PETER HIMMELMAN SAYS: LET ME OUT!
Book review by Futurist, Creator and Founder of C’EST WHAT?
Peter Himmelman is a compassionate man who lives on the brighter side of life, brilliantly close to the heat of the sun. He’s fused with the genesis of creativity.
His prolific fountain of music, art and story emerges from being mindful. He notices the moments and nuances from fleeting experiences that are happening amidst his sphere, minute by minute, expression by expression.
He coalesces seemingly unconnected thoughts, images and ideas. They become the design of narratives and music that indelibly etch an emotionally resonant tattoo on our souls. Peter has the intuitive foresight to interpret the context in which humans relate to each other. He’s there for us, as expressed in one of my favorite Himmelman tunes, “Mission of My Soul”
“When you need confession, I’m there to listen.
When you’re crossing the ocean, I’ve got a boat to row.
When you need attention, your audience won’t be missing.
That’s the mission of my soul”
Peter’s latest mission is to help everyone else unleash their personal creativity and transcend the obstacles that commonly stall our own creative energy. His new book, LET ME OUT http://letmeoutbook.com reveals ways to unlock your creative mind and bring your ideas to life.
We often wonder from where does creativity emerge, especially among artists who make it look so easy. Does it really come from a flash of inspiration? The intersection of magic and circumstances? Or, is creativity more considered?
Peter believes there are moments of conception and gestation.
“On some level, an impetus do something simply arises. I can’t explain in any more than that. Just as I have a desire like being hungry or thirsty, it arises on it’s now accord. That’s how I find myself doing new things. Sometime I will notice something; for example I was at an airport and saw a young girl, 4-5 years old, jump up into the arms of a soldier, probably her father. And, he was kind of crying too. I saw it in all of two-seconds, but it was powerful.
I think of these glances as seminal moments of conception. I‘m not really even thinking about it - the idea becomes a zygote and then becomes bigger within my consciousness. It’s stays in gestation period and at some point that impetus, in this case the whole concept of vulnerability, emerges as passion for the connectedness of human beings.
Creators and innovators love the moment of conception. It’s a rush of validation that our minds are in sync with the world, having noticed a pattern of stimuli and transforming that into meaning. However, it can be challenging to take the next steps, to move ideas from fuzzy to fruition. Peter’s view is that impetus is naturally and mystically fueled.
“That feeling will emerge in a way just like human birth or any kind of birth is unstoppable. It just comes out and just happens. When those kinds of impetus happens, it’s really wonderful because its nothing you brought on, this is an organic sensation that arises in a mystical way.
My need to express that was so deep, so emotional that plain old words in a story are not enough. I have this visceral need to communicate a powerful emotion. It comes out through music and lyrics. That’s another way these creative impulses are made manifest.”
Peter’s new book rises above the hum of the self-help literary prophecy we’ve experienced over the past few decades. There’s a perpetually magnetic force of desire to get off our communal couch and follow through on our ideas. Many ideas seem to float away into the cirrus like pink balloons after your niece’s birthday.
LET ME OUT is constructive and accessible. The book posits that everyone has ideas, goals and dreams for themselves. No matter how successful or impoverished people are, there are still dreams that exist. From Peter’s perspective, turning those dreams into reality comes from three modes of action: Being specific, present and true. Take the tiniest steps toward your creative goal, do that soon and be authentic
Peter is also a realist. The metaphors in his music are poignant and gritty. Much of his music is about moving forward, overcoming obstacles and finding bliss. In LET ME OUT, Peter serves up a fictitious character that sometimes blocks that progress.
“Unleashing creativity is really about creating resilience against the negative voice which in the book which I metaphorically exemplify in a character named MARV - Majorly Afraid of Revealing Vulnerability.
