Throw-away...

To stay present to the issue of creativity, I have a throw-away piece of writing or art, something I intend from the beginning to have no psychological weight. The unconsidered page or support sits beside the focus piece and absorbs the frustration or ennui when I’ve run out of steam. I’ve found the disposable piece allows me to accomplish active forward movement when I might otherwise consider myself stuck and walk away.  My derrière is in the chair, my face is to the easel for the allotted work time. Often, the secondary piece becomes the stronger work. 

 

 

The "Right" Path...

As humans we fight for the right to be right, whether we are or not, and being right becomes a paralysis to creativity. Any movement, in any direction will break the logjam as long as we’re willing to allow we may need to explore several possibilities until the right one becomes apparent. We are free to change direction at any time if we don't like the road we're going down. 

You're It!

 

For the most part, my reality growing up was continually difficult punctuated by life threatening exercises in survival. I remember the shock as a child the first time I saw someone who looked like an apple doll from a bear mauling - 365 stitches in his face alone. He recovered and went back to living.

There was little companionship in remote areas so I read and my celebrities were from the pages of biographies.  Sidebar: gratitude to my father who hauled a library of classics, Great Books, encyclopedias and vinyl music along each time we moved.

My models and exemplars are the change makers who didn’t realize at the time they were constructing history.  Golda Meir, Mohandas Ghandi, Abraham Lincoln, Clara Barton, Jane Addams, Harriet Tubman and so many more. Contemporary heroes Martin Luther King, Storm Large, Maya Angelou and Einstein. Flawed humans making the world a better place. I have the advantage of seeing their contributions in the context of a lifetime. These examples, more times than I can count, are the reason I get up to try and live life authentically one more time. 

What if your story is the one who will inspire us to pick ourselves up? What if your music will lift our hearts? What if your art will galvanize the political course of the next decade? Do the work. One word, one note, one brushstroke at a time and the world is changed for the better because of your effort. 

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There’s a great Guthrie song lyric ~ “Blow up the tv, throw away the paper…”

      When people come to see me about faltering creative enthusiasm, I usually recommend a news fast for at least six weeks if not permanently.  I tell them to turn off all media stimulus – tv, radio, and throw out the newspaper.  My premise is that if we disconnect ourselves from the iron lung of the media telling us how to breathe we will take imaginative breath more freely on our own. We will begin to think for ourselves and find a center of peace from which to gift ourselves with inspired effort.
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