CaveDude and the Creative Spark

Are you afraid that people will laugh at your ideas? Guess what? You’re right. There will always be people who laugh at you, whether you do anything or not. Some people will dis you for sharing ideas; others dis you for not sharing them. They don’t matter. Seriously, the people who put others down – they are just trying to fulfill a need of their own – the need to feel less inferior. Yes, I said less inferior, not superior. It’s almost the same thing. Some folk desperately need to be better than others, but most just want to feel equal. They want to be ‘as good as’.

Some people will give you an honest assessment of your ideas. Often that starts with ‘that won’t work because….’ You have options. Ignore them. Listen to them. Listen, then resolve the buts.  If the ‘because’ is a valid point, work it out. Imagine CaveDude making a wheelbarrow to haul home the mastodon. CaveBuddy says ‘That won’t work, squares don’t roll.’ Valid. Round rolls. Problem resolved, roll that mastodon home and fire up the grill. CaveDude could have ignored this, discovered his idea didn’t work, and dragged the mastodon home the old way. He could have listened, said ‘Duh!’ and given up right then. Not our guy. He figured out how to roll.

That is what creativity is – finding a solution. CaveDude had options. Rocks are roundish. Lay the mastodon on rocks and push (or pull.) When you get to the edge of the rocks, run the rocks at the back up to the front and repeat. Sounds like more work than just dragging the beast home, doesn’t it? Trees are roundish too. Cut down a bunch of trees and – well, that works the same way the rocks did. Inventing the wheel took a lot of trial and error. A lot of work goes into the failures and almost-ran’s. Persistence and creative thinking invented the wheel. You know CaveDude’s people were persistent. They had to be to get that mastodon home. They had to be creative too, to figure out an effective way of hunting and killing something that could just stomp them to death.

That is what fuels creativity – need. Sure, they could wait around for an animal to get killed or die on its own. Hungry waiting and a lot of competition for the meat from other carnivores. Better to figure out how to get meat without waiting for something to keel over spontaneously. Hmmm. Sneak up on the mastodon while it sleeps and club it to death.  That probably worked some of the time, but I bet most of the time the mastodon woke up and stomped him some CaveDudes. CaveBuddy, watching from over there must have decided distance was good. He probably threw rocks, which would have just made the mastodon mad most of the time. Stomp. Try a sharp stick. Hey, not bad. Just stay out of the way while the beast rampages himself to death, then fetch the meat. Except, well, there went more CaveDudes lost in the rampage. More distance… yeah.

Hunting techniques evolved through necessity. Can you imagine how CaveDude would have reacted if MusketDude had suddenly appeared and shot the mastodon? KABOOM, plop. On the other hand, what if CaveBuddy had described his idea for a stick that fired rock-sized projectiles at the mastodon from a distance? CaveDude would have thwacked CaveBuddy upside the head and grunted the equivalent of “You moron, lay off the freaking mushrooms, will ya?!”

Is there a point to all this? You bet yer sweet bippy there is. Let ‘em  laugh. You go right ahead and innovate, CaveBuddy. The world needs more folk like you.

Elemental Journey: Can you trace your soul's evolution through time?

There is art work and music that speaks to me, and there is artwork and music that leaves me cold. Native American music makes my teeth itch. The artworks baffle me. That bear doesn't say 'bear' to me. I love the idea of the totem pole, but not so much the carvings on it. On the other hand, the first time I heard bagpipes, I was transported. I knew instantly what they were and I loved them. Uilleann pipes touch something inside that vibrates and spins.  Celtic knots thrill me, Celtic crosses delight me.

Both of these cultures are part of my genetic make-up, yet only one speaks to me. Is that because the European influence is more deeply engraved through multiple existences? Did I, perhaps, experience more incarnations along that particular path? What really got me thinking was Cycladic carvings. I don't like most 'primitive' art. Fertility sculptures, Egyptian hieroglyphs, these all strike me as kindergarten doodling. I look at them and wonder how a culture could fail to evolve artistically for ages on end. How is it that the faces never got more realistic? The carvings remained exaggerated.

Realistically, the carvings are religious icons so changing them would be bizarre. That makes me think perhaps I traveled a more interpretive path. Hieroglyphs didn't change because they are written language, but it still seems like there should have been stylistic representations of a calligraphic nature. Neither of these ancient art forms seem artistic to me because there aren't variations on the themes.

Looking at Cycladic sculptures, I was instantly smitten. They are primitive; no facial detail, not a lot of variation on the basic pose. These are thought to be funereal carvings, found in graves with no eyes or mouth and arms folded across the body. They have different head shapes, some have wide shoulders, some not. Some are clearly tall people, others are more petite. These feel like art to me, individual expressions rather than carbon copies. Clean lines, soft curves.

