Content creator vs. real creativity

My phone rang at 1:13 a.m., waking Queenie, Moxie and me. The caller ID indicated it was my 20-year-old son, Zane.

“Dad, can you pick me up? I’m too high to make it home.” I was resentful, but parenting never stops, so I threw on my jeans and got into the Kipcap.

On the drive over, I rehearsed my speech about how I was glad he called but he needed to think about getting someone else to play midnight taxi. But I didn’t get the chance. Zane got into the car without looking up from his phone. I coughed loudly and said: “Can we talk for a minute?”

“Dad,” he said, “this is an emergency. I’m a content creator. I’m gonna be famous.”

When we got home, I looked up “content creator”: It’s “someone who creates entertaining or educational material to be expressed through any medium.”

Wait! That’s what I do every Wednesday in this space. And I don’t have to type into a phone at 1:43 a.m. And I know I can’t do it when I’m stoned.

Content creation can take many forms. For Michelangelo, it was sculpture. For Maya Angelou, it was poetry. For my husband, modern dance. For my mom, Nurse Vivian, it was pie crust. Within each of us, I believe, there’s a seed of genius. But true art requires a combination of ability, practice and inspiration.

I’m not a violinist because I lacked the talent.

Violins look pretty, but I have poor hand-eye coordination and an indiscriminate sense of pitch.

I’m not an actor, because I haven’t gotten on a stage since playing Santa Claus in my senior year of college.

Ability, practice and inspiration. Some of us are born to invent existentialism and some to coach track. We don’t get to choose the ability. But we control the practice. If you’re good at painting horses, keep painting. Creativity is not a sprint. It’s a marathon.

And inspiration? Turns out epiphanies are there for the taking — you just have to be ready. The universe throws them at us every day: the raven’s wings as it glides past a eucalyptus in McLaren Park. The difference between ecclesiastical and ecdysiast (one relates to church; the other to stripping). The recipe for how to cook spaghetti with peanut butter. If you’re not carrying a notebook and a pen around, then you can’t really be a content creator. You need to catch the bons mots that are tossed at you. Write or draw it all down.

You can choose something to be a genius at, but don’t be surprised if it chooses you instead.

Ability, practice and inspiration came together for me with the written word. I possess a small skill in that I can tell a story. I use grammar intuitively, which means when I make a mistake, it’s not really a mistake. It’s “my voice.”

And I practice. I’ve read at least 762 books, and I’ve written words down every day since March 3, 1976, the day I decided to be a writer.

I want to tell Zane: Don’t create content to become famous. For almost 50 years, I filled journals and remained unknown. It’s only in the last 10 that happenstance and effort combined to make me semi-eminent. And that’s only within a 30-mile radius, roughly as far as Concord or the Farallon Islands. I went to Sacramento for a literacy event last month, and only one person had ever heard of me. By low-key famous, I mean when I walk into the psychic Starbucks, people stop and say, “You look like that fat guy on the back page of the Chronicle.”

There are a few outliers. I hear regularly from this couple in Rome. A guy in New Zealand reads online. Singer Country Joe McDonald has heard of me, and writer Jewelle Gomez once sent an email.

Sic transit gloria mundi. It’s a phrase I’ve heard but had no context for. Turns out it was used in papal coronations up until 1963, when Latin got ousted by the Catholic Church. And even though I still resent Sister Mary Magdalen for making me memorize the “Agnus Dei” only to switch to reciting it in English six months later, I wish we still used this phrase, which means: “Thus passes the worldly glory.”

I want to tell Zane not to create content to get rich. My tax accountant advised me that I’ve lost money any year that I made more than a dollar on my writing.

Create content because you must, because inspiration burns through you and wants to get out through your mouth or your hands. Because you cannot breathe without doing it.

But if you’re doing it at 1:43 in the morning, don’t call your father.

Kevin Fisher-Paulson’s book “Secrets of the Blue Bungalow” (Fearless Books, $25) is available at fearless books.com and area bookstores.

Within each of us, I believe, there’s a seed of genius. But true art requires a combination of ability, practice and inspiration.