The Plight of the Mid-Life/Mid-Career Creative
Essayist Tim Kreider on ambition, perspective, competition and kindness
“Having no good ideas is part of the process. It’s not fun. I wish I could elide that part of the process.” —Tim Kreider, author of We Learn Nothing and I Wrote This Book Because I Love You
Preview: Episode 116 with essayist and cartoonist Tim Kreider
Tim Kreider is the author of the essay collections We Learn Nothing and I Wrote This Book Because I Love You. His Substack is called “The Loaf” and he has contributed to The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vox, Nerve, Men’s Journal, The Comics Journal, Film Quarterly, and Fangoria. His cartoons have been collected in three books by Fantagraphics Books. His cartoon, “The Pain—When Will It End?” ran for twelve years in the Baltimore City Paper and other alternative weeklies, and is archived at the paincomics.com. Tim was born and educated in Baltimore, Maryland. He lives in New York City and an idyllic compound in the Ozark woods. His cat The Quetzal died in 2013. His new cat is Richard, who is a fool, an adorable little fool.
What We’re Reading and Listening to:
Rosemerry:
This is an old article on Lion’s Roar, but it describes a great tool … dharma teacher Tara Brach speaks about acceptance and inner freedom and the RAIN technique for connecting more deeply with ourselves, others and the world around us. I learned it long ago, but it came across my path again recently and I was so grateful for the simple, practical mnemonic, originally coined by Michele McDonald and taught by Brach. Talk about a way to shift away from blame and toward tenderness and compassion.
Um, okay. So maybe I am learning how to shuffle on youtube. And maybe I am obsessed with this five-minute lesson in how to do the running man. I can’t say I have mastered the moves, but I can say that I have laughed soooo much trying!! “Get your glow sticks out, we’re about to rave.”
Christie:
After reading and enjoying Rachel Cusk's Outline trilogy, I picked up her novel Second Place in an airport bookstore recently. It’s a slim book, and fast read. Like all of the Cusk books I’ve read so far, it’s sort of a stream of consciousness and both hard to recommend and difficult to put down. Second Place is about a summer when the narrator (a writer) invited famous artist L to live in her coastal guesthouse for the summer. His visit causes turmoil in her domestic life and raises issues of male privilege, the power of art, and male-female relationships. It’s inspired by Mabel Dodge Luhan's 1932 memoir, Lorenzo in Taos, about the writer D. H. Lawrence's visit to Taos, New Mexico.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new New York Times Magazine piece about what the kidnapping of her father’s friend has to do with the trauma she experienced during childbirth is amazing and unforgettable. It’s about the universality of trauma and the stories we tell.
But It Took Over an Hour to Get There
This morning the new kitten played with a hair tie
for twenty minutes, kicking it under the table,
swatting it across the room, catching it on a nail
and tossing it into the air. Meanwhile, I tried
to do the same thing with an idea—tried
to bat at it, swipe at it, fling it across the room
and then chase it and pounce on it again.
But the idea sat dead on the desk.
I tried the cat’s approach—pretended not to look at it.
I let my paws make tea instead. And then
went to Facebook. Then vacuumed the room.
Then stared at the idea and wondered why
it hadn’t moved. Boring idea. Dumb idea.
Why did it just sit there, lifeless as a hair tie?
Eventually the kitten, exhausted from frolic,
curled down for a nap. I sat back in the chair,
wondered at what I might learn from the cat.
Picked up the idea again. Gave it a whack. And darned
if it didn’t take on some life as my nose
nudged it into new places. Curious, my whole body
readied to pounce, my tail swishing behind my back.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
A Note About Paid Subscriptions:
First, we want to thank ALL our subscribers! We are so grateful you join us in this conversation about what it is to engage with yourself, the world and others in a creative way. And a BIG thank you to our paid subscribers. You make this podcast possible. Starting this month, only our paid subscribers will receive our bonus episodes as a thank you for their financial support.
This week, we talk with Tim Kreider about the importance of walking and talking with friends (and stealing conversation snippets), writing letters as a training ground, the alchemy of combining seemingly unrelated topics and how to meet hopelessness. If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can go now to our website, EmergingForm.substack.com, or by clicking the button below. Thank you!
Two Questions:
(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)
What do you envy about another person’s creative practice?
What effect does getting older have on your creative practice?
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At 80 poetry is more difficult to write because I experience all day long. 60 years of poetry have embedded the reconciliation that one can live within poetry within that which is everything: see that poplar, that ween, hear that truck, touch these keys, miss my grandmother, take in the breeze