Write Your Manifesto
The German artist Joseph Beuys believed 'everyone is an artist.' And I think we are all artists of our everyday life. This is Beuys' manifesto on 'how to live.'
Let yourself fall.
Learn to
observe snakes
Plant impossible gardens.
Invite a dangerous person for tea.
Make little characters who say "yes" and distribute them
everywhere throughout your house.
Become a friend of freedom
and uncertainty.
Look forward to dreams.
Cry at a movie.
Swing as high as you can on a swing
in the moonlight.
Provide different moods.
Refuse to be made 'responsible.'
Do it for love.
Take a lot of naps.
Give away money.
Do it now, the money will follow.
Believe in magic.
Smile a lot.
Take moon baths.
Have wild imaginings, transformative dreams and perfect calm.
Draw on walls.
Read every day.
Imagine that you are enchanted.
Play with children
listen to old people.
Open yourself,
dive into it, be free.
Praise yourself, bless yourself
drive away fear.
Play with everything.
Take care of the child in yourself.
You are innocent.
Build a fortress with blankets.
Get wet.
Embrace trees.
Write love letters.
We might compare Joseph Beuys' advice to Henry Miller's 11 Commandments which can be found in the book, Henry Miller on Writing.
Work on one thing at a time until finished.
Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’
Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
When you can’t create you can work.
Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.
If you were to write a manifesto of your wonderful ordinary everyday life, what would it look like? What do you love? What do you believe? What things will you praise? What do you value? What do you wish you did more of, less of? What are your goals? How do you want to work?
My manifesto might begin with a quotation by Karen Blixen: “Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.” I would continue: write quietly and in secret and with as much joy as possible.
And you, how would your manifesto begin?
Feel free to share your manifesto, or the beginnings of one in the comments.
2016
