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Creativity

Mole

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Mar 20, 2008
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20,284
Creativity is a peculiar beast. It can be nurtured but not in the same way we nurture order and control.

Order and control are necessary for creativity but not sufficient.

So what is the magic ingredient?

Well the difficulty is the magic ingredient is out of our conscious control. So as we quite rightly try to increase our conscious control, we slip further and further away from creativity.

Of course without conscious control, we are merely chaotic. So we need to keep conscious control, but at the same time, transcend it.

Yes, creativity is transcendent. So our problem is now how can we nurture transcendence?

And the problem is that transcendence embarrasses a lot of people, and transcendence is the first cousin of religion, and the social reality is that many lives are chaotic and can make no use of transcendence but rather they are crying out for order and control.

And so the nurturing of transcendence takes a low priority.

And of course the low-lifes sneer at transcendence, putting off those delicate souls who may be reaching blindly for transcendence.

For we do reach blindly for transcendence, we close our eyes and we reach for we know-not-what, we enter the cloud of unknowing. And slowly we learn to breath in what is at first a foreign environment. We long for the familiar and the cosy. And soon we become comfortable, and to our disappointment, our creativity disappears. But by this time we have fallen in love, and we are broken-hearted to have lost our creativity just after we have found her, so we throw ourselves out of the window and are falling in our despair, and lo and behold, we catch up with her, for she is perpetually falling, and to hold our love, we must perpetually fall too.
 

Mole

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Mar 20, 2008
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Hi.

They say creativity mimics schizophrenia.

It's a nice Romantic illusion, like the illusion we are all creative, or the illusion that we are all gifted.

Creativity depends on order and control and goes beyond them.

However those whose lives are chaotic like to console themselves that they are creative.

And sadly those who are authoritarian are unable to distinguish between chaos and creativity, and so tragically repress creativity just as they suppress chaos.

And also it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a master, but the advertisers subvert our practice and tell us we deserve it now. You deserve it, they say, you deserve it without any practice. And naturally we believe them for they are the priests of our culture and of course they are very flattering. They show us flattering pictures, they tell us flattering stories, they tell us we can reach our full potential. Anything but practice.

Then after 10,000 hours of practice, we must let it all go, cast our bread on the waters and watch it come back tenfold, when we are afraid of drowning.

Look I'm not drowning, but waving.
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
Joined
May 22, 2008
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3,166
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But why would you practice for 10.000 hours if you didn't like the practice itself? I don't think anyone can master any art they don't like to begin with. So, it doesn't really matter if they tell you you deserve it now, does it? You won't get it if you don't have it already. If you practice to become a master, you are lost. You need to practice to practice and be creative by accident. The only control I see in it is to know how much of control you can safely give up.
 

Stanton Moore

morose bourgeoisie
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Mar 4, 2009
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I went to a party on Friday night, where I saw my friend Victoria Haven , who is an artist. I asked her what she's working on, and she almost burst into tears. She said that it ties into her past, and makes her feel very vulnerable. The process has been cathartic but unsettling for her. I told her that I was sorry to hear that it was so difficult, but inside I was elated, because I took it as truth that she was able to reach that most difficult place, where few people, artist or otherwise, get to go. She said she had been fully occupied by the work, and was forgeting to eat. I can hardly wait to see it.
(I do like my life here in Seattle. I've met so many musicians, painters, sculpters, illustrators, dancers, choreographers. It's really an open and very rich scene.)
The vulnerability is key. It's a place where the ego, and even the conscious mind step aside.
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
Joined
May 22, 2008
Messages
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INFP
I went to a party on Friday night, where I saw my friend Victoria Haven , who is an artist. I asked her what she's working on, and she almost burst into tears. She said that it ties into her past, and makes her feel very vulnerable. The process has been cathartic but unsettling for her. I told her that I was sorry to hear that it was so difficult, but inside I was elated, because I took it as truth that she was able to reach that most difficult place, where few people, artist or otherwise, get to go. She said she had been fully occupied by the work, and was forgeting to eat. I can hardly wait to see it.

I don't think I've experienced that. At the moment I am vulnerable because I've changed the way I look at the process into something more spontaneous, I've dropped a lot of planning I used to do and at the same time doing things bigger, and this makes my style more childish in a way. I like the change, it keeps it interesting, but at the same time I wonder how other people see it... Well. It isn't a new thing. I have always been somewhat self-conscious about my style... but I agree that vulnerability is the right direction. Just wondering, is it even possible for me to take it seriously enough to be that vulnerable...
 

