Comments on CREATIVE DC: Deep Thoughts on a Sunday Night

i am worried about sending this post because I wil...

2009-02-07T10:22:00.000-05:00

i am worried about sending this post because I will write and wont be able to stop but feel the erge to write so it's got to be done. I am also sorry if I rammble on, it's my mind you see, it's on over load 24-7 and I have thoughts pop into my head as I am writing about something else and I tend to lose the plot of what I am saying, so if it goes like that forgive me, we all understand here, what creativity does to us. I feel creativty is all around us, in everything we do, to the artist to the mum with kids, but for me personally it is writing about the meaning of life and what creativity really means, to find the 'light', I feel most open when I write on a 'deep' as I call it. When I really dwelve deep to get my best writings, that's when floods of thoughts of creatovty come into my head. More than I can possibly keep up with. It could be a creative saying, a title of something to write about, anything.
I have written lots of pages of nothing-ness to the 'world-ly' people out there, its hard for them to understand me. It is nothing-ness that I write about yet it is something-ness. I can begin writing about my feelings how they affect me day to day, to find by the end of it I am wriitng about the universe. And I don't just 'write' matter of factly either, I write creativly, so each word, each sentance is humouous, or really INTENSE. Think 'David Icke' his books and about Matrix world. It's like that with me. I could write forver I could show you my writings but its confusing, even to me! I do feel alone in my creative world, as really, deep down, it is only you and your mind who really know what you mean when you write. Others reading it don't 'get it'.

Jordan and I were talking improv schedules today, ...

2008-07-07T19:30:00.000-04:00

Jordan and I were talking improv schedules today, which quickly lead to a conversation about creative accomplishments, which segued into him pointing me towards this post, which I really enjoyed.

I've had a lot of thoughts about what creativity means, mostly because I typically haven't thought of myself as a creative person. I still remember sitting in my guidance counselor's office in high school. She was asking me if I did "anything creative" and, well, I couldn't think of anything. She was looking for a "creative accomplishment" suitable for a college resume -- writing, painting, music -- something that could demonstrate Certified Creativity to the college boards. I think a lot of us who grow up in that type of environment learn to see creativity in terms of some piece of art that we can point to and say "behold my creative accomplishment!" I eventually realized how sad that is. Creativity for me isn't writing stories or sculpting, and it probably never will be. But for me it's more about getting dressed in the morning or finding cool junk treasures to put in my house. Or even finding just the right way to fit my thought into a 140 character tweet. And finding 100 little ways to be creative through the day makes me a lot happier than attempting to commit to some official creative endeavor that just isn't me, simply because I learned at a young age that that was the only thing that counts as art.

(sorry i got a bit rambly at the end, but i hope you all got my point)

if you thought your post was rambling, just wait f...

2008-06-28T20:45:00.000-04:00

if you thought your post was rambling, just wait for my comment.
it's interesting and inspiring that you put so much thought to this: what "creative" means. most of us (and i include me in the "us") take its meaning for granted. but as it is your mission to live live the adjective, you're charged with finding its real meaning. and i love when i have to sit back and really reflect on what a word means. (MTV-style love, not philos, eros, agape, etc.) particularly when it's one with an emotional charge like "patriot" or "good." or "religion" and "religious;" i'm constantly pondering those two. we do enjoy bandying meaningful words about until they're essentially empty. ("never forget 9/11!")

but lemme chew. here goes: maybe being "creative" is about making deliberate choices, not previously assigned, in order to produce some outcome, whether tangible or non-tangible. speech, for instance, is not tangible, but it is creative - not all, grant you; our lives are full of vacant, phatic communion. returning, though to the example of the drug-addled painter. okay, he's not mindful, but he is making deliberate choices about color, canvas, what have you, to produce a tangible outcome. a kid doing a paint by numbers page is just following rules. one creates, the other makes. ... however, if that kid is then inspired by her rote craft to paint her own paintings, then maybe her paint-by-numbers afternoon becomes retroactively creative. maybe being creative is about deliberation and inspiration; that you allow the activity to communicate with you, regardless of how lofty or mundane that activity is.
i dunno. just thinking out loud.

Everyone, thanks so much for the kind comments - I...

2008-06-27T10:50:00.000-04:00

Everyone, thanks so much for the kind comments - I was actually hesitant to post this; worried it was too rambling. But I'm encouraged by your response to take more risks with the kind of stuff I post here, so -- thanks. :)

Sean, I really like the distinction you draw between 'imaginative' and 'creative'...ideas versus action. But I do wonder about a number of people I know who I think of as intensely creative, but who are "stuck" - it's like they need to be plugged in and then they'll light up and be who they really are. It doesn't feel right to say they aren't creative -- but again, maybe that gets back to the muddled definition of the word in the first place.

I love this post. It is by far my favorite creativ...

2008-06-23T19:39:00.000-04:00

I love this post. It is by far my favorite creative dc musing. I've always seen the word creative as a synonym for individualism. Being creative is bringing your own voice, your own take, to your life, your work, or even the way you raise your kids. Creativity doesn't necessarily equate itself with making art, or with mindful living, IMO. It's the act of carving out your own path in whatever you do, looking outside of the expected, and not blindly following the herd. Like I said, great post. It also resonates with me because of my current ... ahem, employment "situation." ;

Mmm I loved reading this post. Thanks for sharing...

2008-06-23T16:09:00.000-04:00

Mmm I loved reading this post. Thanks for sharing. :-)

ps. i think having kids is creative, its just not ...

2008-06-23T15:01:00.000-04:00

ps. i think having kids is creative, its just not very imaginative....
; )

i believe in the difference between "imaginative" ...

2008-06-23T15:00:00.000-04:00

i believe in the difference between "imaginative" and "creative".

if that spark is in thoughts, its imaginative. if its in the corporeal world its creative.

as i see it, the mind can be imaginative and the hands can be creative.

but thats only when i've all dressed up drinking a martini when i'm talking.

usually i'm a beer guy.

Its like trying to define art. You really can onl...

2008-06-23T11:26:00.000-04:00

Its like trying to define art. You really can only classify something as art as you experience the subject. There is something very artistic to the old hand built cars in the model T days, but less so with modern car designs which are dictated by cost and aerodynamics and style.

I think creative living is somewhat the same thing - its hard to nail down one over-arching definition.

Great post! I think of "creative" in the classica...

2008-06-23T11:18:00.000-04:00

Great post! I think of "creative" in the classical sense of the defition: to take part in creating. I wish I was high-minded enough to say that what you create doesn't matter, but I'm not...I don't think that building a car is creative the way that sculpting clay is. But designing the car...that's creative. This is all, of course, subjective, and I too am grappling my way towards a definition. "Creative living" and "mindful living" are not necessarily the same - the drug-addled artist who holes up in his loft and makes amazing paintings is living creatively, but not mindfully. The stay-at-home mom who tends her vegetable garden and makes sure her kids don't eat poison junk food and chooses carefully where she spends her dollars is living mindfuly...but is she creating anything? And no, I don't think having kids counts as being creative, despite my earlier definition. I guess I have to fall back on that old crutch of Potter Stewart's definition of hard-core pornography: "I know it when I see it."