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Where you don't find creativity

This band sought creativity in Berlin, a city with an enormous arts culture and low cost of living. Some would call it a creative mecca.

Still, it seemed that everyone we met was creative-minded and drawn to Berlin for the same reasons we were: to pursue their art. Except that very few of them seemed to have any coming exhibitions or book launches or gigs. “I spent a lot of time talking about the arts over beer or coffee, or at 4 a.m. over a mirror,” Pat ruminated recently, “but I didn’t see a whole lot actually being created.” I found it difficult to disagree with him.

In the end, the city’s lifestyle, with all its distractions, outweighed our aspirations and our will to succeed. Three months in the creative mecca taught me an important lesson about creativity: It’s not something you will find in a place.

Read the whole piece at the New York Times Magazine site: In Berlin You Never Have to Stop.

Creativity is found in the will to do hard, beautiful work. Not a hip arts district.