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[OM] Re: Creativity [was Workout - Day 1]

Subject: [OM] Re: Creativity [was Workout - Day 1]
From: Wayne S <om4t@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 08 May 2006 12:39:36 -0400
OK, I have a short break from exhaustion and could not pass up a favorite
subject to bloviate about.

The sage Moose philosophized thusly:
> 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.

A little cinnamon and sugar can help with the taste.

> <snip OT warning>

> It seems to me that problems with creativity are an outward, conscious 
> and concrete expression of an inward, psychological dilemma.

Perhaps the problem is also the solution, and not a problem at all. As with
all dilemmas, the third way just isn't in view yet. It is the struggle we
tend to avoid.

> <snipped interesting stuff to breviate>
 
> 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.

I vote for expansive tolerance of all views.

To me suffering is an integral part of the struggle, necessary for
creativity. I feel ingredients such as these need to be present: anxiety,
suffering, uncertainty, not knowing, stupidity, and luck. Mostly the last
element. Which I have discovered of late increases when I get up and out. [I
should qualify, there is suffering that comes from denial and suffering
inherent in being vulnerable and a living creature. It is the latter
suffering that aids creativity. The former is avoidance of the latter.]

It is always a judgment call what we consider creative. Sometimes we confuse
creative with artistic or with expressive.

I was out bushwhacking the other day, getting eaten by black flies, scratched
by sticker bushes, just to get to that one perfect angle. The light was
changing fast, my legs/knees hurt standing in an awkward position on some
rocks, neck bent trying to compose, and I managed to take some perfectly bad
photos. Oh well, they were better photos than none. I had a creative moment,
I just don't have any good results to show.

WayneS


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