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[OM] Creativity [was Workout - Day 1]

Subject: [OM] Creativity [was Workout - Day 1]
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 06 May 2006 03:03:50 -0700
I've been chewing on the stuff discussed in this thread for a bit. What 
it brings up in me is outside the usual fare of the list, but I hear 
people I have never met, but care about, suffering and would like to 
offer what I can that may help.

Any aversion to discussion of personal psychology, any possible interior 
self and ideas of personal growth and change might be an indication to 
proceed with caution , if at all.

It seems to me that problems with creativity are an outward, conscious 
and concrete expression of an inward, psychological dilemma. For 
example, as expressed in this thread, the feelings that there is nothing 
new to photograph. no new way to see and photograph the things around 
me, even the most appealing. And feelings that everything I do is 
derivative, it's all been done before, first by others, then, all to 
many times, by me. I may be able to improve on details in some way, but 
there is nothing really original in it. I can't get the joy out of it 
that I wish I could get, feel that I ought to be able to get, used to get...

How do I do something new? I believe that there are always new ways to 
see, understand and stand in relation to the world. How often are we 
amazed when someone else does something that changes how we see, in 
detail or sometimes in very big ways? And wonder "Why didn't I see that, 
it was staring me right in the face. Damn!"

One true story about this situation is that we can see no more than is 
contained in our conscious self. So the only way we can become creative, 
in the narrow sense of photography, as well as other, possibly more 
significant, aspects of our lives, is to grow and change. Remember that 
feeling, not just in the mind, but felt, perhaps as a shift of some 
sort, in the body, when first confronted with a piece of nature, art, 
experience that caused that "Why didn't I..." reaction? That's the 
feeling of change engendered from the outside.

The only way to be truly creative from within is to be open to becoming 
someone different than I have been. That's scary stuff, the ego is VERY 
conservative and highly resistant to change in my view of who and what I 
am, even little changes that most others around me may not notice. And 
yet, unless I change that, I'm stuck, and will tend to be troubled by 
ennui, depression, funks, nightmares, insomnia, troubled situations in 
my life and relationships, and on and on.

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is quoted as saying that what I bring 
fourth from within me will save me and what I don't bring forth will 
destroy me. In AION, Carl Jung says that when an inner situation is not 
made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. Apologies to those who may 
find either of these sources questionable or heretical to their 
particular beliefs. I personally find the expression of this particular 
psychological and spiritual truth, so simply stated, in sources so far 
apart in time, space and belief system to be particularly powerful.

I suspect that's why so many continuously creative people are so 
irascible. Something unstoppable within them keeps forcing change at a 
pace that is really disturbing to the ego.

So if I'm stuck and frustrated in my chosen creative outlet, harder 
focus and work in that area may lead to nothing but a worsening 
situation. The solution may lie in another area of my life entirely. 
Once that is resolved through growth and change, I will find creativity 
returning, possibly in the same area as before, possibly somewhere else. 
It may even be that my definition of myself as a photographer of a 
particular kind, or even as a photographer at all, is standing in the 
way not only of my artistic creativity, but in the way of resolving 
other life issues. This stuff works in both directions.

And yes, there are known ways to open up to change, so it can come with 
joy and blessings, at least much of the time, rather than with physical 
and emotional suffering as I am dragged forward kicking and screaming. 
In keeping with the quite proper list etiquette of not discussing belief 
systems, political or religious, I present no ideas or prescriptions 
here, but I can't resist passing on my personal discovery that suffering 
is optional. Not that I am anywhere near perfect at it, but my life has 
become pretty darn good as I have learned to do this even at a modest level.

Moose







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