My son is now a year old.
He moves like lightning, no cupboard is safe, and our miniature Dachshund is regularly subject to a brutish sort of kindness. He does not find it adorable.
He’s also a low sleep needs baby and Laura and I have faced many grinding nights.
Yesterday, I tried to settle him during one of those early morning stretches, I could barely see him except for a faint nightlight reading the temperature of the room. He was crying in that in between awake and asleep way, when there’s something bothering him, but what remains a mystery.
At no point did I find myself wondering whether this moment was worth it. I didn’t look for something in return, or demand he respects our routine, or appreciate my effort and the hours I put in. Of course I didn’t. I was simply in the moment with him, responding to what was actually happening as best I could.
Incomplete, imperfect, and exactly what the moment required.
It’s not a discipline I’ve cultivated, it’s the most natural thing I’ve ever done, and it’s a feeling you know implicitly. It might be a child, a friend in crisis, someone who arrived at your table already undone, but there are people in your world, and moments in your life, when “what do I get from this?” simply doesn’t come up. You’re too busy attending to what’s actually happening.
Moments where the artist steps into places expertise can’t reach.
You’ve been doing it your whole life.
The only thing that changes is the permission you give them.
The artist and the delivery
We talk about our midwife often.
She arrived at the sharp end of what turned out to be a pretty uneventful birth, by some people’s standards. But it didn’t go to plan either.
There was nothing performative about her presence. She had time for every question, concern, and scream. There was no imposter syndrome. No effort in deploying her skill. Knowing who she was, where she was, and what she’d experienced meant she could focus entirely on what the moment needed. What my wife and son needed.
She had complete trust in her ability to serve the moment at hand.
And so did we.
Not because we had proof, she didn’t present her credentials before crowning. She simply waded into the flood with us, and served what was actually happening.
She didn’t own the birth, she couldn’t dictate how it would play out, she received it. Like me with my son last night, she didn’t need us to be grateful. She didn’t demand that we respect the plan. She didn’t wonder whether it was worth the effort or look to us for validation.
When my son finally arrived, furiously alive, she placed him on my wife’s chest. Then she simply started tidying the space. For us, it was a miracle. For her, it was just another day at the workbench.
I guess in the artist’s studio, it was.
I think about her often. She didn’t walk into that delivery room looking to be seen. She just observed the moment, and served what she saw.
Artists are everywhere, but they’re not standing at an easel waiting for inspiration. They’re seeing and serving the everyday work at hand. On that day, it looked like someone meeting us in the middle of the flood, completely uninterested in playing the saviour. Someone able to attend to what the moment was asking for and serve it faithfully.
Who received what is already trying to happen and gave it room.
Who saw the person, not a data point.
Step into the room
In preparing for the birth, we bought books. Lots of books.
Books that busted parenting myths, books about developmental stages, books about sleeping, feeding, and teaching. For everything our son will ever try, there’s a whole book we could read about how to get it right.
But all that data, all that insight, and every template crumple like waves against my 3AM survival instinct when it’s just me and my crying son.
Honestly, I’m an easy mark for a well-marketed solution. Hit my pain point just right, and I’ll buy your book or jump on a sales call with you.
I cannot tell you how many people since launching my business have tried to sell me a shortcut to business nirvana. Post less, post more, post at these specific times, build an ecosystem, follow this flywheel, steal our exact system.
I have, I confess, been a successful sales target for them more than once.
But without their underlying advantages, their approach was never going to work for me. Their template crumples against my context.
What made me a sales target was how I was framing my practice. It was a problem to solve with a defined outcome to reach.
The natural question that follows: what do I do? What worked for others? What formula can I apply? How do I extract the outcome I want? All of which would have me building someone else’s version of my business.
The question that was needed: what’s actually happening here?
My business doesn’t need a manager, it needs a midwife.
Because art is about where you put it.
You can know more, improve your technique, and repeatedly start over on a fresh canvas and none of it will move your practice one inch. Your work needs context, and context requires contact.
Sit with others around the campfire. Honour the rubble of your experience, trust your own voice, and step into the room. Be ready to receive what’s actually in front of you and let it shape what happens next.
Most practitioners I meet are sat in a lonely room, in front of a lonely screen, writing the next version of the same lonely story hoping that someone somewhere suddenly responds.
