Creator

I have a hard time relaxing.  There is always something that I think I should be doing.  I often feel guilty when I'm not doing something that could be construed as "productive" on some level.  And there is never a time when the list of potentially productive things runs out.  One friend told me that marathon runners don't train for a marathon all the time.  Balanced training involves periods of activity and periods of inactivity.  That made sense, until I started drawing lines of comparison.

Nothing in my life right now really looks like a marathon.  I don't have an event for which I am aiming, I don't have a destination, an endpoint.  I have several ongoing projects that are literally open-ended, on-my-own-schedule kind of affairs.  I am creating various things, and I am in the enviable position of having a great deal of time to indulge those creative processes.  But during the moments when I am not immersed in the creative process, I have a tendency to beat myself up a bit.  I call it laziness, but it really isn't.  I think part of me at some point in time got confused about the difference between busyness and meaningful activity.


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I said to a close friend, "I have a feeling that I was supposed to be more important."

My friend's reply was, "I've always had the impression that you didn't care what other people think, as long as you're happy with what you're doing."

It seemed like a kind of non sequitur, but I followed his meaning.  If I don't care what other people think, then who am I expecting to be important to, aside from myself?  Well, the truth of the matter is that I do care what other people think.  I want to be connected to other people.  I want what I do to have a positive impact.  I just don't want to make decisions for my life based on what other people believe.

Over the course of a couple of days following that conversation, a few people unexpectedly sought my counsel about different issues in their lives.  So, at least in some moments, I am important to some people.  I felt flattered and honored in those moments, and yet it wasn't quite the answer part of me wanted.  Part of me was defining "important" as "broadly impactful" or something along those lines.  And I don't believe that defines my life right now.  It's an issue of identity.

I've tried making meaningful contributions as a part of other organizations, places where I could have a broader impact because of an existing framework.  Somehow, I've wound up not having the sort of impact I wanted.  A lot of times it can be chalked up to personality clashes, but I also think that there is something more.  I may be dead wrong here, but I think that many people have a difficult time visualizing what something new will be like until it's created.  Once it's created, they don't have to visualize it, because it's right there in front of them.  But a lot of energy gets spent trying to defend an idea to people who simply can't envision what it will look like.  It's hard to have a positive impact on people who are afraid of what they can't imagine.


The direct end result for me is that people often do not see what I have to offer the way I would like them to, and I am unable to rely on participation in an organization as a means of identity.  The organization does not provide a meaningful purpose for me.  Honestly, I believe that some of my ideas could have profoundly positive transformative impact, but I don't enjoy the often exhausting battle of defending myself and my ideas to people who clearly are not open to those possibilities.  It isn't worth it to me, no matter how "important" I think an idea could be.  When I think about it in those terms, I don't really want to be "important" badly enough to define my life by the process of proving myself.  But I do want a clearly-defined over-arching identity than what I've been allowing myself in the enviably nebulous existence I currently inhabit.

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I think one of the reasons I find it so easy to flagellate myself about perceived laziness is that I don't currently have an endpoint, a goal, a clear and overarching sense of purpose behind everything that I do.  Individual projects may have goals and purposes, but they are nebulous or far into the future. What I have sought through my involvement in other organizations is something I can provide for myself.


In The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron talks about the Creator, and she encourages placing a lot of spiritual value on being both created and creator.  I don't believe in an actual Creator per se, but the poetic example of the act of creation at the very beginning of the Bible has some very valuable tidbits.  Actually, a lot of creation myths do.  They always involve effort on the part of the creator(s), and there is always a process by which that creation takes shape.

I am a creator.  It's what I do.  I create music.  I create sometimes coherent prose.  I use my imagination well.  On a certain level, I think everyone creates, but it isn't everyone's defining characteristic.  That may not make me important to a lot of people.  I'm alright with that, honestly.  What I was couching as a desire for importance was actually a desire for someone else to provide a meaningful identity, and when I am honest about what matters to me, I can do that for myself.  I have done that for myself.

