The world is not in your books and maps. It's out there.

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #008 • 5 min read

When's the last time you went outside for no other reason than to be outside?

No phone, no book, no planned activity. Just you, taking in nature, studying the twisting, reaching branches of trees, feeling the wind against your face, listening to the birds twitter and sing, watching the squirrels leap about, closing your eyes and lifting your head to the sun the feel its warmth...

If you can't remember the last time you did that, do it now. Quit reading this and go.

You have my permission.

I'll wait.

...

If you read ​last week's dispatch​, you know the special place The Lord of the Rings holds in my heart. There's a line from the movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, that isn't in any of the books. (If you've spent any time on TikTok or Instagram Reels, you've probably heard it).

Gandalf says to Bilbo:

The world is not in your books and maps. It's out there.

I love that line, but I also have a problem with it.

First, the reason I have a problem with it:

I believe worlds can be created within books. Within movies. Within songs. Within poetry. Art is a creative medium and its canvas is the human imagination. If we cannot imagine something that we've never seen, then where do new things come from?

Worlds can exist within books and maps.

Just look at Middle Earth itself! Tolkien created an entire world, full of history and language, myth and magic, mountains and Shire, hobbits and elves and dwarves and talking trees. In a way, the line seems to contradict the very thing Tolkien created. But before I get too worked up....

That brings us to why I also love the line:

I love it because I understand the need to get out into the real world.

You could say the line from the movie is an adaptation and/or conglomeration of several different passages from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In fact, there is a passage in The Hobbit that could be summarized with that line of dialogue from Gandalf to Bilbo.

And it's hard to convey internal struggle in a movie, so I get why the writers, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, chose to dramatize this internal scene of Bilbo's as a dialogue:

As [the dwarves] sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and a jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick. He looked out of the window. The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees. He thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns. Suddenly in the wood beyond The Water a flame leapt up—probably somebody lighting a wood-fire—and he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames. He shuddered; and very quickly he was plain Mr. Baggins of Bag-End, Under-Hill, again.

Here's what I think Tolkien might have been aiming to convey:

Books and maps tell about the world. They can imagine the world beyond our door (or one that does not exist), yet they are still but a shadow of the real thing.

And I think we forget how much we need the real thing.

We have more than books and maps today. We have 4K HD TVs, WiFi, VR, and smartphones. We can travel to distant places, living vicariously through someone else's travel vlog, all from the air conditioned comfort of our own couch.

[Scroll]

Italy

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France

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New Zealand

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Dubai

We live in our houses, in our cars, in our offices, in our own heads. All the while, the world awaits us outside.

Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains,

Books and maps and Instagram Reels should awaken in us a desire to go out. To be discontent with the experiences of others. To put down our phones and take in the things that have existed far longer than any of us. Great mountains. Vast oceans. Giant trees. Fields and clouds and flowers and animals.

Because once we're out there, nature will awaken something within us.

Living inside, we've fallen asleep.

Yet we can't sleep, we can't create, we can't think.

We're stressed and anxious and depressed.

And the endless scroll of social media or infinite streaming options won't fix it.

I realize this is a newsletter about creativity, but we're whole people, and when one facet of the body is sick, the whole body is sick.

Are you creatively stuck?

It might have nothing to do with what you're doing creatively and more to do with your physical environment.

Maybe you need to...

hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves,

If I stay indoors too long my creativity gets stifled. Just going into the backyard inspires me.

When I get my hands in the dirt, I feel centered and grounded.

I’m not a gardener, but I get the sense that if all I had to do is care for plants and till soil, I could be content.

and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.

The world awaits. Adventure is calling to you. But you have to go after it. You have to quit looking out the window, load your pack, grab your sword, and go out the door. It's your choice.

and he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames.

You can choose to stay inside. Look away from the window and pick your phone back up. Allow images of mountains to substitute for real mountains.

He shuddered; and very quickly he was plain Mr. Baggins of Bag-End, Under-Hill, again.

Will you choose comfort and stay in, or will you step out and find you've reawakened something inside?

Resistance would prefer you just keep scrolling.

