Friction: The Abrasive Nature of Creativity

Einstein said; “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” I’ve never heard anybody say that they were seeking imagination yet we all seek knowledge in the form of information. We want to appear knowledgeable in our field of study. We want to be well-informed before making a decision; to have a sense of knowingness so as to mitigate risk, and therefore to avoid harm. And what is this harm we are so intent on trying to avoid? Is it the severe mental, and therefore physical, discomfort from being pulled out of the familiarity of what we know to the point of feeling overwhelmed. Panic, anxiety, and depression are the trinity of anti-change. They are the indicators that we are onto something; that we’ve tapped into a vein of significant meaning. Nothing new can be created from the familiar. We all seek a sense of contentment that seems so coveted yet elusive. It is from imagination that newness is born. Yet, it is in taking action that change is made manifest. And here is where life happens, or doesn’t. 

The radical act of creativity is not so much a bringing forth, but rather a destructive force that tears down everything we thought we knew so that something new can emerge from the remnants. The friction and tension that must take place within an individual to break free of the familiar is a staggeringly uncomfortable process of transition and transformation. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 300 million people worldwide suffer from depression, and that it is the world’s leading cause of disability. And, what is disability? Dis-ability. To shun the ability to take action. The internalized fear of change. To turn inward and remain stuck in the recurrence of self, with the knowledge that we’ve become paralyzed in the shame of not taking action to move in the direction of creation by letting go of the known and familiar. Let’s face it; change is scary. It is the re-creation of self, and the dismantling of that which we’d known ourselves to be. Then there is the shame born of the self-judgement of the disability, which only adds a further hinderance. 

One in thirteen people, worldwide (7.3%), suffers from anxiety, with the highest rates in the U.S. at 40 million people (18.1%). Can we agree that anxiety is a prolonged state of panic that can lead to depression and the inability to act? And that inability to act is the disconnect between our imagination envisioning a state of creation from where we are capable of becoming, and the falling back into the routine of the familiar. This state of impotence is where depression lies. So in the end, risk-avoidance offers a guaranteed pain in the suffering that comes with self-judgement, as opposed to boldly leaning in the direction of change. Hellen Keller said that “Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.” The friction that is inherent in the abrasive nature of creativity is the husk being torn from the corn. If we want to eat we must get under the skin.

What Do You Think?

We often become overwhelmed as we try to figure things out. It's not uncommon for life to hand each of us a challenge from time to time, and sometimes those challenges seem to be more than we can handle. Especially when we are tasked with making decisions that seem so monumental, and provide no guarantee of outcome, that our emotions cloud our ability to assess the situation clearly. Like many other times in our life, when asking for other's advice or opinions, we will ask them the same question that they will ask us: "What do you think?"

Let's step back a moment and acknowledge the inherent misconception of attention here. The question itself directs us away from where the answer we seek resides. This question is more appropriate for us to ask of others than for others to ask of us, which is where the lapse of awareness lies. The only answer that others actually can give us is to tell us what they think of our situation - and when they tell us what they think we should do, what they are telling us is what they would do; and even more correct is to say that they are telling us what they'd like to think they'd do if they were in our situation, based on who they think they are, not being in our situation. It's easy to get lost in the gap between who we are (if we wish to define who we are by what we choose), and who we'd like to think we are.

The more accurate acknowledgement would be to ask ourselves, or for others to ask us: What do you feel? And herein lies the conundrum; everybody else can tell us what they think we should do, or what they think they would do, but it is only us, and we, ourselves, alone, who feel the multitudes and layers of our conscious and un/subconscious thoughts which register as emotions and sensations in our body. The entirety of our existence is holographically imprinted in each of our cells and the most liberating, and terrifying, realization is that nobody else has our answer. So, that is in itself an excrutiatingly beautiful solitude. We are invited to put down the worry and asking-of-others so that we can relinquish ourselves into the personal space of solitude where the answers we seek are waiting to be found. It is a sobering realization that although we can often find resonance in the opinions of others when they reflect back to us what we already know but do not yet see, it is when we come to a place where we can, even briefly, recognize and acknowledge the divine moment of stillness within ourselves that we can invest our faith in the answers we find, with knowledge that the stillness within us resides in a timeless place which we are blessed enough to access and have pass through us, like a radio station signal picked up by the antenna of ourselves. The station is always broadcasting if we will only tune in.