All you need is...what?

2006-04-17T17:05:43+00:00

Yesterday, in course of conversation with herr wonko, I found myself sing-quoting, “There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done…” and I felt a sharp pang of hypocrisy. You see, I hate those lyrics. It’s an okay song and all, and all due credit for use of the Marseillaise (even if it has exactly nothing to do with the song) but the lyrics have always annoyed me.

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done. Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung…. Nothing you can make that can’t be made.

I know, I know, they might mean something else, and coming from the mouths of artists “bigger than Jesus” perhaps it really should come off differently; but to me, it’s always seemed to say, “You aren’t really unique and special. If you don’t create something, that same thing will in due time be created by someone else.” Which is, of course, my problem with the whole thing (not the following, “But love still makes life worthwhile!”). I was raised in the strictest Cooperative Pre-school/Sesame Street tradition of creativity and individual uniqueness. By the age of 5, many carefully deployed books, programs, and parental compliments had brainwashed me to believe that I am, in fact, unique and special. But on a deeper level, I feel the premise of these lyrics, or my interpretation thereof, is wrong.

Let us say, by some miracle, that ten people in the world all imagine precisely the same thing. How many of them are actually going to create something from the idea? I think I’m being overly optimistic to guess three; and of those three, one will write a story, one will paint a watercolor, and one will pull out his guitar and start a song. The same idea finds different expression through different people, in different parts of the world. It adds to the richness of human accomplishment.

And the others? The seven non-starters? Perhaps they think imagination is childish, or, worst of all, they don’t believe enough in their idea or their gifts to try. They don’t have the sheer arrogance to perform that act of egotism and create. As acts of egotism go, there is none less objectionable and more fruitful than saying, “I can create something of worth and beauty.”

Give it a try. There’s more to life than love; all you need is a dream.

Pie, or, why I want to stay home from 'school'

2004-08-05T16:07:19+00:00

I like to make things. I really do. There is nothing like the exhilaration, pride, and power, of looking at something I’ve made. Clothing, short stories, drawings, dinners, analytical essays, pillows, footstools, cookies, whatever… I love to make things. To make something that is greater than the sum of its parts is a kind of primal magic, a way of working your will upon the world.

My only problem is, I don’t have time to do it all. Lately, I’ve made a baby dress, and I’ve been working on embroidering initials onto some pre-made hats for a pair of twins that is coming. Meanwhile, I haven’t made cookies in months, and I think I’ve made two pies, maximum, since we moved in November. I haven’t drawn very much for a while, and my correspondence is far below its stellar ideal. I haven’t practiced my oboe in ages, or played our piano, and I haven’t added much to my ongoing attempts at novels and short stories. I seem to be juggling, always (which is something I’m not particularly good at), and I’m always noticing something shinier on the floor than what I’m throwing about at the moment.

Is it a problem? I really don’t know. I enjoy myself, and things get made. But I’m trying, every once in a while, to step back from the new thing, and do something I haven’t done in a while. Therefore, this weekend, I am making pie. And, well, someday, I hope, I won’t have this pesky ‘wage-earning’ thing to do — and then I’ll be free to make and do with reckless abandon, and maybe, just maybe, finish a few more things.

Posts tagged with "creativity" - Faerye Net

All you need is...what?

Pie, or, why I want to stay home from 'school'