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

Hibernation

  

In some spiritual traditions that evolved in a time when technology had not yet overcome nature to the extent it has today, winter is considered a time of hibernation, of rest.  Not literally sleeping for months, but allowing oneself a time of rest spiritually, emotionally, psychologically.  Although I understand the value in that, I don't like the concept personally.  I don't like stopping and resting.  I have it in my head that I must always be accomplishing something, moving forward, having some result to point to at the end of each day.  What this translates to, really, is that I believe I have to justify my existence by external results, I have to prove my worth as a human being each day anew.  Those words even look exhausting when I look at them, and on top of that, they don't mesh with my worldview.

Why would a person who believes that human beings have innate value simply because they are human beings demand of himself a constant stream of evidence that he is valuable?  I'm sure somewhere back in my childhood there was some lesson learned that led to that conclusion, but the point now is that I realize how ludicrous and unachievable that demand is.  Yet on the other side of that demand, I am still resistant to the idea of hibernation.  What if I get into rest mode and never get back into growth mode?  I don't want to be lazy.  I don't want to be worthless... a ha... so we're not really on the other side of that demand.  It can be a challenge to change what one thinks about oneself.

Which is why I am grateful for the move and the transition away from the built-in demands I had established in my previous routine.  For one thing, living just a few hours north of where I was, it feels more like winter.  For another thing, I was emotionally and psychologically worn out by the preparation for and execution of the move.  I find it easier to rest when I am actually tired.  So, this idea of hibernation is starting to make sense to me.  I don't need to prove anything or accomplish anything right now.  I'm not going to lose my place, and I'm not going to stop being creative and intelligent just because I take a little time off from my demands.  Although I don't really know this to be true, I have a suspicion that I will jump back into creating something meaningful when "winter" cycles into spring.


I'm still fulfilling a couple of accompanying contracts.  I'm still getting the new home in order.  I'm still interacting with people.  But for now, I am letting the winter coax me into some emotional and psychological down time, free of my typical demands.  The interesting thing is that resting from my demands about what I do external to myself opens space for a different kind of growth.  Creating evidence that is visible to me and other people about my value is a bit of a drain.  During a time of rest, there is still activity inside of my own psyche, connections being drawn, ideas being incubated... the kind of inner work that may actually lead to an easier manifestation of creativity and forward motion when the time is right.   

Feeling the Rhythm

When expressed in their most simplistic iterations, astrological and biorhythm forecasts just seem silly to me.  Can it be that everyone born on the same day will really experience more or less the same life, with ups and downs coinciding in a lifetime of synchronicity?  The idea is hard for me to digest.  So I don't.  I typically think of it as a bit of fun and leave it at that. 

Someone was recently explaining a more in-depth astrological approach to me, and I began to see how the fortune-cookie blurbs in the morning paper don't do the practice justice.  When a full blown astrological reading is done, there is a lot more specific information taken into consideration than I ever realized.  Shortly after this conversation, I was reading about biorhythms. Once again, I learned that some people get much more involved than drawing a few simple sine waves and matching them up with dates. I still don't know that I believe one can make accurate predictions about another person's life, even with an elaborate system of forecasting. But it did get me thinking.

I create plans days, sometimes weeks, in advance. I know what I expect to be working on way ahead of time, even though I don't know how I'm going to feel or what other things may crop up. It's a flexible plan, by necessity, but I am not always flexible with myself. If I have planned to work on a brass ensemble piece next Tuesday, and then I wake up feeling rather uninspired, my typical response is to work on the brass ensemble piece anyway and just trust that inspiration will eventually be there.

My fear is that if I take a day off, or if I postpone something on the schedule, I'll never go back to it. I'll become a lazy underachiever with nothing to show for my all my creativity and experience. A bit drastic, eh? But that fear creates a demand that I must keep to my schedule, I must keep on track with my projects at all costs. I don't always like what I create out of that fear, but at least I stick to the plan.

The strange thing is, sometimes I do wind up taking a little time off. Sometimes I do get off track with my preconceived schedule. There are days that I just can't concentrate on the creative work, or I don't like anything that I'm creating, and I have always gone back to it later with renewed interest and inspiration. It's often just a matter of giving myself a little time to take a break and recharge.

I don't know if it has anything to do with when I was born or where the stars were at the time, but my life does have a rhythm. It may be a bit more complex than simple sine waves, but there is value in tuning in to what I'm feeling at any given time. Not only is it alright to allow myself to feel uninspired, it's the most honest thing to do some days. Giving myself permission to take a day off and trusting that I will come back to my creative projects refreshed is simply a way of recognizing the rhythm of my life. Forcing creativity can get the work done, but allowing it to flow naturally helps me to enjoy what I create.

Shortcuts

I was taking a large ensemble piece I wrote a few years ago and creating a virtual recording of it. I haven't ever gotten a high-quality performance or recording of the work, but I am hopeful that I'll be able to get close with my virtual studio setup. The biggest problem I encountered was one of balance between the instruments. I had been trying to take a convenient shortcut in recording the piece, but it was costing me more time and frustration than I had anticipated.

After my experiences this past weekend, I was quick to see that I had plenty of time to do this project well. I'm not on a deadline, and I won't lose anything by taking the time necessary to create a finished product with which I am very satisfied. What is my interest in a shortcut all about? I'm passionate about I'm doing, I have enough time to spend on it, and I'm not a lazy person. Maybe it was about finding an efficient way to accomplish what I want, but my exploration led me into understanding the flaws with my plan. What I was attempting wasn't much of a shortcut in the end. But that's really just fine. Now I can take the time to do it well.

The First Step

Breaking down a long-term or daunting task into several smaller, attainable goals is a widely accepted bit of advice. One step at a time, you'll eventually achieve what you want. It often works pretty well for me with things about which I am passionate or deeply committed. But in my moments of laziness or fear, the same practice can work against me.

I sometimes allow a goal to seem so convoluted and complex that I never actually make progress. And it can be anything. The less I think I want to do it, or the more fearful I allow myself to be about the outcome, the more steps I create. My mind can make things seem absurdly complicated. "I don't know if I really want to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. First, I have to open the cabinet and get a plate. Then I have to get the bread package, open it up, pull out a couple of slices of bread, and put them on the plate. I'm going to have to open the silverware drawer and find a knife. I have to go into the pantry and look for the peanut butter, then I have to open the jar of peanut butter, take the knife and dip it into the peanut butter jar..." and on and on.

Not that I do this when I just want a sandwich, but it really can be anything. I'll even write down a list of the steps I want to take to accomplish a long-term or daunting task, and then I'll conclude that I have accomplished something. I have a list of smaller targets, so getting to the larger goal should be a walk in the park. That's worth a pat on the back. But then every time I look at that lengthy list of smaller, short-term tasks, I get exhausted just thinking about starting in on them.

Sometimes it serves me better to just dive in once I have a destination in mind. Constantly planning out a course might be a great organizational exercise, but if I never start following the plan, it doesn't amount to much. I can figure out the intermediate benchmarks and course correct along the way, but the most important thing is getting that first actual step behind me. Once I am committed to heading in a particular direction, every step along the way becomes easier.