Creative Tangents
(Please be forewarned. This post is full of
incongruous tangents, as happens a lot when I am
ranting)
One of the things I do often is make a list of all the feelings I bought myself in a day and think about whether they were worth my time or not, and if they should have even been allowed.
I think we all do this subconsciously. Our tweets and facebook statuses are evidence of this. Some of us steer clear from publicizing our feelings, but that is because we like to keep them to ourselves without feeding people’s curiosity or eagerness to judge us.
But, our whole life can be summed up as an activity of collecting feelings. Some of us choose to collect a wide assortment of them, and some of us stick to collecting a lot of the same few feelings we think pleasurable.
But, if you consciously list out the feelings you bought yourself, you will start to see patterns in your attitudes. I do this mainly to keep myself entertained when I am occupied in some mundane activity. It’s nice to let your mind go off on tangents and think about random things with the tap running in the background when you are doing the dishes. :)
But I encourage you to try it. Here are some starters.
Who did you meet today and what kind of social conversation did you make? What do you like most about that fragrant, all-natural organic handmade soap you bought at the specialty store? What do you think of abstract art? What was the last movie you watched that you found so offensive that you thought it shouldn’t have been made? What kind of advertisements appeal to you?
The thought that’s currently occupying my mind is on the subject of creativity. I have been wiki-hopping and picking up all kinds of thoughts about this seemingly uncomplicated word.
What I set out to do was understand the value of creativity, mostly related to my work. Sometimes I am vexed by the limitations I need to conform to when I am thinking of ideas for my projects (because they make no business sense!). Then, I take a little break to encourage bitter thoughts about how my brilliance and creativity are being thwarted by these imbecilic notions of what makes sense and what does not! Why can’t people just accept that “I am talent” and shower me with praise (and money)
Mainly, how is a person to engage in the activity of being creative (or innovative) if people are constantly drawing perimeters around what is creative and what is not, what should be allowed and what should not?
As I was moping about all of this, my mind wandered slightly off-topic (although, if I want to, I can connect the dots and make them seem related). I was thinking about art. What if the role of art was not to entertain or make a compelling point, but to simply be art! By this, I don’t mean creating anti-art or anti-anti-art, but embracing the idea that art is whatever is presented as art.
The minute you define art even as one that rejects all prior definitions of art, you are creating a new definition, which too should be rejected by that same logic. But, what if we stopped defining art and started embracing everything more open-mindedly. By this I don’t mean we should accept everything we don’t find beautiful as beautiful, but that we could accept that everything need not be beautiful or compelling! Can we not collect more feelings from art than just the small set that we have assigned to it? Can we also not assess one art as being better than another because it possesses more layers of meaning?
This brings me to another of my peeves. How do we decide which cause is worthy of prioritizing over another? I keep looking at how cause marketing is evolving and making remarkable things happen. We are suddenly more aware and more pumped up about creating change than even before. I find that I am on both sides of this equation (I am the “marketer” and the “marketee”), but I especially enjoy looking at what kind of feelings businesses and nonprofits are tapping into (beyond our feelings of empathy and compassion that is) to make us respond to their satisfaction.
For instance, I was thinking about the environment, and how one of our justifications for saving the planet seems to be that it is beautiful and therefore worth saving. I am constantly watching wildlife documentaries and wondrously admiring these animals, as if the only reason they need to be saved is because they inspire wonder or awe! What if they were not so beautiful and do not inspire wonder or awe? Shouldn’t we still save them?
What if we are to prevent the extinction of tribal communities, not because we think they have a rich cultural heritage and are full of ancient wisdom, but because they deserve to live on this planet as much as we do regardless of whether we can appreciate them or not!
How about we let people, nature and things be, simply because they deserve to be and not because they appeal to our sense of gratification and our estimation of what is worthy of keeping!
