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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