Robert Fritz Quotes

You can get rid of all your problems and still not have what you want.

Because humanity is part of nature, it should be no surprise that people act consistently with natural law. But for most of us, this is a new idea. In our culture we have been taught to ignore our relationship to nature, to treat nature simply as the stage or background that we use, adopt, tolerate, or oppose, as the case may be.

"What motivates a creator? The desire for the creation to exist. A creator creates in order to bring the creation into being. People in the reactive-responsive orientation often have trouble understanding this sensibility: to create for the sake of the creation itself. Not for the praise, not for the "return on investment," not for what it may say about you, *but for its own sake.*
Poet Robert Frost captured the spirit of the orientation of the creative when he said:
"All the great things are done for their own sake."
...
When you separate yourself from your creations, you can experience one of the most profound understandings of creativity - love. *The reason you would create anything is because you love it enough to see it exist.*"

We don’t make art because we need it. We make it because we love it. The love artists have is generative, not responsive. Romantic love is responsive. You meet and then you fall in love. The situation first, the love second. But for the artist, the love predates the situation. The filmmaker loves the film before the film is made. The painter loves the painting before paint touches canvas. The choreographer loves the dance before it exists. To do what we need to do is not special. After all, we need to do it. But to do what we do not need to do is special. To the artist, to make art is one of the most special things one can do in life.

Originality means nothing. It is the power of the artistic vision that counts. As time passes, most things original will not be original. Fashions, styles, forms, flairs, and what’s in vogue, all will pass. The fashion will become out of date, the style will change, the flair will fizzle, and we will wonder why anyone was shocked. What will always matter is the substance of the artwork, not its style.

If you limit your choice to only what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself form what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable,
you disconnect yourself from what you truly want,
and all that is left is compromise.

One basic principle found throughout nature is this: Tension seeks resolution. From the spider web to the human body, from the formation of galaxies to the shifts of continents, from the swing of pendulums to the movement of wind-up toys, tension-resolution systems are in play.

You can shift to another structure that will support you in creating the results you want, but never from the motivation of ridding yourself of structural conflict. Why? Because creating is different from solving or eliminating.

Hector Berlioz’s witty comment, “Time is the great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all of its students.

Once a structure exists, energy moves through that structure by the path of least resistance. In other words, energy moves where it is easiest for it to go.

You love your child for who the child is, not as an extension of your identity or as an example of your good parenting or even as a companion.

Even Mozart, perhaps the most gifted composer in history, developed and grew in his art. The music he wrote in his thirties was far more advanced than what he wrote in his twenties or in his teens. The more music he wrote, the more he was able to write.

In the orientation of the creative, once you have consciously made the choice to be healthy and you are attracted to eating certain foods and following certain forms of exercise, you are involved in an organic process. The structural tendency of this organic process is for you to be attracted to those processes that will be particularly beneficial to your health. Those processes might include the usual, expected ones, such as health food and exercise, as well as unexpected ones.

What motivates a creator? The desire for the creation to exist. A creator creates in order to bring the creation into being. People in the reactive-responsive orientation often have trouble understanding this sensibility: to create for the sake of the creation itself. Not for the praise, not for the “return on investment,” not for what it may say about you, but for its own sake.