Here we are in another new year. It feels almost impossible to believe it is 2025, as, sometimes, I still find myself thinking it’s 2020. And, as with any other new year, I reside squarely in the pro-resolutions/intentions camp. There is just something about reflecting on a previous year and taking the opportunity to be honest with yourself about the joy you felt, along with the sorrow and every emotion in between, and where you want your next year to go.

Whether you choose to set more specific goals or simple intentions on how to show up in your daily life, that is up to you. This year, I went with a bingo card — choosing to put goals to accomplish or things that would simply bring me joy into the squares.

Several of the things I selected are related to living life a little more creatively: start a book club, learn to sew, take a dance class, etc. Because of this, when I went to select January’s book for my column, I wanted to be intentional in the self-improvement book for the year. I often find self-improvement books are just someone saying if you only do this one thing, it’ll change your whole life, while just giving ridiculous examples of how it worked in their own life. As I scanned the shelves in a bookstore, I stumbled very quickly onto “The Creative Act: A Way of Being” by Rick Rubin, published in January 2023.

“The Creative Act: A Way of Being” by Rick Rubin

Rubin is a prolific, nine-time Grammy-winning music producer. He started Def Jam Recordings out of his college dorm room in the ‘80s and launched the careers of hip-hop legends like Run-DMC, Public Enemy and LL Cool J. He is the founder of American Recordings and the former co-president of Columbia Records. He has also produced with stars including Beastie Boys, Adele, Johnny Cash, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Kesha, Green Day and the Chicks.

The purpose of his novel, according to the book’s description, is “helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable. Over the years, as he has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn’t, he has learned being an artist isn’t about your specific output, it’s about your relationship to the world. Creativity has a place in everyone’s life, and everyone can make that place larger.”

As I began reading this novel, I found myself pulled in, wanting to tab pages or write notes in the margin, something I am profoundly against. Yet, the way this book is written, it simply asks for you to be fully invested.

It is more of a collection of thoughts than anything that simply flow through how you can encourage yourself to show up more creatively in your own life. Most of the chapters are only two to four pages, with nuggets throughout the book that can offer something for anyone. It does not have to be read in order, though I have found it may be a little easier to read in order simply because of the terminology Rubin sets up in the beginning.

Yet as always with self-help books, I have a few bones to pick. At one point, Rubin mentions his appendix bursts, but he then reads a book by a medical doctor which says you should not have body parts removed, so Rubin kept his appendix. This story instantly made me feel uncomfortable, as I recognized how dangerous of a story this may be. Please seek and take medical advice from a medical doctor, not just a random page on a random book you flipped to.

This book is rather expensive for having many pages that are either completely blank or mostly blank. While I can appreciate a great quote that sums up what you’re trying to say, sometimes it almost felt as though Rubin should have just put the quote in and skipped the entire chapter.

Plus, as most self-help books do, there are quite a few thoughts or examples already floating around out there, with this book leaning heavily on what seems like ideas of Zen Buddhism. Perhaps, as people often say, there are no original thoughts left.

From my perspective, this book is the perfect gentle guidance and support to understanding how your life is a work of art and how you should treat it as such; nothing more, nothing less.

Three out of five stars. Available at major booksellers and the Casey Memorial Library.