Then I considered architecture. I love the clean lines of Greek architecture, and the arches of Gothic cathedrals, but not Japanese architectural lines or the stalactite-like garishness of Italianate cathedrals. I adore the curvaceousness of mud huts and cob houses, that sort of man-made cave feeling, but not the fluid lines of India's temples.

Trace a line on a map, from the earliest arts and architectures I like, through to today, and you trace a line from Greek Islands, across Europe to the British Isles. Through the British Isles from Wales, into Ireland, to Scotland. A specific route, with the Scottish influences being the strongest of the three, so I suspect that to be the most recent 'incarnation period' for me.

The entire concept pleases me in a way that feels right, like a tiny epiphany. In a way, it's like looking at a face in the crowd in a photograph from the past and suddenly realizing the face is your own. Finding bits and pieces that come together to make an unexpected whole. This is how I came to be who I am, this is the path I traveled, these are the peoples I knew, those are the experiences I had.

If you traced a path back in time, through art, architecture, music, even belief, where would you find yourself? Would you find yourself? Would something suddenly make sense that never did before? Could the path ahead become more visible if you knew the path behind? It all makes me think of a song from the 70's:
"Do you know where you're going to?...Do you know what you're hoping for? When you look behind you there's no open door, what are you hoping for? Do you know?" (Theme from Mahogany, Performed by Dianna Ross, written by Michael Masser and Gerry Goffen)

Comments welcome.

Living Your Passion

Life is hard work, but it shouldn't actually be a struggle. I mean, if you want to succeed at whatever you're doing, you do have to make an effort. I just think that if you're doing the thing that fits your soul, you don't struggle, seeming to never advance. So how do figure out what fits your soul? Supposedly, the things you are most passionate about indicate your true path.

I'm passionate about learning, creating, and teaching. I like learning just about anything, but the things I return to most often are psychology/philosophy in the form of self-improvement and understanding, and making stuff. I like figuring out how something was made. I like seeing if I can make one too. I like seeing what something can become - like seeing a fork as a giraffe, or figures in driftwood. I like sharing what I know or what I think, when it comes to being a better person. Mostly, "better" means happier. Considering these are life-long endeavors that I haven't stopped pursuing, it seems to me that my true path lies in there somewhere.

I could teach arts and crafts. I like doing them, and I like sharing how, and I am inspired by the things other people think up. I offered art glass classes for nearly a year and never had a single taker. I advertised, I made signs, I did demos. Glass classes aren't exactly cheap, but you'd think there would be one person who actually signed up, right? So, I guess that isn't my 'thing' to teach. Now I am considering doing much less expensive craft classes, teaching fun crafts geared toward people who think they aren't creative but wish they were. I think everyone is creative, some people just need a few successes to open up their imaginations. As I gather ideas and plan out strategy, I keep coming back to a list of failures - including the glass classes mentioned above.

Failures. Weird failures, if you ask me:

•  I volunteered for the Red Cross. They asked me to make one sign. That's all. The coordinator literally told me that they didn't actually need any volunteers, but I could make a sign if I wanted to. I made the sign. I wanted to help somehow. 
• I also volunteered to help at my local library. They had a backroom overflowing with un-shelved books and not enough hands to re-shelve them. I submitted my application to be a volunteer. On the application, I said that I checked out over 300 books a year so it seemed fair to help get them back onto the shelves. No one ever responded to the application in any way, even when I called to inquire about it. I ended up leaving a message that was never returned. 
• I tried to donate a magazine subscription to the library also. Content they didn't have to pay for, I was willing to pay for it since I couldn't seem to give back any other way. I called repeatedly trying to find out how to make the donation. Cash or actual subscription, I didn't care which. I left messages. I went in person to see the head librarian - who was never available whether by phone or in person. No one would or could tell me how to make a small donation to my local library!
• I tried to donate over 1000 snow shovels as a fundraiser item for the local homeless shelter - in winter!  At least there I got to talk to someone who said it had to go to committee and they'd get back to me. No one ever did.

Those are weird failures. I've been in the Salvation Army Thrift Store when someone tried to donate three trailer loads of merchandise from a closed store. The director of that particular shop rejected the donation because she didn't feel she had any room for the merchandise. She suggested he try the church thrift store down the street. He said he already had, and they rejected the offer also. Okay, so at least it isn't just me that can't give away services or products, but come on!

