"Creative Limbo"
:: Edition 7 - April 2012 ::
The New Year starts and despite
my enthusiasm for change and developing new
horizons, or finishing books and incomplete
projects, getting fitter and healthier – there’s no
marked difference by mid March ... It seems as like
nothing is has happened, or perhaps everything has
happened...?
Then BOOM... everything shifts
in one week... I’m consciously slimmer and my
running times are definitely better! I‘ve completed
designing a new course: FIREWORK –which addresses
Self Image Self Confidence and Self Esteem. Beneath
the surface there’s a steady paradigm shift.
In the same week a clear
decision emerged to move from a venue designed for
Doctors, to one designed for people doing Business –
called SLOW in the City. In this paradoxical place,
“calmness meets capability...offering TIME and SPACE
to extremely busy people.”
John Briggs in his book: Fire in
the Crucible: the Alchemy of Creative Genius states
that artists and inventors spend a large amount of
time doing nothing.
There is a pattern in such
apparent spells of ‘laziness’:
-
There’s the conscious
contemplation of a challenge / desire for change
–when questions are asked: in what direction do
I want to take my business or where is my
closest and most intimate relationship heading?
-
Then there is a period of
incubatiion–without consideration to an answer;
-
Then suddenly, and
unpredictably illumination seems to come out of
nowhere – “as if the problem needs to be
forgotten to be solved.”
Our entire Western civilization
is proactive - we are taught to admire and seek to
emulate those who work more, buy more, try harder,
and seem busier. The art of not striving has been
lost, and as a result we suffer from a host of
stress related illnesses.
“A desert of inspiration”
becomes a grand metaphor for the creative limbo of
letting go of an old way of being or thinking, and
discovering an oasis for the new. This is easier
said than done, because lack of control is
infuriating to the intellect.
Training the mind with a regular
dose of creative indolence strengthens your
creativity. You inevitably land on the shore of your
imagination and new ideas, energy and enthusiasm
seep through and carry you forward into the next
chapter.
Hanlie Raath
|
