According to Rick Rubin's book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, every one of us, each with our unique experiences, values, and perspectives on the world, has the capacity to tap into a rich spring of creativity in service to our own art. Creative inspiration can come from anywhere, and it can strike at any time. Our job as artists is to be receptive to it when it happens. It requires living in the moment and nurturing an awareness brought about by a child-like curiosity for everything we encounter. Inspiration is transformed into art through an ongoing process of playful experimentation, hard work, and courage to release it into the world once it's complete.

This book is less a prescriptive guide to becoming an artist and more of a philosophy of how to live like one. Although the author is an artist in his own right, this book is not focused on any single art. It is a collection of short vignettes, each focused on one aspect related to creativity, how it's inspired, and what to do with it. There are nearly eighty of them. Some can be read independently of others, while others cannot.

Some books deliver on their first read, and some mature with the reader as they experience new loves, losses, celebrations, and sorrows. This book does both.