This is an excerpt from a YouTube interview (Salesforce series) with Elizabeth Gilbert discussing her book "Creative Living Beyond Fear." Gilbert rejects the idea of fearlessness and instead recommends treating fear as a companion on creative journeys: she invites fear to join but sets firm boundaries (metaphors: van/minivan, putting fear in a chair). Key prescriptions: acknowledge fear, allow it to be present, but do not let it control decisions or steer creative work.
I love this story that you tell about the van, you know, coming as a passenger on the van. Maybe if you haven't read this book, it's a hysterical story about fear as a companion on this journey.
Yeah, well, it's funny because the subtitle of the book is Creative Living Beyond Fear. And I think it's so funny how many times I've been introduced in the last year for this book, and people have gotten the title wrong and said, creative Living Without Fear. And I always have to stop them and be like, words matter.
Did I just say that?
No, you got it right. No, you got it right. And I think because the dream that we have somehow is that we're going to create some sort of life without fear. And that's just nonsense. Who is that? Anybody. I have no interest whatsoever in fearlessness as an aspiration. I have truly found my case to be in life that anytime I've ever met somebody who sort of purports to be her, behaves in the world as if they are fearless. Generally speaking, they're a sociopath. There's something missing. You look in their eyes and there's this kind of dark vacancy. There's some big, really important part of humanity that's missing from them. So what I'm interested in more are the people who live side by side with their fear. And so the story that I like to tell in the book about the creative journey is not that you're going on some journey where you're going to leave fear behind, but you're going on a journey where fear is invited. And so the conversation that I literally have before I start any creative endeavor is, is that I sit a chair. I literally do this. I sit a chair down, and I put my fear in the chair, and I look at it and I say, all right, listen, your sister, Creativity and I are about to go on a road trip together. And I understand you'll be joining us because you always do. And I just want to let you know that you're very welcome. We've got this minivan. We're going on this trip together. We've got a seat for you in the backseat. But you get to come because you're part of the human family. You're part of the experience of what it is to do creativity. I'm just establishing for you right now the guidelines, which is, you're very welcome. You're very invited. Everyone on this journey is going to do the thing that they do. So Creativity and I are going to work together to do the most Innovative, interesting stuff that we can do. Our job is to be excited and to do our work. Your job, apparently, from what I've learned from history of working with you, is to sit in the backseat screaming at every corner about how we're all going to die. We're all going to die. We're all going to die. So you do your job, which. Which, may I say, you're fabulous at, and we'll do our job, and we're just going to continue down this highway together. You get to do that. You get to sit in the back and scream. Apparently, it's what you're for. But here's some things you don't get to do. You don't get to drive.
You don't get to drive.
You don't get to hold the roadmaps and make decisions about the directions that we go into. You don't get to choose the snacks. You don't get to touch the radio. You don't get to have any influence over where we're going in the car. But you get to be in the car. And somehow when you do that and you let fear take that car seat in the back and you just go, and you know that it's going to be there. That's the only way that I've ever been able to advance on any creative journey.