You can see how my mind keeps wandering aimlessly. Now that I have ranted and gone off on tangents, I have lost the initial anger I felt a few minutes ago towards my work. Now I can go back to it in peace and conform to the limitations imposed on me without feeling so bitter :)
One of the things I do often is make a list of all the feelings I bought myself in a day and think about whether they were worth my time or not, and if they should have even been allowed.
I think we all do this subconsciously. Our tweets and facebook statuses are evidence of this. Some of us steer clear from publicizing our feelings, but that is because we like to keep them to ourselves without feeding people’s curiosity or eagerness to judge us.
But, our whole life can be summed up as an activity of collecting feelings. Some of us choose to collect a wide assortment of them, and some of us stick to collecting a lot of the same few feelings we think pleasurable.
But, if you consciously list out the feelings you bought yourself, you will start to see patterns in your attitudes. I do this mainly to keep myself entertained when I am occupied in some mundane activity. It’s nice to let your mind go off on tangents and think about random things with the tap running in the background when you are doing the dishes. :)
But I encourage you to try it. Here are some starters.
Who did you meet today and what kind of social conversation did you make? What do you like most about that fragrant, all-natural organic handmade soap you bought at the specialty store? What do you think of abstract art? What was the last movie you watched that you found so offensive that you thought it shouldn’t have been made? What kind of advertisements appeal to you?
The thought that’s currently occupying my mind is on the subject of creativity. I have been wiki-hopping and picking up all kinds of thoughts about this seemingly uncomplicated word.
What I set out to do was understand the value of creativity, mostly related to my work. Sometimes I am vexed by the limitations I need to conform to when I am thinking of ideas for my projects (because they make no business sense!). Then, I take a little break to encourage bitter thoughts about how my brilliance and creativity are being thwarted by these imbecilic notions of what makes sense and what does not! Why can’t people just accept that “I am talent” and shower me with praise (and money)
Mainly, how is a person to engage in the activity of being creative (or innovative) if people are constantly drawing perimeters around what is creative and what is not, what should be allowed and what should not?
As I was moping about all of this, my mind wandered slightly off-topic (although, if I want to, I can connect the dots and make them seem related). I was thinking about art. What if the role of art was not to entertain or make a compelling point, but to simply be art! By this, I don’t mean creating anti-art or anti-anti-art, but embracing the idea that art is whatever is presented as art.
The minute you define art even as one that rejects all prior definitions of art, you are creating a new definition, which too should be rejected by that same logic. But, what if we stopped defining art and started embracing everything more open-mindedly. By this I don’t mean we should accept everything we don’t find beautiful as beautiful, but that we could accept that everything need not be beautiful or compelling! Can we not collect more feelings from art than just the small set that we have assigned to it? Can we also not assess one art as being better than another because it possesses more layers of meaning?
This brings me to another of my peeves. How do we decide which cause is worthy of prioritizing over another? I keep looking at how cause marketing is evolving and making remarkable things happen. We are suddenly more aware and more pumped up about creating change than even before. I find that I am on both sides of this equation (I am the “marketer” and the “marketee”), but I especially enjoy looking at what kind of feelings businesses and nonprofits are tapping into (beyond our feelings of empathy and compassion that is) to make us respond to their satisfaction.
For instance, I was thinking about the environment, and how one of our justifications for saving the planet seems to be that it is beautiful and therefore worth saving. I am constantly watching wildlife documentaries and wondrously admiring these animals, as if the only reason they need to be saved is because they inspire wonder or awe! What if they were not so beautiful and do not inspire wonder or awe? Shouldn’t we still save them?
What if we are to prevent the extinction of tribal communities, not because we think they have a rich cultural heritage and are full of ancient wisdom, but because they deserve to live on this planet as much as we do regardless of whether we can appreciate them or not!
How about we let people, nature and things be, simply because they deserve to be and not because they appeal to our sense of gratification and our estimation of what is worthy of keeping!
You can see how my mind keeps wandering aimlessly. Now that I have ranted and gone off on tangents, I have lost the initial anger I felt a few minutes ago towards my work. Now I can go back to it in peace and conform to the limitations imposed on me without feeling so bitter :)
