Dilbert creator Scott Adams has an interesting take on how boredom leads to superior creativity. Not everyone who comments afterwards agrees, but that doesn’t make the article less relevant.
I would also say that times of great ugliness can create an unexpected climate of creative productivty. I just escaped extended months of ugliness, but was surprised at how the last six weeks of that season was accompanied by an unexpected bonanza of disciplined creativity.
Too often in the past I got bogged down or allowed unhappy circumstances to grind down my writing progress. This time (perhaps because I was so desperate to flee parts of my reality?), it was the opposite. I flew to the laptop at every opportunity to see what my muse would reveal. (Frankly, I was shocked she was showing up so often.) Sometimes time and circumstance would allow me only a paragraph, sometimes it unleashed pages, but at every point my story progressed, producing a great peace within me, probably because it was something that went right as everything around me exploded.
I’m not sure I’d choose to continue that combination of progress through explosions, but I suddenly understand how Goethe (family man, lawyer, politician) could write despite too many responsibilities. It was yet another lesson to be learned through creating. I’m sure there are so many more.
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