Artistic Discipline for the Undisciplined Times of Life

A few weeks ago Comment Magazine published an article on artistic discipline by Carey Wallace. In it, she discusses the taboo subject of artistic discipline and comes to the daunting conclusion:

“There is no such thing…as disciplining one corner of a life. There are only disciplined or undisciplined lives.”

I used to have a very disciplined writing life (if I do say so myself). It was easy back then, when I had settled into a groove of ordinariness that I could use to write. I would get up at the same time every day, go through the same routine every day, and feel good about accomplishing most of my to-do list. It was a happy time.

Now, to give you a real-time update of my disciplined life, the following have occurred while writing:

• I’ve picked up and played with a baby
• I’ve wiped spit up off of me
• I wiped more spit up off the floor
• I placed said baby in the jumper so I could write
• I tried to find my train of thought again

It’s been quite the morning. Some huge thunderstorms woke us all up, and then the baby was up, and then I went to retrieve the maple syrup from the fridge and start breakfast and grabbed a bottle of port wine instead.

But I keep writing. I keep writing because I know that I can push through the undisciplined times of life, when a happy chaos circles around me like the unmoving eye of a hurricane. I look to those who have gone before, the patron saints of married artists, parenting artists, traveling artists, too-social artists, artists with acedia, artists with five jobs, artists on the night shift, and artists who are just plain lazy. The point of living a disciplined live, I suppose, is that when the whirlwinds and storms and joyful busyness of life come from time to time we know the foundation to aim for. The disciplined life is like a house on the lonesome prairie with a spouse and two small children left waving from the porch as you go on a week long journey to town. You know that when you return in the dark, the faint candlelight in the home will grow stronger and stronger until you open the door and are welcomed home in celebration. Discipline is always there, at the waiting, a compass point we can follow to the freedom of a rule of art.

In the undisciplined times of life that is what artistic discipline needs to be―a dedication to the principles and heartbeat of our own art like a monk’s rule is the bedrock of his spirituality. It is a discipline we can return to like a monk worn from a week of traveling returns to his quarters, naps, and then returns into the divine hours that dictate the lives of monks. But until then, we can carve out the little spaces in our lives for art, a foretaste in undisciplined times until we return to a feast of discipline and reap the rewards. One hopes!

Comments

[Heather]

I don't have to tell you that I'm right there with ya.

Especially when it comes to cleaning up all that spit up.

[Melanie]

What Heather said :)

[Glynn]

Sometimes it moves beyond discipline. I can't imagine not writing. Over a lifetime, it becoems a kind of breathing.

[Tina F]

Sometimes I have to grab it in little blocks of time. The kitchen table with the Internet OFF is the best.

[Thomas]

@Glynn - in a lot of monastic writing, especially in the Eastern tradition, prayer becomes like breathing. This is especially true of the Jesus Prayer. The Way of the Pilgrim is an interesting read on that subject.

@Tina I write at the dining room table or at the kitchen counter standing. But it's hard to turn that Internet off!