Tuning Your Creative Antenna

Seinfeld, Rubin, and Alda on where ideas come from

I have encountered a vergence in The Source.

Earlier this year, I read Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being. In the book (which has been cartoonishly mischaracterized by many online), he explores the rather mystic quality of creation. He compares creative minds to antennae that can fine-tune themselves to a concept he calls The Source. The Source is that everything-out-there of culture, everything we hear, see, read, and everything all of humanity perceives.

Rubin analyzes the process where the raw data of the universe - The Source - is filtered into our minds (vessels). When stuck with a creative problem, Rubin advises creators to open themselves to The Source instead of focusing on the second-order processes of filtering. The “answers” we seek are right there in the messages we are receiving all the time. He says:

These transmissions are subtle: they are ever-present, but they’re easy to miss. If we aren’t looking for clues, they’ll pass by without us ever knowing. Notice connections and consider where they lead.

I can’t count the number of times where an odd solution to a problem presents itself. Words overhead in an elevator, on an entirely different subject, trigger a connection to a creative problem that’s been percolating in the back of my brain.

Rubin’s ideas about creativity reminded me of two other floating data points in The Source that have resonated with me.

In the DVD extras of the documentary Comedian, Jerry Seinfeld contrasts the level of effort between two jokes he is working on. One joke has been cultivated and nurtured with effort and craftsmanship. The other just emerged from the ether. I’m shocked the following clip was cut from the film, because it’s one of the best riffs on writing I’ve ever seen:

I highly recommend you spend some time down the Internet rabbit hole of The Emmy TV Legends interview series. In one segment Alan Alda talks about one of his favorite M*A*S*H episodes, Dear Sigmund (which is of course one of my favorites too). Alda sounds a similar note to Seinfeld, saying that “some of the best writing is not so much made, as… discovered” - and he also uses the antenna metaphor:

So… my antenna was evidently tuned into the tuning-in metaphor of late.

I have experienced something very similar to Alda - but with a twist. I suspect that most of Alda’s writing gigs have been conducted under somewhat rational conditions as far as sequencing and timing. But in comics, I’ve frequently had to put a given writing task on hold for months - even years - before returning to it.

I agree with Alda that it can be pleasurable to return to something you’ve completely forgotten that you’ve written. It seems to have come from someone else entirely. But when I’ve encountered a particularly bad chunk of my writing, I don’t feel that someone else is to blame - I feel that blame personally and viscerally.

There’s a fascinating twist I’ve found. I have often had to go back and revise something I’ve entirely forgotten about. Maybe there’s a specific detail change I need to make, or maybe a fundamental structural change, maybe an external factor has caused a character to change or be removed altogether. Whatever the reason, I’m there in revising mode and I come across something that seems incomplete. It feels like there should be a line of dialogue here. I take it to the next step and I imagine the next thing should be this particular line of dialogue here. And so I write it. And I feel I accomplished something.

But then, I turn the page, and realize - holy shit, I already wrote that exact same line of dialogue years ago. Maybe it occurs one or two panels later in the draft, or maybe I didn’t see it because there was an awkward page break. I’ve had this happen a number of times — re-creating something with remarkable similarity or exactness to something I’d done before.

Which raises the question: did I really “forget” that line? Am I just a mental archeologist, digging out the same artifact, not realizing it was buried in my subconscious all along?

Or - am I faced with the same “external” mental stimuli - a set of specific story conditions, the same character in a certain situation - and when I put my writer-brain into creation mode, and I tune my antenna into The Source and put that scenario through my unique filter - anew - yet come out the other side with the same output?

Call it the mental-archaeologist scenario versus the output-echo scenario.

The Mental-Archaeologist scenario: you really never forgot it.

The Output Echo scenario: you’re put in the same situational context for a creative problem, tap into The Source, run it through your filter, and what you synthesize ends up the same because your unique perspective and creative skills/tendencies/quirks will take that same input and generate the same output.

I’m open to the possibility that it’s the archeologist scenario, but, if The Universe allowed me into the Great Cosmic Casino where I could wager on the question - I’m putting my chips on the Output Echo scenario.

Regardless of the answer to this question, I have personally experienced what Alda and Seinfeld are describing. Often, the best lines of dialogue, the best images for panels, the best story beats or twists… just appear on the damned page. Pulled from the ether.

Which reminds me of my favorite social media post from when the film Get Back came out. “Watch Paul pull Get Back out of the ether” was said by many a viewer. Now watch a master rip one from the fabric of the cosmos:

Where do you think ideas come from? Tell me in the comments…