So how does fully claiming my identity as a creator keep me from beating myself up in the times when I am not actively creating?  That's where the creation myths come in handy.  For example, in the biblical myth, God didn't create everything in one fell swoop.  He just did a bit at a time, and then he stood back and acknowledged his work.  And then, as many people have pointed out, he took time to rest.  There are a lot of similar lessons in creation myths from all over the world, and they amount to four basic principles I'm going to be following:

(1) Know what you're creating.  If you don't know what you're making, take a step back and figure that out first.

(2) Be wildly imaginative.  Don't restrain yourself with imaginary judgments and limitations.

(3) Acknowledge what you've created, even mid-process.  Recognize the value of your creation.

(4) Rest.  Rest is not laziness.  Rest is the time when you allow something within you to start creating the things you don't consciously know about yet. 

So, I have had a tendency to want to have an identity handed to me, and I have wrestled with the idea of being important.  I have justified or criticized my existence based on the amount of money I was making, the amount of things I had gotten accomplished, the number of ideas that actually took root somewhere, the number of performances of my music, and on and on. Even when I've realized how ludicrous some of those conclusions are, I have kept going back to them because they are easy judgments.  Now I have one more bit of truth about me, one more turn around the spiral: I am a creator.  I am defined by the fact that I create.  

I know this was a long one.  Hopefully it kept your interest.  I started this blog because I wanted what I see and learn to be able to have a positive impact on other people's lives.  On some level, I wanted to be important.  I assumed that I was not the only person in the process of learning more and creating more in my life, and I still believe that to be the case.  In spite of the value I have gotten from a weekly commitment to write down my thoughts, this will be my last entry for awhile.  I may come back to this venue at some point, in which case it will be tweeted and Facebooked and whatever else technology makes possible for me.  In the meantime, thank you for being along on this leg of the journey.  I hope you have learned as much about yourself as you have about me, and that we will all continue along that path of learning for as far as it carries us.

Farewell for now,
Randy Partain, creator

A Lesson from the Yard of the Month

Yards are very brown right now where we live.  The ground is dry and the grass is burnt.  Signs along the road advise: Extreme Drought Conditions... Conserve Water.  Looking at the yards on our block, the effects of the dry, hot weather are obvious.  Unless you look at the house on the corner, that is.

The house on the corner has lush green grass, blooming flowers, and a sign in the front that proclaims "Yard of the Month" from a local nursery.  I have some rather harsh judgment against a nursery that would encourage using the amount of water necessary to keep plants healthy when everyone is being urged to conserve what resources we have.  It's hard for me not to make assumptions about the people who live in that house, and ultimately they wind up becoming symbolic of an irrational sense of entitlement in my mind.

Really, why do they think it's appropriate for them to waste a resource that we all must share just so their yard can be a little prettier than the yards around it?  OK, it's a lot prettier than the yards around it.  And it's not that I care about the appearance of someone's yard all that much... it's the principle of the thing.  Shouldn't they be fined somehow?  (I mean, over and above the hundreds of dollars they must be spending on their water bill.)

Then, through an interesting bit of synchronicity, I hear a little more about how water gets used in this country.  About 52 percent of fresh surface-water consumed (and about 96 percent of the saline-water we use) goes toward producing electricity.  42 percent of the ground water the U.S. consumes actually irrigates agricultural land.  Only 11 percent of the ground water our country uses goes toward public consumption, which includes water for drinking and bathing as well as washing cars and watering lawns.  In all likelihood, the amount of water the people at the end of block used on their lawn to keep it gorgeous is not going to break the proverbial bank.  They just make easy targets because I see their yard so often and it seems a less worthy recipient of the limited water supply than food-growers and power-producers.

