What can I do most beautifully?

Wake-Up Call #9

The question was first posed in a conversation with James Patterson.

We were maybe 30-minutes in, talking about his career. I was curious about his long-ago pivot from running one of the world’s premier ad-firms to writing fiction.

The following tumbled out:

“My time here is short—what can I do most beautifully?”

He made clear the quote wasn’t his, but couldn’t recall to whom it should be attributed.

I began to dig. Eventually found the source. Yet another legend,

George Saunders

, who of course writes the fantastic

Story Club with George Saunders

Substack.

George was being interviewed by Mike Errico for Mike’s book, Music, Lyrics, and Life: A Field Guide for the Advancing Songwriter. Mike says to George, “You were almost a professional musician.”

George replies:

It was my first artistic love, for sure. But I’m not much of a songwriter, as it turns out, which was a big deal to realize. Whatever distinguishes a good songwriter from a so-so one, I didn’t have that.

I was floored to learn that Saunders tried to make his bones as a musician, but heeded that voice that said it wasn’t his path. Meandering down toward the end of his conversation with Errico, George drops this question, along with an insight. One I think so many who find themselves tugged between different paths and expressive media struggle with:

ME (Mike): Knowing that songwriting was your first artistic love, how did you decide that prose was the better medium for you?

GS: The kind of big principle that I believe in is that, let’s say there’s twenty things that you do in your life—just general categories of things that you do. We might think we want to be Thing Six. But if we’re doing twenty things, and Thing Eighteen is the one that really lights us up, it’s a real moment of maturation to say, “My time here is short—what can I do the most beautifully?” I think that’s a lesson in prose, but also in life. If you think you’re a com- poser of string quartets, and when you play your string quartets, everybody goes to sleep, and in consolation you pick up your accordion and start playing a polka and everybody dances, well [laughs], there you go. There it is.

ME: And to what degree do you think we make that choice?

GS: I think zero.

ME: Zero?

GS: I think.

ME: Agreed.

The question, itself, is powerful. What can we do most beautifully? It’s a fascinating way to explore the sweet spot between the urge to bring forth both creation and beauty.

It reminded me of another conversation I had more than a decade ago on the Good Life Project podcast with iconic designer, Milton Glaser. Even if you don’t know his name, you know his work, from the most ripped-off logo in history—I ❤️ NY—to the thousands of illustrations, magazine covers and brands that have been woven in culture.

Glaser added context around the impulse to make and the call to create beauty. In response to a question about where the impulse to create an astonishing body-of-work came from, he replied:

“I have no idea where it comes from. Only thing that I do know is that after a while, you begin to realize A, how little you know about everything and two, how vast the brain is and how it encompasses everything you can imagine, but more than that, everything you can't imagine.”

.…supplementary to the [desire to make things] is the desire to create beauty, which is a different but analogous activity. So the urge to make things, probably a survival device. The urge to create beauty is something else, but only apparently something else, because, as you know, there are no unrelated events in human experience.”

Beauty, the creation of it, is a survival mechanism. There's something about making things beautiful. And we sometimes call that art. That has something to do with creating a commonality between human beings so that they don't kill each other. And whatever that impulse is and wherever it comes from, it certainly is contained within every human being I've ever met.

Sometimes the opportunity to articulate it occurs. Sometimes it remains dormant for a lifetime. You just don't get the shot at it.

All three agree, the urge to create beauty is alive in all beings. Though the opportunity to actualize it is more complicated.

And, that last bit between Errico and Saunders, as well as the final few lines from Glaser seem to acknowledge a certain lack of control over the arrival and expression of the Muse.

If we’re fortunate enough to stumble upon our thing, then recognize it, we have a certain agency and intentionality in how we tend to and, eventually, share it. Where the impulse to make a particular kind of art in a particular kind of way comes from, that remains largely a mystery. I agree with Mike, George and Milton, it is largely outside our control. Some things just are what they are.

The work, in the early days (that may last decades) is to say yes to an ever-expanding ripple of possibilities. Enough to evoke a sense of discovery from the stumbling process. Then listen when the Universe winks. When our hearts flicker on, and those who experience what we create are moved in a meaningful way. Not because we’ve found the best way to serve a market, but because the pureness of our gift, emboldened by the depth of our presence and the fruits of our practice have found their most direct path to the collective unfolding of our souls.

For me, while I’ve spent my entire life in maker mode, fumbling through the creation of books, brands, businesses, and beyond, writing seems to have taken the current post position. Whether it ever becomes something I can do beautifully or not, the jury’s still out.

Interestingly, though, that’s not, as they say in game show parlance, my final answer. My mind keeps tilting toward a decidedly non-career-oriented response.

When I ask what I can do most beautifully, what comes to mind, without hesitation, has nothing to do with work. The answer isn’t thought, so much as it’s felt. It’s to be a dad as beautifully as I can. To be a husband as beautifully as I can. To be an adult child to aging parents, and loving brother as beautifully as I can. To be a friend as beautifully as I can. To be not just here, but present, as beautifully as I can.

I don’t know if the way I show up in anyone’s lives will ever rise to that level, but the aspiration is alive and well in me.

And, hey, if I could one day write a sentence that evoked something deep and primal and real in others, I wouldn’t complain about that either.

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Wake-Up Call Prompt #9:

Answer George’s question.

“My time here is short—what can I do most beautifully?”

It may come in a moment, or take time to emerge. Either way, plant the seeds now.

And, as always, if you’re inclined, share in the comments.