Lately I've realized (simply through the preponderance of experience)
there's a certain way these
Conversations For
Transformationshow up
for me which is distinct from anything else I
create
or
have created,
and which has called me to reassess what it is for me to truly
create
anything.
I notice there are various reasons I
create
things. I
create
income for
my children
and for myself, I
create
conversations when I'm with people, I
paint,
I
write essays,
I write software as and when needed to streamline my time using a
laptop computer, and from time to time I play the guitar, all of which
are expressions of
creativity.
These are each discontiguous areas of my life. They each
occur in the broader
context
of my life, and they each have
creativity
in common, yet they come from a slightly different reason
to create
each time.
Sometimes when we discriminate, sometimes when we distinguish that
something is different than something else, an element of
"something's worse than something else" (or "something's
better than something else") creeps in. I don't know why
this is. It just seems to be this way for us human beings. Nonetheless,
by isolating this anomaly, I'd like to avoid it. That is, I'd like to
distinguish the reasons I've noticed I
create,
without implying one way's worse than (or better than) another, if
indeed given the innuendo of language that's possible at
all. I'd like to distinguish simply
what's so
about my
observation
of my reasons to create.
One reason I
create
is because I have to, because I need to. This component of
creating
is closely bound to survival. I create a job for example because
I have to / need to pay my electricity bill. Actually "I create a job"
includes all of the following: "I look for work", "I make inquiries",
"I speak with prospective clients and / or employers" etc ... and the
net result is a job. But saying "I create a job" is
good enough for
jazz
in exactly the same way as saying "I turn on the light" includes all of
"I raise my hand", "I reach for the light switch", "I grasp the light
switch", "I flip it up" etc. I create a conversation with
my travel agent because I have to / need to procure an airplane ticket
so I can visit
my daughter.
I
paint
because I have to / need to acquire more postcards (something I like to
deploy for mailing as a fading art in these days of electronic
communications). I write software because I have to / need to reduce
the time I spend on mundane computer tasks.
There's
nothing
wrong
with any of the above.
Vast
areas of my life (from which I infer
vast
areas of anyone's life) call for
creating
as a have to / need to phenomenon. If I don't respond with
creating
when I have to / need to, I couldn't survive (I mean that quite
literally). However, there's a place to stand with
regards to
creating,
a way of being with to regards to
creating,
indeed a way I can
create
creating
so that no matter what I'm
creating,
I'm
creatingfor no reason.
Creating
for no reason at all is
high class Zen.
The moments of
creating
for no reason at all are extraordinarily powerful. Given the weight of
significance which overburdens almost everything I do, the
moments of
creating
for no reason are moments of pure luxury - and I'm saying
"luxury" in a very pointed sense of the word. The luxurious moments of
creating
for no reason, have the power to
transform
the mundane into the awesome, the humdrum into the outrageous, the
pedestrian into the "Wow!", the everyday into the incredulous
"How did you do that?".
There are reasons to
create.
There are as many reasons to
create
as you can come up with. Life being what it is, there are
infinite reasons to
create.
And those infinite reasons to
create
are all collectively in contradistinction to just one other way of
being with regards to
creating,
and that's
creatingfor no reason at all.
The more I look at this distinction, the more I'm inclined towards the
idea that there's
creating
... and then there's
creating.
And
creatingfor no reason at all, in other words literally making something
up out of nothing - for no reason, not because I need to,
not because I have to - is what
creatingreally is.