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

Traveling like a Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Hummingbirds have captured human imagination for millennia.  In fact, the hummingbird is one of the figures depicted in the Nazca Lines.  While any species of hummingbird is fascinating, the migration of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird is especially impressive.  They travel from the Canadian prairies to Central America, crossing the Gulf of Mexico in one 500-mile non-stop trip.  For the rest of their migration, they travel about 20 miles each day, although they can fly at speeds approaching 35 miles per hour.  Unlike some migratory birds, Ruby-throated hummingbirds fly solo, each bird having its own internal map.

A one-hour exploration of the fascinating hummingbird.

Dozens of animals migrate.  Even more have adapted to life in one locale.  If a hummingbird suddenly questioned its internal map (something I don't really think a hummingbird can do, but stay with me here)... If a hummingbird questioned its internal map and looked to some other creature to follow, it would surely die.  A hummingbird can't follow the migratory pattern of a goose or a fruit bat or a dogfish shark.  And although there might be a narrowly-defined territory with the perfect consistent temperature and a plentiful food supply, the hummingbird is not wired to stick around in the same quarter-acre for its entire life.  It has an instinctive drive to make an incredible bi-annual journey (well, maybe the hummingbird doesn't see it as incredible, but from the outside it certainly appears so).

When I look back at the last two years (and beyond), I have taken some direction from different sorts of creatures.  Some creatures have found their meaning in a rigid organizational structure, some creatures have found their meaning in dollar figures, and some creatures have found their meaning in a set of ideals which they may or may not actually practice in everyday life.  Some of the creatures I have looked to for direction run in  packs with clearly defined leaders, some of them wander as herds, and some of them are predatory.  To most of these creatures, their existence makes perfect sense.  It's how they are wired.  It's where they are comfortable.  It's what they are willing to accept.  Whatever.  But a perfect environment for one creature is not a perfect environment for every creature.

A broad-billed hummingbird in flight.

Over the past few months (aided by a slight geographic change to a new city), I have started to recognize just how much I have judged my path by other people's standards.  I invent the game of my life, but for some reason I have wanted to use other people's rules.  Maybe I thought that other people knew more than me or knew better than me, and on some topics that would be absolutely accurate.  On the topic of what makes for a fulfilling life, however, no one else has access to my internal map.  I might be driven to bulk up and fly for 500 miles straight in what seems like a mad proposition (to some creatures), or I might jump from one nectar-rich idea to another so fast that other creatures think I'm inconsistent or unreliable.  I know that I can fly pretty fast sometimes, but there are days when I spend 80% of my time digesting.

Hello, my name is Randy Partain.  I am a composer and pianist who loves collaboration with other creative thinkers.  I am a spiritually-minded atheist who still finds value in ideas from many religious traditions.  I can be an incredible strategist and an insightful critic, and I usually listen well when other people speak.  I have an internal map that may seem bizarre to some, but when I trust it I can travel like a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.  It is a genuine pleasure to be able to introduce myself.

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.