Anyway, I keep coming back to those failures and others. I'm normally a pretty positive person, but I guess it's not real positivity or I wouldn't keep thinking about things that didn't work. I'm at the point where I desperately want to do something that adds value to the world but I'm fatalistic about ever succeeding! If I offer fun, inexpensive classes, will anyone come? It's worth trying, right? Except trying costs money and I'm just about out of spare change. I spent it all trying!

Another of the things I'd like to do is set up sessions that revolve around life-enhancement programs. I find that one of the best ways to cement what you've learned is to help others learn it too. I also find that such sharing helps to keep me motivated through the hard work of improving myself. By improving, I mean I want to be kinder, forgiving, more positive, I just to be a better person. I believe that if you think negative thoughts (like that list of failures!) you get more negative experiences.

By creating a forum to help others, I would also be helping myself to be closer to what I believe is the human ideal. I believe we have total control over our lives, that our thought processes affect our lives, and that we lose connection with our true selves over time. I think very young children still have the 'magic' and we rob them of it with our negative comments and insistence on conformity. I think many great leaders over many centuries have tried to show us the way back to our true nature and we misunderstand the messages. I believe that the only way to really get back there is by helping others. Provide something they need or want. But it can't just be what they need, it has to also be what you neeeeed.

What does that mean 'it has to also be what you neeeeed'? If you are passionate about math,  being a tour guide isn't likely to be fulfilling to you. Likewise, if history is your passion, you aren't likely to enjoy tutoring algebra students. Either one might be capable of the other, but you're less likely to give the same value of service if you aren't following your passion. I think we neeeeed to do the things we are passionate about. I also think that it is pretty common that people have no idea what it is they are passionate about.

I've read a number of blogs and life-improvement books that ask the question "If money and time were no object, what would you choose to do?" That is supposed to give you this lightning insight into what your passions are. Did not work for me. It actually took me 49 years to figure out what I am passionate about. Why? I think it is because we aren't taught to follow our passions, we're told to get a good paying job.

 I knew a college student several years back who was majoring in accounting and minoring in criminal justice. I asked why that combination. He said accounting was boring but pays really well, and criminal justice is fascinating but pays poorly. How happy do you think he'll be working only for money? I know, many people do exactly that. How many of them are actually happy? I know a lot of people who make a lot of money. Many of them dread Mondays. A lot of them have no energy left at the end of the week. I hear a lot of 'I hate my job' and when I ask why they do it, they say they can't afford to do anything else. When I ask what they would do if they could, few people have any ideas. I think that is because they don't believe they will ever have the option to do anything else. Their optimism for life has been dulled by following a path that isn't suited to them. They don't neeeeed to be doing what ever the job is, they just need the money it brings.

There has to be a way to have both your soul needs and monetary needs met. Some people manage to work at a job for pay and spend the rest of their time doing something they truly love, but what I mean is that you ought to be able to get paid for what you love doing. That's an ideal we hear a lot about. Figure out what you love, do it, and the money will automatically follow. Well, not quite. At least, not for most people. Artists and writers would all have all the money they could possibly need if that were true. No parent would ever say 'I know you love knitting socks, but knitting socks won't earn you a living wage.'

I love learning about human nature, spiritual mastery, and how to make practically anything. I love training new coworkers, teaching people how to do anything I know how to do, and discussing the wonders and mysteries of man and the universe. Surely there is a way to do those things and earn a decent living too.

Being more

I suspect that , at some point, everyone feels unloved, unappreciated, mistreated or unfairly judged. I also suspect that the true reason for the feelings is that we've blocked our access to the positive by practicing the negative.

If you want to feel loved, be more loving. Think about what you love about each person in your daily life. There is something in everyone. Maybe there is someone you dislike, you can still find something about that person worthy of respect or admiration. When you get in the habit of finding something good in everyone - especially in those you'd prefer to denigrate - you open yourself to being more loving and therefore more receptive to love. You're not unloved. Someone always loves you, even if you don't see it.

Think of love as a cup filled with water. If you just leave the cup sit, eventually the water goes stale, then becomes stagnant, then brackish. But if you drink of the water, or pour it onto a plant, or give it to a thirsty dog, there is room in the cup for more. You are the cup, love is the water. If you don't pour it out, you can't be refilled with fresh love. Find something to love in each person and you open your soul to love.

Do you feel unappreciated? Most often, when we feel unappreciated, it is one person we are focused on. He doesn't appreciate how hard I work on ____, she doesn't appreciate how much I ____. You fill in the blanks. When you do, take a minute to appreciate something that person does ( or did today) that affects you.

