New Year's special: How to make creative work when you're busy with other s**t

0:00Hey guys, it's Andrea and Emily with The Culture Journalist and a happy 2024 to you. New year, new batch of Culture Journalist episodes. and to kick things off we're starting with a special subscriber only bonus episode emily do you have any new year's resolutions sort of i always start my new year's resolutions for some reason like in a fit of anxiety like a few weeks before new year's for some reason i think you're not alone in that okay and then i like try to see if i can keep them up and this is not extremely culture journalist related, but I decided to do the whole 10 ,000 steps thing because I realized I was just like, aside from playing basketball once in a while, just like not leaving my couch where I work.

0:50So I've been doing it for about three or three weeks, almost a month. And it was going really well. Although now the Northeast is like blanketed in snow. So I cannot go outside without like slipping and almost breaking my neck how about you yeah I've definitely exercised more physical activity not just catching and turning my body into human shrimp is definitely on my resolutions list once again I'm kind of still working out my plan um just a general vibe just just a general vibe like time to get healthy and it'll make work better it'll make my brain work better but in addition to that I want to put out some more music this year I want to get back into my musical practice I sort of neglected that I did a little bit of it in 2023 but I want to get back to it and make more time for that because it's a really satisfying creative practice for me I like the challenge of it but you know it's also really hard to fit something like that in when you know, I have a full time day job, I do this podcast, trying to make time for exercise, the other things we've been talking about.

2:02But you know, it's, it's great to keep up your creative work, especially the kind of stuff that you do outside of your financial incentives or where money is kind of a bonus for it. It's not the end goal. Or it's like, you're doing something that like, maybe you could live off of down the line, but you need some time to like lay the baby, like lay the foundation, maybe years before that even happens. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I've also been working on a book proposal on a subject that I have yet to reveal, but I will reveal it at some point and maybe I will even release some of the material on The Culture Journalist.

2:42We'll see. Hell yeah. So sort of in line with pursuing more creative projects in this new year, Emily and I have cooked up an episode just for you paid subscribers to talk about a New Year's resolution that we all share, which is how to make time for meaningful creative work when you're already busy with other shit or just otherwise feeling burnt out by a creator economy where, you know, self-promotion and algorithmic incentives continually move the goalpost of what it means to get a personal project done. I love how you put that. So we're bringing on a friend of ours named Elliot Aranau who has done a bunch of stuff in music and fashion and personal development over the past few decades from working at publications like GQ and The Fader which is part of how I know him because we both worked at Fader to serving as the creative director of this digital first label called Record Label and even starting his own menswear brand at one point I think it was a Thai brand.

3:44So it's safe to say he's a guy who knows about getting creative side projects and otherwise done so elliot's combined all that to create a new thing called minor genius here on substack so minor genius which you can find over at minor genius.substack.com describes itself as a quote subscriber supported newsletter that teaches you how to unlock your minor genius so you can get out of fear, hiding, and scarcity and start creating the life of your dreams. He also works directly with clients to help them do just that. We discuss balancing the pursuit of creative work with needing to pay your bills, the importance of creating your own IP even if you already work in an artistic field, and making work that is meaningful in a culture industry with twisted incentives, as we discuss on almost every episode of this podcast.

4:37Along the way, we discuss the importance of the creative middle class, why so many music publications year-end lists at the end of 2023 featured the same handful of songs, and how modeling one's career after minor geniuses like Ian McKay and Chloe Sevigny can be a path towards success on your own terms. And stay on for the end, because Emily and I also do a little mini-session with Elliot and ask him some advice questions of our own. We'll be right back with Elliot.

5:18Hey guys, we are here with Elliot Aranow. He is the founder of Minor Genius and the author behind the Minor Genius Substack. Thanks for joining us, Elliot. Super happy to be here. Thank you. All right. So first off, what is a Minor Genius? is? So I probably should have a punchier, super dialed in response to what is a minor genius. But instead, I will tell you the truth. And the truth is that minor genius is a philosophy, really. And that philosophy is based around creative advancement, spiritual advancement, and sartorial advancement. And I believe that the intersection of those three things, metaphysics, making stuff, and for lack of a better term, beauty, are very good organizing principles for one's life.

6:12And so when people come to me, they're usually at a place where they're feeling very stuck and trapped and kind of optionless due to their professional environment. And so when folks come into my world, they're at this place where a part of them really wants to make this thing, but they feel all this resistance and all this struggle around them. And historically, they've been overcome by this struggle and their thing that they wanted to make never got made. And so they come to me to help them manifest their idea. So I would kind of consider it a mixture of very high end creative direction and spiritual life coaching shadow work.

7:11And from all my experiences in this life, I found that the combination of those two things is really potent. And I've lived on the unhealthy extreme of both of those sides. Throughout my 20s, when I was a, and I'm using air quotes here, professional cool guy, magazine editor, TV host wearing suits, I was totally in just the non-spiritual, ego, pleasure-obsessed world. And then as that version of me got eviscerated by life and I went through a very long and pretty difficult dark night of the ego, I became very internal, very psychological, very kind of obsessed with my own emotional environment.

8:04and I wasn't really making anything. And it was after coming out of that phase that I kind of discovered that the combination of self-reflection and cultural production can be a really, really potent way to transform. And so I developed this minor genius philosophy as a way to kind of unite the metaphysical, the quantum, the mysteries of the mind and the universe with something that is very material and very practical. Like at the end of each container, when I work with somebody, they have a magazine to show. They have a film that they've produced. They have t-shirts that people can buy. And within that process of having an idea, working through all the resistance, all the stories you have about how incapable and stupid and lame you are, you know, all the stuff that we deal with by overcoming those challenges.

9:14And in a spiritual sense, you know, embracing the shadow and actually making something people begin to see how capable and alive they really are. And so when I use this term, unlock your minor genius, it's really about tuning into this thing that you know needs to be made and then sticking with it through all the discomfort. And finally, after you've been through those peaks and valleys, having something really, really incredible that you're proud of. And why differentiate or maybe how is a minor genius different from, well, I guess a major genius or a genius genius? Well, I think the idea of being a major genius is really intimidating for people.

10:06Because when I think of a major genius, I'm thinking of Bob Dylan or someone, Jimi Hendrix, someone who's incredibly, incredibly accomplished and very far removed from an everyday person. But when I think of a minor genius, I think that the lowest rung of something really impressive is a cool thing to aspire to. It's more like you're trying to do the most you can with what you have in front of you. And I think that the minor aspect of it is really about this DIY approach where you don't have to wait to be anointed by anyone. No one can proclaim that you are a minor genius. You just have to decide for yourself.

10:56But the common thread to all minor geniuses is that over the course of their life, they have produced a body of work that is idiosyncratic and completely unique to them. And of course, in any discography, there's going to be a couple of bad songs in any athletic life. There's going to be, you know, fumbles and missed shots. And Minor Genius embraces all of this in the interest of having something that over many, many, many years is sustainable and alive and a product that only they could bring into the world.