Of course, they still have to pay the price on their water bill.  I'm no more inclined now than I was before to spend hundreds of dollars just to combat nature on the issue of a lush green carpet of grass.  It just doesn't matter that much to me.  It obviously does matter that much to the folks at the end of the block.  It matters enough that they are willing to spend a little (or a lot) more than other people in time, money, and labor.  It matters enough that they are willing to go against the standard practices of the community, potentially making targets of themselves for people like me who drive past and heap judgments and criticisms.  Sure, they may actually have an unwarranted sense of entitlement.  I really don't know.

What I do know is that there are some things that matter that much to me.  I don't always act like it.  Sometimes fear of how much I will have to sacrifice stands in my way.  Sometimes I wrestle with a fear of how other people will see me.  I actually want to be more like those people with the lush lawn.  I want to have the evidence of well-tended ideas and the lush fruits of creative effort, even when it involves doing something counter to what others are doing.  Even if it means placing myself in the firing line for some one else's criticism. 

Why Christians Should Back Down on Gay Marriage

...confronting a couple of big flaws in the vehement Conservative Christian opposition.

Independence Day is tomorrow, and our country celebrates freedom from tyrannical rule.  Yet there are some who would prefer to enforce tyrannical rule on others.  There are some who seemingly cannot accept the possibility that their perception of things is not the only "right" way.  I am thinking here of those Conservative Christian spokespeople who still argue with great passion against the legalization of gay marriage.  While I am a straight, married man, at various times my wife and I have both worked closely with people who are homosexual, and some of our closest friends are gay.  Some of these individuals have more solid monogamous relationships than some heterosexual couples we know.  It seems at first glance that the issue doesn't really affect me directly, but it also seems incongruous to celebrate historical freedom while ignoring current inequalities.

I don't actually think anyone needs to defend gay marriage.  When people open their eyes and see homosexual couples in the light of truth, I trust that they will find nothing more than people with all the same relationship joys and sorrows as heterosexual couples.  The problem is that ignorance and volatile rhetoric can stand in the way of seeing all people with equal honesty.  As far as I can tell, the Conservative Christian argument against gay marriage is based on two ideas.  The first is that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and the second is that homosexuality is in and of itself sinful.  These somewhat dishonest premises deserve a closer look before anyone uses them to judge a group of human beings.

There is no biblical absolute regarding "one-man, one-woman" marriage.  There may be a legal precedent in this regard, but legal definitions of things are revised as a society evolves.  Basing a concept of what relationships should look like on a culture thousands of years and thousands of miles away seems ludicrous to begin with, but a little reading reveals that the modern Christian idea of marriage is not really a scriptural concept.  At best, it's an interpretation based on cultural norms.

Sure, at the very beginning of the Bible, Adam and Eve are touted as the first people in the book of Genesis.  Then, we cover five generations in a single sentence just a few chapters later, and we read that Lamech (Adam's great-great-great-great grandson) married two women.  It isn't judged as to its morality, it is simply a statement of fact.  Lamech doesn't face any particular hardship or punishment because of this polygamy.  A little further along in Genesis, Abraham's wife, Sarai, suggests that he sleep with her handmaiden, as if there's nothing morally problematic about it.  From there on, there is matter-of-fact discussion of men taking multiple wives and concubines throughout the Old Testament.  The children of concubines are considered legitimate heirs, and these women are treated as members of the household.

In fact, the Bible instructs that when a man takes a second wife, he is still obligated to clothe and feed his first one (Exodus 21:10).  Gideon, a righteous man who brought 40 years of peace to Israel, had many wives (Judges 8:30), and Solomon, considered to be the wisest man in the Old Testament, had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1 Kings 11:2-3).  All of this is before Jesus, though, so it's understandable that Christians would discount the premise of the first two-thirds of a holy book in favor of a concept of marriage proclaimed in the New Testament.  Except that there is nothing in the New Testament proclaiming that marriage must be between one man and one woman either.

