Rick Rubin: The Art of Creativity... the current "IT" self-help book. After I listen to a few of his 1-minute inspirational guidance clips, thinking, 'hmm, that's good advice' yet he goes on and on I get to the point of feeling like throwing my phone in the toilet. OH MY GOD, ENOUGH PLATITUDES WE'VE HEARD FOR OUR ENTIRE LIVES, RICK. STOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP.
I'm listening to it on Audible. It was recommended by someone I feel has so much more wisdom in her little finger than yet again another rich white man from NYC via Malibu who has just discovered Matcha. Sure, there are some things I can cull from Rick's endless Tibetan bell punctuations after his "wisdom downloads" to remind me of better ways to live but the platitudes are so many and take up so much of his advice (which he calls just his thoughts) that I just want to throw up my hands and say STOPPPPPPPP!
Sorry to all of you who LOVE this book or get a lot out of it. But, please, unless you have never heard any of this before because you have just been born, YOU ALREADY KNOW ALL THIS!
Rick Rubin is probably a really nice, really good producer (that's what he's proven) and a wonderful family man and neighbor, an inspiring human being, and good for whoever he works with - I'm sure he's most likely a great mentor -- but for goodness sake, take his "thinking" with a grain of thought and know you know this already. Peeps, let's not gild his lily, ok. One thing... Please do not just go to the bookstore, as he advises, after your doctor tells you you need to have your appendix out and open a book to any page, run your fingers down it, and read whatever sentence you land on to advise you as to whether or not to do it? Get a 2nd or 3rd opinion and use your brain and your doctor's experience, this is dangerous to advise (Rick, you should know better) -- Also, one last thing. Rick would love this "review" of his new book I'm doing here. He says to go against the grain and be courageous enough to be yourself and do it your way. Well, Rick, I'm going against your current guru's popular book and say, OH MY GOD enough already! All this said, if you LOVE this book and have gotten a whole lot out of it, I have complete respect for you and appreciate that you are making a better you out of you... and more power to that. This is just my experience. And Rick, I groove with your philosophy, it's just that it's too hard to bear to listen to you sounding like NOW YOU HAVE IT ALL TOGETHER AND IT IS SO EASY TO DO, JUST DO IT LIKE I'M SAYING AND ALL WILL BE WELL. OHHHHHH, one thing... I thought Rick Rubin was amazing when he interviewed Paul McCartney.
NOW HOLD ON. I'm not through yet. IF I'm going to out Rick Rubin, let me out myself as well. If you're at all like me or even if you're only a little like me, you've been through or may still be (I am) in talk therapy, have been to Mexico for women's retreats, have done Ayahuasca or Peyote, or pot, or whatever (some multiple times) and had epiphanies of being one with the Universe, been vegan for a spell or still are, have done grief rituals, sweat lodges, fasts, compassionate listening/non-violent communication workshops, volunteered at food banks, protested the end of war, BLM, LGBGTQRSTUVW, meditated, chanted, dunked in freezing cold waters, shaved your head, worn love beads, whatever-- and I'm NOT putting this down, I'm just saying, and here's where I will out myself, I"M STILL INSECURE! I still don't have the foggiest idea what we're all doing here and why, I still have days when I hate myself (ok hours now, because - well- this advice Rick Rubin is regurgitating IS good and I have practiced it) but what I'm trying to say is I'm still working through the childhood traumas or the teenage traumas or the adult traumas and I saw my own mother at 97 years old, )the one who still had all her marbles and was in the middle of reading Harari when she died) still worried about whether the women in the assisted living building like her and if her hair looked good enough to make her worthy of their approval. And I'm the same... no matter how much wisdom I have, it takes daily, hourly, minute-by-minute self-talk to keep remembering I AM WORTH EVERYTHING -- but no matter how I try to prove it, I still come back to the mirror and have to look into it and treat myself to a smile and a loving comment about how I matter.
So, read or listen to Rick Rubin, if you want. But, please, don't think he is the greatest thing since learning to bake sourdough bread -- he's just a human being saying the same things to himself that we all need to say to ourselves (except the bit about not listening to your doctor) and KNOW IN THE CELLS OF YOUR BEING THAT YOU MATTER.
PPS If you really want to piss off the Universe go ahead, buy the T-shirt, it’s only $70, and you, too, can believe you rule supreme.
Hi Linda, I so love every word you wrote about this guy. I’m 79 years old and I
guess starting in 1965 with Gurdjieff
I’ve done all the things you mentioned doing as well as 36 years practicing
Kundalini yoga with the 3ho Sikhs. In
2020 it was revealed that Yogi Bhajan,
the guy who brought Kundalini to this
country was a rapist, a thief and a liar
just for starters. I never liked or followed
him but loved the yoga. Since reading
hundreds of pages that were written by former students I along with my husband and my youngest daughter
who was a certified Kundalini teacher
threw all books, cd’s and other paraphernalia into the trash. By now
thousands of other have spoken out
about their horrific experiences. When
it comes to anyone pushing self help
and how to’s have lost me. I am so
done. Interestingly enough, Rick Ruben just mad a film that’s an expose of
Yogi Bhajan that people who left the
organization are trying with Ruben to
market. I resonate with ever word you
shared today. Thank you thank
you so much.
t
I was unable to finish that book, it was so loaded with treacly, shopworn platitudes and cliche "advice," and I still don't understand what anybody sees in it. Anybody I mean who has read even a few of the myriad self-helpy books on creativity, following your bliss, blah blah. As far as I can tell, he made a lot of friends as a producer and persuaded them to gush in blurbs for his book. This was I tricked. As for mainstream people who are also gushing ... I don't know. It's like they read a different book.