simplicity—than a bunch of amazing people playing their unique instruments and just jamming their collective soul in the most emergent, efficient, coherent, meaningful, and magically co-created way possible?
How would the system, workplace, and corporate business be if we all knew how to truly 'jam' with others in all of our projects, teams, and collective co-creations?
Comentários