Jesus tells a parable about seven virgins who are waiting on a bridegroom, suggesting that a one-man, seven-women marriage was not an unthinkable idea.  Paul writes in his first letter to Timothy that an "overseer" in the church should be (among other things) the husband of but one wife, which implies that there are other reasonable possibilities.  Nearly everything that Christians interpret about one-man, one-woman marriage is external to the actual Bible and then interpreted back into their holy scriptures.

I understand that just because the Bible contains information about something, this does not imply approval.  The challenges and pitfalls of having multiple wives are clearly indicated, just as the challenges and pitfalls of many other situations are illuminated.  Adultery, which would presumably be sexual relations outside of the approved household, is frequently discussed as a sin, but sexual relations within a marriage relationship are never condemned, no matter how many wives one has.  Adultery is actually deemed wrong in one sense because it is equivalent to theft, stealing another man's property (wife).

There is a blatant bias in this discussion, in that a man can have multiple wives (with all of the joy and hardship it may bring), but a woman cannot have multiple husbands.  Culturally, women were not deemed full-fledged people when these scriptures were written, so it's difficult to see how any commentary about marriage between two equal human beings can be entirely based on biblical writings.  It must be accepted that some amount of adjustment and updating is required because our culture is different from the culture of ancient people.  Otherwise, any discussion of marriage based on Christian scripture should assume the reasonableness of polygamy and the status of women as valuable property.  So how does one pick and choose what to update and what to let stand as it is written?  The one-man, one-woman definition of marriage does not hold up to scrutiny as a biblical basis for denying homosexuals the right to marry.

Claiming that homosexuality is sinful also doesn't hold water as a legal argument, since the distinction between absolute legal issues and subjective moral matters is at the heart of the separation of church and state.  Using assumed sinfulness is a bit of a cowardly approach to begin with, since the Christian stance is that everyone is sinful in some way and cannot be otherwise.  According to the actual scriptures, no human being can live a perfect life free of sin, but it makes sense for church leaders seeking power or popularity to pick and choose which sins get the most attention.  I have never heard of protesters picketing public ceremonies with signs reading: GOD HATES THE HEARTLESS or GOD HATES GOSSIPS.

Based on the idea that homosexuals should be denied legal equality because they are sinful, there are a lot of other groups to whom we should deny rights.  Since Jesus never actually spoke against homosexuality, Christians have to use the words of the apostle Paul, who mentioned it in two of his 13 letters which made it into the Bible.  In Paul's letter to the Romans, just after he mentions men "committing indecent acts" with other men, Paul includes among the sinful greedy people, envious people, people who cause strife, deceitful people, arrogant people, people who spread gossip, boastful people, heartless people, ruthless people, and more.  If we took to heart the assumption that we should exclude rights to all those who sin by the standards of the Christian Bible, we would not be able to justify a free society on any level.  Capitalism is, at its very core, sinful by these standards.  And people who are allowed to arrogantly proclaim that they know what God wants have already condemned themselves.

If we just measure by the seven "deadly" sins of greed, envy, gluttony, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath, it would seem that homosexuals who desire a monogamous marriage relationship are not committing a sin.  People of any sexual persuasion who desire intimacy outside of marriage could be considered lustful, and there are plenty of Conservative Christians who get caught with their proverbial and literal pants down.  Actually, for a religion with a primary mandate to love, the Christian church manages to spew an incredible amount of judgment and hatred, which seems pretty close to pride and wrath from where I'm sitting.

Like everyone else in America, Christians are entitled to their opinions, but that doesn't mean that their opinions should form the foundation of national law, especially when their opinions are based on the flimsiest of premises.  There is no clear "one-man, one-woman" definition of marriage in the Bible, and although homosexual behavior (outside of marriage) is considered sinful by one New Testament writer, so are a multitude of other behaviors practiced by Christians day in and day out.  It is utterly senseless (another sin Paul lists in the first chapter of Romans) to allow for cultural interpretation in the matter of biblical polygamy and to stringently cling to a scriptural condemnation of homosexual relationships.

