Just some thoughts on creativity

A story about Martha Graham as told by Agnes de Mille. Hopefully of some help to anyone having a crisis of confidence in themselves or their work:

 

These same ideas are the basis of the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. The idea is that creativity isn't something inside us, but ideas sort of exist externally and our job is to remain receptive (a feminine state) so it can find us and work through us.

 

that blessed unrest runs my life, it really does

 

have you considered making up a pen name and tossing it on KU for lols and beer money?

 

What do you think whiskey is for?

 

I swore off beer cause I don't like to have to piss every ten minutes, or the feeling of my bladder being like a water balloon about to burst. 1 shot = 1 can. The trick—I just drink till I feel slightly buzzed and stop there, then maybe half an hour later do a little more to bring it back. But yeah, drinking and writing definitely don't mix.

 

I appreciate this share!

It reminds me of this quote by Marianne Williamson.



I also can appreciate a good whiskey over a beer at times. My tiny bladder isn't a fan of frequent bathroom breaks that beer brings, especially whilst camping.

 

I believe it true that some outside force writes through me when I write.

 

Me too.
I just wish I wasn't channelling a lazy, deluded procrastinator.

 

"What hurts me the most is that I wasn't enough."
"It's not your fault. Nothing is ever enough. I couldn't create if it was. And that's what I have to do. That's what I am."

-Mother! (2017)

 

I do not know a single writer who has not experienced a crisis in their creativity. In my opinion, this is normal, because you always try to give the reader more than you can. I think you shouldn't dwell on this, just write)

 

Absolutely! And not only is it normal, but I would say the crisis points are the fire that forge us into artists. It requires immense heat and pressure to change the chemical composition of a material and allow it to be refashioned into a superior form. That heat and pressure comes in the form of, well, pressure to work through the creative crises and the heat of your fevered brow as you forge on ahead.

Sometimes it's necessary to let it all cool down for a while, step aback and give it a rest before wading in again, but as the Stoics say the obstacle actually becomes the way—the problem becomes the alembic in which the alchemical work is accomplished. Without these crisis points we wouldn't be forced to dig down deep and keep coming back to the problem again and again and find creative ways to solve (dissolve) it.

These are our defining moments, that forge the crude ore of our minds into finely forged steel and allow us to shape it into a powerful tool. Without that heat and pressure they will remain forever dull dross, the minds of ordinary non-creative types who see not challenges but obstacles that they refuse to meet head on. They see speed bumps as impassable walls, we can see them as ramps.

 

(Link deleted by mod)

(Remember kids, there's no shortcut to success, and paid academic writing services are the mark of the devil)

 

Recently, more and more I think that there is no such thing as creativity. After all, we simply copy, deform and otherwise combine ideas or phrases that were written before us.

 

I think that actually IS creativity though. Don't take it too literally, as in creating something completely original. That would be more like invention from the whole cloth, which is different from what writers and artists actually do in most instances.

This idea is contained in the religious concept that only God creates (that's why we're all considered creatures, his creations) and we can only imitate, but the key is in imitating in ways that feel fresh and inspiring. I don't mean this to be interpreted literally. Religious parables and myths and fairy tales and folk tales were always intended to be taken metaphorically. The hard atheists, like the fundamentalists, have lost this ancient truth and try to take it all literally and that makes a huge mess of all the stories.

But there's also the related idea that artists can only imitate the vast wonders of nature in small ways, the only truly deeply inspiring things in life are natural. I think this is getting at the same idea. As artists we can only create artifacts (artifice, the artificial), which don't compare to the power or actual experiences we have before nature (the experience of being in love, or seeing a glorious sunset for instance). We can make pale recreations and interpretations of these things in our work, but nothing we're capable of making comes close to the real thing.

But that's no reason to stop making art. Most of us only experience the real things occasionally, and often miss the significance of them when they happen. So through good imitations in art we can see the significance, we can learn to pay attention when it happens to us for real, we can re-create some of the most powerful experiences and try to make them relatable to other people and to try to understand them in a deeper way.

All of this is the act of trying to create meaning from the jumbled weirdness of life, and that's an important part of the process. it's in the sorting and the trying to understand that things take on more significance, and that we can more fully appreciate them.

Just because we can't create anything as amazing as the experience of standing before a majestic waterfall and feeling the sheer power and the spray of it on our skin doesn't mean we should give up. And in exactly the same way, just because we probably will never create anything absolutely original is no reason to give up creating things that bring great happiness and help us make sense of our lives.

 

I absolutely agree with you. Sometimes I catch myself thinking that even realizing that I am not engaged in creativity, but simply transformation, I get great pleasure from this and bring value to this world. And that's great.

 

"As I do not breathe for the pleasure of the breathing but simply find that I am breathing, so I do not write for the pleasure of the writing, but simply because I have once begun, and being in state of intellectual excitement which keeps venting itself in that way, find that I am writing still." William James.