We are living at the edge of a grand overview of what it is to be a ‘creative creature.’ So, some take a plunge and become parents. It’s a modern type of parenting for most inhabitants that I know, most people that only a generation or two ago lived in households of extended families are now living in something quite new to humans as species:
One, two or three kids + one or two parents, sometimes both occupied by some measure of full/part time employment and add to this any and every variation you can think of: pets, divorces, re-marriages and the like….
The particulars that make up my own situation as a parent are as simple as you could imagine; no pets, no divorces, and only two kids. It’s the simplest type of modern parenthood you could imagine.
(Since I’m a mom, I refer to it as Mothernhood, but if you are a dad, I suppose it would be: Paternhood?)
One thing is for sure, any type of parenting takes TIME! Time that could hardly be spared for waiting to have a ‘creative feeling’.
The works that I have planned to create for 2017 are already tipping the balance in the ‘amount of time available’ scale, so do I have time for the ‘muse’ to decide to be on my side? Or, do I need to just grab the time that I have by the %$#@ and create work?
I’ve gone back to the editing board and realized that I haven’t planned in an overly zealous way, it’s just that having chosen to sign up for motherhood is itself a fulltime job. I decided to be a mom, and I have made it my most essential job; it’s the core that all the other creative work that I do flows and feeds back into.
We are surrounded by opportunities and methods for feeling creative, and yet the seemingly endless purist for the ultimate creative mindset grows and grows. Of course, this is a good thing; a good thing to know that the power to create could overcome the power to needlessly destroy.
To my way of thinking the biggest danger of ‘feeling creative’ is that we might surround ourselves with a network of support for just waiting for that ‘feeling’ to fall in place!
Just waiting isn’t the same as study, isn’t the same of following lines of curiosity, and certainly isn’t the same as trying things out in the various dimensions of equilibrium, extension, expansion, contraction, falling or failing, and certainly not the same as learning and connecting.
But I wonder if it is always necessary to ‘feel creative’ before creating work?
This is a simple question that I ask myself in those moments when I am seeking another bright excuse to block my drive to act on a simple curiosity about something that relates to expressing my thinking through words or music.
In the past few years this thing referred to as modern parenthood is driving me to become more creative in regards to how I view and make use of 2 very basic, essential and universally common factors: Time and Geometry.
I wonder if I can reason out a manner for expressing how these two factors are forming a way for creative action and kicking the butt out of the need to wait for or to seek out the state of ‘feeling creative’. By the way, let me be clear that this is not the same as not ‘feeling’, it is just that I don’t pursue the cultivation of ‘feeling creative’ as a prerequisite to creating work.
The definitions of Time and Geometry ‘speak’ for themselves and are a step towards this ‘reasoning out’. Defining ways and means are the real positive tools that we always have available to us towards structuring a creative freedom that is internally related and not reliant on presumption or prejudgments: the main killers of creative action.
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Time:
noun: the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.
verb: plan, schedule, or arrange when (something) should happen or be done. -
Geometry:
noun: the branch of mathematics that deals with the deduction of the properties, measurement, and relationships of points, lines, angles, and figures in space from their defining conditions by means of certain assumed properties of space.
Now, come to think of it, both of the above essentials are related to my two favorite pursuits: music and aikido and guided but my most essential pursuit: motherhood! Time and its relation to parenthood is easy enough to ‘see’, but you might be asking “how does Geometry relate to parenthood?”
Geometry is an essential tool for learning to relate linguistically/relationally (same part of the brain that employs all the attentional faculties), that is the forerunner of the development of the human organism as a whole! Plus, on a simpler level it relates to the fact that one has to fit a whole lot in a limited amount of space and this means getting creative with ‘space’ which leads to studying and understanding the cause and effect relatedness of things.
For the ‘reasoning out’ process of how Time and Geometry can be useful tools for creating creative action, let’s take a simple scenario: Sharing an idea for a this blog is a good example. I have a certain amount of Time, I plan and make mental notes in those simple, ordinary, and non-memorable moments of the day; they are GOLDEN, they hold a strange kind of RELATIONAL power over how useful a tool they can be for finding creative solutions to essential problems!
- Household chores
- Mundane tasks
- In between moments
- Etc.
Then comes the next step:
To take the time to sit and write is just a matter of making use of the outcome of all those years when my children woke up during the night and thus caused me some sort of permanent sleep irregularity: the BEST gift ever!! Thanks kids!!
Geometry teaches me to think in relationships. It’s a fantastic mind and body clearer/refresher/reorganizer/regenerator!
Whenever I have a problem that needs a novel solution, I learn from Geometry. I relate ‘this’ to ‘that’ and leave time to observe the situation from as many angles as possible. I make it interesting, I invent new shapes by combining old and familiar time-tested ones; ‘shapes’ can be in the form of sound structures or language structures or movement structures.
Geometry isn’t just what we might think! It’s a brilliant tool since we humans (all humans, www connected or not) have the inborn ability to think relationally and become better and better at solving problems. Geometry, music, language, relatedness, connection, variation, structure, freedom and all the base parameters for creating are all here!
And when combined with TIME!
Well, let’s start doing some grand thinking in action and solve big and small problems. There is no need to wait for any type of special ‘feeling’.
Maybe you don’t see it my way, maybe for you ‘feeling creative’ is the essence of what you want, that’s ok too. But, there is a danger in waiting for the right moment as it takes the attention away from what is:
The ability to think, perceive, and be within our living experience in a relational manner. Relating our current position in relationship to the path we have chosen, its direction, its arteries, ebbs, flows, stagnations, and its relation to the whole of the community we call mankind, the universal rights of being a human, and the environment we are here to protect and preserve.
Wow! Imagine if we could demand governments and industries to be kept accountable on a ‘relational’ manner! The question to ask is maybe we can? It’s a big stretch to come from creative pursuits, through mothernhood to arrive at taking responsibility for a collective social wellbeing…. But this kind of relationally generated reasoning out process could give birth to unlimited creative energy and drive; as well as holding the tools for controlling its direction and flow. It’s easy to try it out:
- Find your limitations
- Derive at essential ingredients that define your mode of creative work
- Plug in your definitions
- Apply it to your practice! Don’t wait for ‘feeling creative’.
This type of relational behavior isn’t limited nor limiting nor a result of comparison to other people’s possible opinions or presumed achievement: Those things that are the enemies of creative action!
Originally published at medium.com