Maybe it's something as simple as they made sure there was coffee in the pot when you arrived, or as complex as seeing your tire was flat and getting it fixed before it inconvenienced you. Maybe it's something they do every day that you take for granted, like a spouse dressing in the bathroom so the light doesn't disturb your sleep, or letting you read the newspaper first because they tend to make a mess of it. There is something. Make a concentrated effort to find it, focus on it, and appreciate it.

Apply this concept to every negative feeling you have. If you feel judged, practice accepting others as they are. If you feel mistreated, practice doing kindnesses for people you don't know or care for. (Of course, be kind to those you love as well, but being kind to strangers and enmities makes you more aware of the kindnesses people do for you. Say thank you when a stranger holds the door!) If you feel lonely, make someone feel welcome.

If you feel anger, practice forgiveness. I've written before about forgiveness, it is a gift that will ease your own miseries immensely. Remember that when you hold a grudge, YOU hold it. It doesn't affect the person you're angry with, it poisons YOU. Forgiveness doesn't mean letting them hurt you again, it simply means you accept that the past is past and will not let the past rule your present. 

What ever you feel is lacking in your life, be more of that. Focus on being it, not on getting it.

Know Your Competition

Do you know who you're competing against? Do you know why?

It doesn't matter if you are in business or involved in a hobby. You're competing with someone. Most businesses are striving to outdo the competition, either in better service, making more money, selling more widgets - possibly all three and more. Most people are doing the same thing, trying to make more money than Bob, have a bigger house, faster car, be a better golfer / artist / tinkerer, have more 'friends' or 'followers', whatever.

Way back in high school, I knew a multi-talented girl. She could draw. She had a beautiful voice. She played half a dozen instruments well and taught violin and piano. She got excellent grades, and she was fun. There were two other girls who each excelled at one of the things Jean did well. Dana was an outstanding soprano. Tina was an outstanding artist.

The animosity between the singers was palpable. They got into arguments, they trash talked about each other, they shared ugly looks in the hallways. They were jealous of each others talent and successes, and reveled in each others failures. Not pretty.

Between the artists, the animosity was all one-way. Jean expressed negativity toward Tina's artwork. Tina said only kind things or gave honest, constructive criticism in a kind manner. Jean might say 'that line looks a bit thick' after searching the work for flaws, and Tina would say 'You might be right, I'll take a closer look.' And if she agreed, Tina would correct the line. However, if Tina pointed out something that might be improved, Jean would snatch away the work and storm off.

Take a few minutes to truly think about who you compete with, on a personal level. Is it possible that either of these scenarios  describe your behavior? Just possible, I'm not asking you to admit that you occasionally act like a spoiled child - though almost all of us do, sometimes. Can you think of others who act this way? It is easier to see it when someone else is doing it than when we do it ourselves.

Now let me ask you a few questions:
Is Picasso a better artist than Rembrandt?
Is Pavarotti a better singer than Carrie Underwood?
Is Lamborghini a better car maker than Ferrari?
The honest answer to each is No, one is not 'better' than the other, they're just different.

This is true of every human being alive. You're neither 'better' nor 'worse' than anyone else. You might be smarter than Bob, but Bob is a lot friendlier than you are. You might be friendlier than Tom, but Tom is smarter than you are. Big deal. All those little variances are what make the world wonderful. Even if Tom knows way more stuff than you know, you know something Tom doesn't, and Bob knows something you don't. There are people who like you that dislike Bob. There are people who like Tom but dislike you. Big deal.

Quit competing with the rest of the world. Do you know who you should be in competition with? YOU. See if you can be kinder today than yesterday. See if you can handle this paycheck better than you handled the last one. See if you make a firmer, tastier meatloaf than you made last week. See if you can learn 3 new words this week, and use them properly in conversation. Draw a prettier rose, stitch a straighter line, perform a cleaner oil change, handle an argument more gently, offer a more sincere apology, be more patient with the kids or cat or your spouse than last time.

Simply spend your energies on trying to be a better person than you were five minutes ago instead of trying to outdo someone else. Out do You. Not only will people like you more, You'll like you more. You'll feel happier, get better at the things you do, and be more forgiving of yourself and others.

That's what I learned from Tina.

Math is...

I use basic math in my job daily. An example: 12/307+5/33+ 3/17+/50+3/33 where X is whole and /x is partial, so that equation = 23/540 ./. 60  = 32.  Because I use this everyday, I do this in my head. Add this, add that, divide, add the whole to the whole /remainder. (In this example, there was no remainder.) To me, this is elementary. I tried to show a co-worker how to do this because I made my calculations in seconds and her method took about 4.5 minutes (of what appeared to be shear torture.) I confused her as much as dy/dx = tan(y) * cos(4x) (0 < y < pi/2) confuses me.