I’ve been honest that most people who read my work don’t share it. Fewer still let me know it’s helping. I’m not mad about it. They are the lonely practitioner: trying to birth something, buried under work, notifications, other people’s launches and other people’s certainty.
Asking: what do I do?
I’m not sure I managed to do it yet clearly, but I’ll keep trying to wade into the flood with them to say ‘I see you’. I’ll keep trying to listen to what they have to say, to notice what they’re carrying, and attend to what the moment is asking for so I can serve it faithfully.
My job, and yours too, is to stop trying to articulate the work, and step into it, because you can’t say ‘you’re here’ if you’re still arranging yourself to say ‘I’m here’.
The people we’re reaching for are drowning under the weight of it all.
Their silence isn’t your judgement.
It’s easier than you think
Last month, the Order gathered around a piece of content a member had created. It was a beautifully written piece about burn-out and nervous system regulation. The natural question that every practitioner asks: how do I get people to see this?
The template is simple enough. Post the work, with a CTA at the end, and cross your fingers for some enquiries.
But we know the template doesn’t work; we’ve all lived it. And the platforms won’t spread your message anymore unless you pay for it.
I asked the group: what would it look like to stop trying to be seen and instead become the person doing the seeing?
The conversation shifted from trying to be a magnet to being a midwife.
The group started to imagine ways to share the article with people one-to-one: printed copies sent by mail with a handwritten note, wise snippets shared with a handful of people over WhatsApp, an email version sent one at a time, with personal context.
What matters though isn’t the method, it’s the posture she stepped into, and the meaning it carried.
The CTA was gone. The goal ceased to be sales. Even the recipient changed.
It’s the corporates who’ll pay, but it’s the middle managers who face the strain of a burnt-out boss. And what they’ll receive is honest recognition of their situation without any strings attached or the pressure of another pitch to ignore.
Data won’t be the judge of anything she tries, because a reply rate cannot hold the nuance of busy lives under stress. And there’s every chance the work offers answers to questions they might not be asking yet, even if their body or nervous system is.
Reply or not, the act of stepping into the room became the discipline to model. To show up and say ‘I see you’ without condition or qualifier. To later return, and say ‘I see you’, again.
One day, that person will feel seen. And then anything can happen.
If you build it, they won’t come
I want you to realise something: the people you are trying to reach are not indifferent.
They’re not ignoring your email because your pitch was weak. They’re already overwhelmed. Too many people competing for the same inbox, a calendar that barely breathes, a brain too saturated to make the journey toward you. The potential client who went quiet isn’t uninterested, they just don’t have the capacity to try another new thing.
You have to go to them. To step into the room. To be the midwife ready to receive, not the expert ready to teach or the magnet hungry to convert.
My son is not indifferent to me either, he is simply unable to describe what he is experiencing right now, and no amount of wisdom from my mouth will change that for him.
But one day, my son will look up at me and tell me exactly what he needs. A natural expression of the relationship we’ve formed and the language he’s developed to describe himself.
And on that day, as this one, I’ll be ready to attend to what the moment is asking for and serve it faithfully.
Like your practice, he is an unfolding work of art. There is no finish line to cross, no outcome to achieve, and no condition to be met.
It’s hard. It can feel endless.
And we wouldn’t change a thing.
Practice Note
This week, don’t create anything new. Don’t post, don’t broadcast, don’t announce.
Pick three people. Step into their room. Let them know you see them.
Then do it again next week.
An invitation
If you’re already in the work, building with intention, and hard work doesn’t scare you - I’d love to have a conversation.
The Order of Unremarkable Creators exists to offer the fellowship, friction, and context many artists, creators, and solo-operators are missing.
It’s not something you can simply join, and membership is currently capped at 20 members (this is not a tactic, it’s about foundations before growth).
If you’re curious to know more, or if this stanza has raised questions for you, please reach out to me on dan@unremarkable.co.
Where We Are:
This is Week 23 of a year-long practice.
Movement 2: Empathy - eight weeks exploring kindness and respect for self and the power genuine connection.
Art Like You Mean It ← You are here
You Can’t See the View When You’re in the View
Click here to read the Overture and Movement 1.