I find it hard to believe that I am the first person to point out these inconsistencies.  Maybe all of this has been said by others, in which case I am happy to add my words in support.  As a member of the arts community, I operate in close contact with gay people, straight people, and people who don't share that kind of information with me.  They are all people, and I cannot see any rational reason that any of them should have more or less rights than anyone else.  Especially in a country which celebrates freedom from tyranny.

Judgment Is Belief Used as a Weapon

Driving down the freeway, I saw an old van spewing exhaust fumes in a cloud behind it.  My immediate thought was, What a jerk!  (Actually, it was something a bit harsher than "jerk," but that will do.)  Then, I responded back to myself, Why is the driver a jerk exactly?  I drive a hybrid that leaves a much lighter carbon footprint than many vehicles, and although I am pleased by the sense of environmental responsibility, my primary motivation is that I get incredible gas mileage and spend less money on fuel.  I use canvas bags when I go grocery shopping, essentially because it is a very easy habit that I perceive as having a significant effect on the amount of non-biodegradable waste I create without inconveniencing me in the least.  We recycle, which doesn't cost us any more than having our garbage collected and is as easy as throwing something in a different receptacle.  Very low impact on our habits, for a perceived higher impact on the environment, whether or not it actually makes a significant difference in the grand scheme of things.

A depiction of beliefs turned into judgments?

So, when I see this van fogging up the road with exhaust, I label the driver a jerk because he seems unwilling to do his part.  I'm doing my part, so he should at the very least be courteous and conscientious enough not to smog up the road in his wake.  This unknown person became, in my mind, ungrateful, irresponsible, insensitive, unintelligent, and oblivious.  But wait.  What if the driver really is oblivious?  How much of a jerk can a truly oblivious person be?  And while I don't necessarily enjoy the smell, how much confidence do I really have about the actual impact of this vehicle's exhaust?  Aside from my indignation, I don't have a wealth of empirical facts to go on.

On that same trip, I was flipping through radio stations, and I happened to land for a moment on an individual making an outlandish claim based more on a personal victimization theory than on factual evidence.  At the time I didn't associate my own judgment against the van driver with the radio personality's tirade.  Rather, I thought, Why don't people use their brains?  And the dialogue in my own head continued, Maybe they do.

Everyone doesn't see the same things I do, and when they do, they don't always draw the same conclusions I do.  It doesn't have anything to do with right or wrong.  We all come from different circumstances and experiences with different sets of information and beliefs, and so we can't all look through identical lenses.  Although I can't be certain (since I'm not in other people's heads), it's as likely as not that other people do indeed use their brains to their fullest capacity, draw the best conclusions that they can, and choose the courses of action they deem best.  Or some people may simply be oblivious.  How would they even know if they are?  How harshly do I really want to judge someone who literally doesn't know any better?

At the end of the day, I am responsible for my decisions, and I want those decisions to make sense with my knowledge and beliefs.  I can't know what's going on in other people's minds, so it ultimately doesn't make sense for me to assume malice where there may be ignorance or even a thoughtful approach that simply differs from mine.  My conflict with thinking that each person is only responsible for his own life is that I believe that we are interconnected, that we have an impact on and are impacted by other people.  I don't believe that anyone exists in a vacuum.  Our actions (and inaction) have an effect in the world.  That belief provides a framework for my own choices, and it's easy to form an expectation of how that belief can play out with other people who have the same sense of connection.  But how does that work in a messy world of people who are unaware or who have deep conviction about an entirely different interpretation?

The best conclusion I can draw is that my sense of connection with other people does not rely upon their sense of connection to me or anything else.  To judge other people based on my impression of how they should act assumes that everyone should see what I see, know what I know, and draw the same conclusions I draw.  I don't actually think anyone can know how things ought to be, so I don't really want to put myself in that place of perceived omniscience.  All I can do is live out my beliefs to the best of my ability, and accept that there is a world of people who see things from different perspectives.  None of us are completely right, but none of us are completely wrong either.