I think math is fascinating. There are vast quantities of it that leave me lost, confused, and frustrated, but it is still fascinating. Math knows everything. A long historical time ago, we didn't have math. We didn't even have +/-. When we got +/-, it was so the money changers could denote overages and shortages in gold weights. A plug was made to be the balance and gold was weighed against the plug. A match was =, a shortage was noted as -, an overage as +. Eventually those symbols gained names.

Imagine this! Until we had +/-, we had no concept of math. We could tell that xxxx was similar to cccc, and that xxxx was the same as xxxx but different from xxx and xxxxx. We could decide we'd rather have xxxxx, and we'd rather trade xxx to get it, but we couldn't say why that was. When I was a kid, my mother said "I don't understand this new math" so she couldn't help my brother with algebra. Algebra was new when I was young. 1+1 was only several hundred years old, but    was new. With math, we start understanding space and nature. But math is a language, and a lot us don't speak it. Some are fluent, some are tourists, some are strangers altogether.

I had a fantastic teacher once, Professor MacKenzie, who subbed in my 11th grade psych class for a full semester. He was mind blowing - he forgot we were not grad students and taught us as if we were intelligent beings, unlike the teacher he was subbing for, who treated us like moronic gnats. Anyway, the first thing I remember learning from Prof. MacKenzie - by way of aplogy for getting ahead of our knowledge - is that when the student fails to learn, it is because the teacher has failed to teach at a level the student can understand.  That's right. I had a teacher who said that if I failed to learn it was HIS fault for not teaching me in a way I could understand.

The shows that fascinate me are the ones that play with science and math. Bones, CSI, Lie to Me, Numbers. I'm waiting for some brilliant writer to put them all together. People can understand physics and math. We don't think we can because physicists and mathematicians don't usually know how to speak their language and ours too, but when we get a translator - like Neil De Grasse Tyson, or Michio Kaku - we can. Maybe I'll never solve some scientific conundrum, but I can grasp the idea and so can you. All we need is the right teacher.

 

Creativity

I'm an artist. As an artist, I draw inspiration from every thing. I see what others do, I am inspired. I hear, I am inspired. I read, I am inspired. In the art world, there is this weird idea that derivative works are theft unless you admit they are derived from someone specific. How do you that? I might have seen something thirty years ago that bubbles up to lend an aspect to something I create today. I'm a compulsive reader, I read probably 300 books a year. Some of those are all words, some are art books, some are a mix of words and images. All that sinks into my brain and percolates. It might inspire immediate response, as this post was inspired by this TED talk. It might simmer for a week or a year, or decades, before bubbling up to influence my words, actions, creations.

I rarely sign my work. I have friends who fuss at me about that - how can I ever get famous if I don't sign my work? My answer is that I am only the conduit, I'm not the art. Ideas float around and some of them enter my head. The only way to get them out of my head is to make them. I might envision one thing, but part way through the creation, the creation takes over and becomes what It wants to be. It develops a voice, a way of moving, a personality that I experience whenever I see it (or read it). That's not my creation, any more than the child you gave life to is your creation. I am only the conduit.

One of the things I love about now, the 21st century I live in, is that art has exploded. Art is every where. Art is The Field. Writers are every where. Artists, musicians, makers of things. In this world, people get an idea and they must create. What brought that about? The internet, computers, global access to inspiration. Disney might get tetchy over someone using a clip from Snow White, but Disney did not create that story, they used it. Can you imagine Shakespeare rising up to protest West Side Story?

When I create something, it is my iteration of a previous concept. I deserve to profit from my iteration. When Harvey comes along, takes a snippet of what I made and uses it within his expression, Harvey deserves to profit from his iteration. I'm not talking about painting portraits of Disney's Snow White and selling them, I'm talking about using her withing a larger framework, such as plopping her image into a stark photograph of a crackhouse to make a new iteration, to express an idea in a way that highlights a concept. If Harvey took my creation and passed it off as entirely his own, Harvey would be wrong. However, if Harvey photographs my sculpture, takes it into photoshop and alters it, then makes the mouth move to a mash up of 'I Feel Pretty' and 'Born This Way', I say Go Harvey, you ROCK! It's nice that Harvey gave credit to me for the sculpture, and to the recording artists for the music. That gives us all a little more exposure. It might make some one look up 'I feel pretty' and expose them to something new. It might inspire someone to be who they are, instead of who they have been told to be. And along the way, Harvey - and the millions of 21st century artists inspired by current technology - has put together something that was not 'drempt of in your philosophy, Horatio.' They have expanded consciousness, awakened awareness, invoked wonder.