Marcel Legros - Play the Game of Life

How do you know if you are creatively blocked? Jealousy is an excellent clue. Are there artists whom you resent? Do you tell yourself, I could do that, of only… Do you tell yourself that if only you took your creative potential seriously, you might:

* Stop telling yourself, It’s too late.
* Stop waiting until you make enough money to do something you’d really love.
* Stop telling yourself, It’s just my ego, whenever you yearn for a more creative life.
* Stop telling yourself that dreams don’t matter, that they are only dreams and that you should be more sensible.
* Stop fearing that your family or friends would think you crazy.
* Stop telling yourself that creativity is a luxury and that you should be grateful for what you’ve got.

As you learn to recognize, nurture, and protect your inner artist, you will be able to move beyond pain and creative constriction. You will learn ways to recognize and resolve fear, remove emotional scar tissue, and strengthen your confidence. Damaging old ideas about creativity will be explored and discarded.

Source: The Artist’s Way - Julia Cameron - Page 7

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You can’t win an argument. You can’t because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why? Well suppose you triumph over the other man and shoot his argument full of holes and prove that he is non compis mentis. Then what? You will feel fine. But what about him? You have made him feel inferior. You have hurt his pride. He will resent your triumph. And -

A man convinced against his will

Is of the same opinion still.

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie - Part 3, Chapter 1, page 117

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This week, I’m enjoying the great outdoors with my family. I’ll have lots of quality posts ready for when I return but in the meantime, here’s Day 3 of my random holiday thoughts - random passages taken from a few of my favorite books. I’ve included an Amazon link to it if you wish to purchase it and read more. Today’s book is from the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book. If you want to know what AA is all about, here are the twelve steps and the program in a nutshell. See you when I return!

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There is no such thing as pure silence, not in the world we know. Pure silence is an ideal, an infinite quality like emptiness or perfection. We can think about it. We can approach it more and more closely and feel its pull. But as an experiential reality it is impossible - impossible because we are alive. Our body of blood and breath is a raucous machine. Our very ears produce sound, or the clear sensation of it. Existence itself is full of noisy energy, not empty anywhere. A recent issue of Science News refers to a vacuum as a seething sea of electromagnetic fields… a giant reservoir into which excited atoms can deposit photons.
And yet we do not experience what can be called relative quiet, the impression of silence, and this can be vivid and compelling. We are drawn toward it. We are hungry for it and it nourishes us. In a brief moment of quiet sitting we can realize how tranquility is the precondition for listening. Our sense of silence is the other side of our sense of sound, and gives definition and wholeness to it. It is a touchstone, the gut check which triggers creativity.

Source: The Listening Book - W.A. Mathieu - Page 69

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The third factor of enlightenment is investigation of the dharma, investigation of nature. At times we may have a tendency to be complacent in practice, contenting ourselves with believing the words of a teacher or something we read in a book. Investigation of the dharma means not settling for secondhand knowledge or adopting someone else’s opinion. It says, I must see for myself what is true.

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Stress is a poor, misunderstood creature. It’s vilified and treated as a mortal enemy. People want to conquer it, manage it, and escape from it. Stress management products are everywhere. Yet stress not your enemy - it’s your best friend. Stress is healthy and necessary for your growth and survival. That ugly pit in your stomach or low-level dissatisfaction you feel isn’t stress at all. That’s anxiety, not stress. The difference is more than semantic. When you look closely, stress and anxiety are not the same at all.

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Unplug and Tune In

‘Unplug’ yourself before a creative speed bump turns into a creative wall. Technology is great but it enforces a heavy price, if you aren’t paying attention. When you get too plugged into a project and into technology, you run the risk of disconnecting from life’s flow. Getting too close to your work often means you lose objectivity - lose sight of the bigger picture.

Remember Three Things About Creativity:

1. You don’t own it. Creativity spontaneously rises from life itself. You are alive and you are creative.
2. Creativity includes - it doesn’t exclude or discern. Discernment, logic, and discrimination narrows your view. Creativity has a broad view with unlimited possibilities. Frequently step back and entertain different ways to do your work.
3. Mistakes are a good idea. Some of man’s greatest inventions were the result of a happy mistake. You have to try many things that don’t work in order to find the one or two things that do.
4. You can be creative doing ANYTHING at all.

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