Mole

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Mar 20, 2008
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20,284
But why would you practice for 10.000 hours if you didn't like the practice itself? I don't think anyone can master any art they don't like to begin with. So, it doesn't really matter if they tell you you deserve it now, does it? You won't get it if you don't have it already. If you practice to become a master, you are lost. You need to practice to practice and be creative by accident. The only control I see in it is to know how much of control you can safely give up.

Well, practice is like meditation - we do it to change ourselves.

But before we can change ourselves, we need to be in charge of ourselves.

So we start off in the charge of our parents. And after about twenty-two years we manage to be in charge of ourselves.

And so naturally at this point, we are reluctant to change ourselves. After all, there is nothing wrong with us, and indeed we resist anything or anybody changing ourselves.

But ecstasy beckons, and in particular, the ecstasy of changing ourselves.

In that moment of changing from one self to another, time seems to stop, and we experience ecstasy quite like the ecstasy of the orgasm.

So although we resist changing ourselves, we are tempted, we are led on by ecstasy.
 

Stanton Moore

morose bourgeoisie
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Mar 4, 2009
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But why would you practice for 10.000 hours if you didn't like the practice itself? I don't think anyone can master any art they don't like to begin with. So, it doesn't really matter if they tell you you deserve it now, does it? You won't get it if you don't have it already. If you practice to become a master, you are lost. You need to practice to practice and be creative by accident. The only control I see in it is to know how much of control you can safely give up.

A bass player once said to me 'Learn all the theory and technique you can, then forget all of it and just play.' Practice increases knowledge (As Victor said 'order and control'), but all of that practice has to be pushed down, sublimated, made unconscious. then chaos gives way to creativity. It allows the listener, viewer, experiencer to perceive the existence of architecture, without directly seeing it.
This is why children rarely are great artists. It takes years to learn technique in order to forget it.
 
O

Oberon

Guest
A bass player once said to me 'Learn all the theory and technique you can, then forget all of it and just play.' Practice increases knowledge (As Victor said 'order and control'), but all of that practice has to be pushed down, sublimated, made unconscious. then chaos gives way to creativity. It allows the listener, viewer, experiencer to perceive the existence of architecture, without directly seeing it.
This is why children rarely are great artists. It takes years to learn technique in order to forget it.

Amen and amen... and I have very little patience with contemporary "artists" who attempt to skip the hard part and jump straight to pure creation.
 

Vasilisa

Symbolic Herald
Joined
Feb 2, 2010
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3,946
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Amen and amen... and I have very little patience with contemporary "artists" who attempt to skip the hard part and jump straight to pure creation.

What gives them away to you?
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
Joined
May 22, 2008
Messages
3,166
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INFP
Well, practice is like meditation - we do it to change ourselves.

Is meditation with a goal meditation anymore?

And so naturally at this point, we are reluctant to change ourselves. After all, there is nothing wrong with us, and indeed we resist anything or anybody changing ourselves.

Yes... it seems that everything about controlling life and making it safe is rather contrary to life.

A bass player once said to me 'Learn all the theory and technique you can, then forget all of it and just play.' Practice increases knowledge (As Victor said 'order and control'), but all of that practice has to be pushed down, sublimated, made unconscious. then chaos gives way to creativity. It allows the listener, viewer, experiencer to perceive the existence of architecture, without directly seeing it.
This is why children rarely are great artists. It takes years to learn technique in order to forget it.

That's a good description. I guess I am doing that forgetting part now. In a way there is less thought about impressing people, and more about creating something that I couldn't repeat.
 

man

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Sep 16, 2009
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im more creative then u victer
 

guesswho

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Jul 9, 2010
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ENTP
It's a nice Romantic illusion, like the illusion we are all creative, or the illusion that we are all gifted.

Creativity depends on order and control and goes beyond them.

However those whose lives are chaotic like to console themselves that they are creative.

And sadly those who are authoritarian are unable to distinguish between chaos and creativity, and so tragically repress creativity just as they suppress chaos.

And also it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a master, but the advertisers subvert our practice and tell us we deserve it now. You deserve it, they say, you deserve it without any practice. And naturally we believe them for they are the priests of our culture and of course they are very flattering. They show us flattering pictures, they tell us flattering stories, they tell us we can reach our full potential. Anything but practice.

Then after 10,000 hours of practice, we must let it all go, cast our bread on the waters and watch it come back tenfold, when we are afraid of drowning.

Look I'm not drowning, but waving.

By 'romantic illusion' you mean ridiculous
 
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