Until next Saturday...

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox every Saturday morning.

You Need a Sam Gamgee

The Creative Rebellion • Dispatch #007 • 4 min read

Confession: this post should have been published last week. But I didn’t finish writing it in time. There were a lot of reasons for not getting it done, but the truth is:

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a creative, Resistance will still fight you. I’ve been creating since I could hold a crayon or a pencil. I have 35-year-old notebooks filled with artwork and short stories. But I still face Resistance on a daily—if not hourly—basis.

There is no defeating it once and for all. It’s a fight you will wage over and over and over again. Consider it part of the creative process.

Sometimes starting will feel like the hardest part. Sometimes it’s the middle that weighs you down. And other times it’s that final stretch as you near the finish line when Resistance extends a foot into your path, tripping you up just so it can watch you tumble into a heap while it crunches on avocado toast.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about collaboration, and how Resistance keeps us from sharing our ideas for fear they might be bad.

(Hint: a lot of them are)

Although there can be fear surrounding collaboration, there is also safety to be found. We might wish for the relative safety of solitude to avoid the fear of sharing our ideas, but that can be a mistake.

When we embark on solo creative endeavors, the journey can be lonely and can make us susceptible to giving up, sometimes before we even get started.

There are times when it’s important to close ourselves off and get to work. We need times of uninterrupted focus—deep work, to borrow the title of Cal Newport’s book. But every so often we need to connect, we need the camaraderie that’s inherent to collaboration.

The same comfort that can be found in a collaboration can also be found by merely sharing your struggles with another creative.

You don’t have to collaborate to share one another’s burden, but you do have to be willing to be vulnerable.

You have to be willing to actually share what you’re struggling with.

Can’t get motivated? Share that.

Stuck in the middle? Share that.

Unable to call the project done? Share.

Have a fear of hitting publish? Share.

You get the idea.

If you can share your creative struggles and your fight against Resistance, you’ll find you aren’t as alone as you thought. Because we all experience it.

You are not the only one who has ever faced Resistance.

My favorite book* is The Lord of the Rings.

It’s an epic tale that can be boiled down to a very simple summary:

Frodo must destroy the Ring of Power before it destroys him, or falls back into the hands of Sauron.

At the risk of spoiling the end of a 68 year old story…

SPOILER ALERT

…Frodo does accomplish his mission.

(Although, even at the end, at the edge of the fires of Mt. Doom, Frodo’s greed for the ring would have spelled defeat were it not for Gollum’s deeper desire for the ring.)

But he never could have done it alone. Gandalf died. The Fellowship was broken. He tried to leave Sam behind. Gollum tried to take the ring back. He was almost killed be a giant spider. And the Ring almost lulled him into surrender a number of times.

Sam was his constant companion. He couldn’t carry the burden of the Ring, but he could carry his friend. He could push him to the end. Protect him. Urge him on.

And though the rest of the Fellowship was split, they did their part to defeat the army of Mordor and help Frodo in ways unseen and unknown to him.

We all need a Sam. We need a Fellowship.

Find someone who can share in your struggles even if they aren’t sharing in your project.

When Resistance shows up, you’ll need a friend to urge you on in your mission.

If you’ve never read The Lord of the Rings, what are you waiting for? Get a copy now!

*Nerd side-note: Yes, it’s usually viewed as a trilogy, but Tolkien only published it as three separate books at the insistence of his publisher. He meant it to be one epic piece.

When the publisher wouldn’t go for that, he aimed to split it into six parts (each published book still contains a Book 1 and a Book 2). Still a no. (Post-WWII paper supplies and costs and all that.)

So it was released as a trilogy. But the best way to read it is as one giant story. I really like this version. Also, you don’t have to read The Hobbit for LotR to make sense, but it will help deepen the story. I like this pocket edition of The Hobbit.

Do you have someone to share your creative struggles with?

Until next Saturday...

Stay rebellious,

Travis

P.S. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend.

P.P.S. Subscribe to The Creative Rebellion to be sure you never miss a post! Dispatches will arrive in your inbox (almost) every Saturday morning.