MARV is saying - you could fail and the failure will engender shame and shameful people are shunned. However, MARV is not something you want to banish. Instead, you need to create pockets of time in the day where you can escape MARV and become deeply engaged in process of following your dream. The accumulation of your accomplishments in these pockets of time start to mount like a mosaic, eventually create a larger thing - leading you to achieving your desire.
Then, MARV calms down and you get this dopamine response which I call the Milky Way moment, the joyous engagement in the small pieces of whatever you want to achieve”.
Peter’s thesis about creativity is rooted in re-birth. He successfully re-designed his own life after the democratization of music left artists like him with much lower compensation for their work. However, he does not think about life as a set of upward achievements or downward set-backs. Instead, it’s about a continuum of satisfaction and meaning.
It’s more about movement. I think for quite a while in my life I felt a sense of stasis, like I was not moving. I did not feel like I was exploring anything new, I was caught in my own patterns and habits. I was living in the safety nets of my own areas of expertise. And I also think — the music business is a recently disrupted industry like the saddle or buggy whip industry. Falling off the cliff. The idea of recording music and having people pay for it has been profoundly disrupted.
Disruption can either be an obstacle or a beautiful chasm that opens up a treasure trove of opportunity for innovation. Seeing the difference requires that you examine your own authenticity. Peter has a knack for enabling us to see what’s authentic within ourselves.
It’s an axiomatic fact. We are born with courage and creativity. Life is often about telling us —in how we are raised, our culture, the things we read, the things we talk about —to ignore our innate talents.
I’ve had some experiences with creativity that have established indelible memories within me. And an unquenchable longing for more such experiences. Every day is rich with these kind of experiences, but in order to go through life and stop at the red light and show up at our jobs, we can’t really follow all of them, or we would be considered mad. But it’s madness to ignore them as well. Not to let them help become keys to access our courage or our innate creativity.
I really crave to have this deep connection with the people I love, to have new experiences, to be valued for the things that I do, and to have the resources to continue creating. There are these more subtle desires for truth, for closeness, gratitude. One of the reasons we love taking a walk in the woods is that we’re given a respite from that prodding for a moment.
Peter’s song called “Hotter Brighter Sun” from his collaboration on The Boat That Carries Us album library gives us clues about the place where creativity lives.
Over the edge of what’s expected
Off to the side of what’s been done
The arms of what’s already been detected
There comes a hotter bright
Beneath the veil which hides the instinct
Beyond the words that scoff and shun
Beside a wise and mystic presence
There comes a hotter brighter sun
To me, those lyrics represent the essence of innovation. Over the edge of what’s expected and off to the side of what’s been done. Head toward the light, use your insights and instincts. Play with what you notice. But, Peter claims there is no such intent. He believes his music just emerges from being mindful.
When good songs of mine emerge, they pretty much just come out and I haven’t typically given them much thought. There’s something about the analytical brain that’s sometimes creates roadblocks for the essential subconscious energy that can arise. That takes things from a transcendent place. You might want to call it spiritual or subliminal or subconscious.
To me, everything is mystical, from a rock to an angel. These songs just came out. I did not have to think at all, they were a gift. This sense of having allowed these things to just flow out just happens if you allow the space.
Creativity is native within us. Its like gravity, it’s just sort of there and once we remove the plaque of fear, we’re automatically faced with our own creativity and our problem is that we constantly equate creativity to mastery.
People who are actively creative are alive in the moment. They are fearless enough to allow their analytical mind to recede and the wellspring of information that's buried in the subconscious to emerge.
That is the essence of Peter Himmelman. He makes the moments meaningful. His new book is another step in the journey and the latest of many creative gifts.
This book was not so much what ‘I’ can accomplish but something that can actually be a tool for facilitating the growth of other people, which is really exciting. This has excitement without limits and without quantitative measurement.
I want people to respond to my ideas; I want to have an effect on the world and cause change in the world. People are gravitating to things that they can really get value from. I am very excited and hopeful that people will find value in this book and find joy in their own lives.
http://letmeoutbook.com
