Freudenfreude for your creativity

There is nothing more creatively liberating than celebrating other people's creativity — not the output, but the process. The time, energy, vision and courage it takes to put things into the world.

It’s a kind of freudenfreude — the enjoyment of another's joy — and it's one of the best things we can do for our own creativity.

Think about it like handing out enthusiastic participation certificates wherever we encounter creativity.

Someone tried a new icebreaker at work? Celebrate it! That took time to design and courage to execute.

Went to see your friend’s new noise rock band? Celebrate it! The energy and vision it takes to bring music (any music!) into the world.

building tolerance for our own attempts

Practising unconditional creative freudenfruede increases our tolerance for ‘bad’ creative output — which matters, because we all have to make bad stuff if we want any hope of making good stuff.

Even after we've made some good stuff, we'll have to make a lot more bad stuff in order to keep growing. So we need to be able to tolerate and enjoy the process of creativity itself, even when the output falls short of ‘good’.

The more open, accepting and celebratory we can become toward other people's creativity, the more that becomes the inner environment for our own.

increasing our range of experiences

Unconditional creative freudenfreude also helps expand our range of experiences.

We become less worried about the awkwardness or discomfort of encountering things we don't like — which means we're more likely to try new things, and perhaps surprise ourselves at how much we can enjoy experiences that aren’t our traditional cup of tea.

(A quick aside: I have an event series in mind called "How to Experience [X]" — where people with a shared discomfort / aversion to a type of art or activity gather to experience it, appreciate the creative effort involved, and seek to understand it at a deeper level. What do you think? Is that something you’d be keen on?)

turning comparison into admiration

Practising unconditional creative freudenfreude also serves us when we encounter creative output that we really love.

Someone nailed a pitch at work? Celebrate it! Applaud the energy and the effort that went into it.

Someone made a painting that is perfection in your eyes? Celebrate it! The skill and time and vision that allowed such a masterpiece to appear.

Freudenfreude helps us transform creativity-defeating feelings like envy and comparison into creativity-fuelling ones, like appreciation, admiration and inspiration.

So there you have it — unconditional creative freudenfreude.

This practice is the best barometer I have for my own creative health. Whenever it feels hard, I know I need to tend to my own creativity.

And a great way to start is by handing out some more enthusiastic creativity participation certificates to other people — before giving one to myself!