Creativity Part Deux

(written Friday Dec.4th--posted today!) Last week I wrote about creativity. I stated that gratitude and curiosity are essential to creativity. But I did not explain why these things are so important. Nor, beyond offering some quotes and making vague references to the world needing some creative solutions to its myriad problems, did I explain why creativity itself matters.

It is not just that we have myriad problems. It is that we are stuck: our growth cannot continue forever on our finite planet. But we can get stuck in much smaller ways too, and creativity is just as necessary for getting un-stuck.

Right now I am stuck. I need creativity. LL and I just had a difficult conversation about family. I am sad and I am stuck and I want to feel something different. So let me apply my own approach.

I am grateful for—no;

I am curious about—no;

I am sad because—

yes, that's it. Gratitude must start with acknowledging why I feel sad. I am sad because my goal, my hope, is always to increase understanding between people. Tonight I think I did not do that. In what way did I do the opposite of my intention? Perhaps by talking more than I listened. That's often a clue. Perhaps by offering an example of my own sorrow. Instead of comparing, I could have been reflecting back what I thought I heard being said, asking for clarification, confirming that what I heard were the feelings being expressed. Comparison to someone else’s situation rarely helps anyone feel better.

So now I am both grateful and curious: grateful for this moment of reflection which has helped me to see why I did not contribute to understanding, and curious about what LL was and is feeling.

It is tempting at this point to jump from gratitude straight to exposition about creativity. But I somehow think that wouldn't be very creative. A sculpture is not crafted of thin air. It is crafted of thick stone. What is the stone with which I am wrestling here?

Suddenly I feel very small indeed. Like an ant, armed with a splinter from a toothpick, huddled at the foot of a granite mountain. This mountain, this stone, is our family, mine, LL's, ours. I have no more business sculpting something of it than an ant has to carve a sculpture out of a mountain--and thankfully, no more ability. Some things are not meant to be created. They are meant to be appreciated. They are meant to be listened to, explored, loved, allowed to grow, blossom, change with the seasons.

Now I have—

I—

I am so grateful for this family of ours. I am so grateful for each and every one of us. Sitting here at my keyboard crying, I am so curious. I am a tiny ant curious to know more about this daunting and beautiful mountain before me, at once familiar and unfamiliar. How does it change with the seasons? In winter how dark and cold does it get? does the wind howl off of jagged peaks? does the snow fall silently, gently, peacefully, bending the trees to snuggle together under a soft blanket? in spring do wildflowers shoot up daringly between rock and rivulet? on a sunny day is the water of the high lakes cool and inviting? what wondrous creatures call this mountain home? what lives here? what dies? what is everlasting?

Some things are worthy of a lifetime of observation and love. Among these are mountains, and families—and forgive me for such an awkward and potentially distant metaphor! I was fortunate to grow up knowing intimately the mountains above our tiny town, and the above paragraph cannot begin to tell of their warm and familiar wonder.

In such cases the creativity comes in the observing, the loving. The understanding.

As a footnote, this is probably applicable as a great start to our world problems as well: before we go about creating, we would do well to observe, love, and understand.