Tag: writing

The process of creative work

I have finally completed a book called Beneath – Exploring the unconscious in individuals that I have been working on for five years. It has gone to the printers and will be back in 4 weeks time, ready to be sold. For five years I thought about the book, spent hours and hours working on it, researching the subject matter, writing and rewriting words and sentences. During the process, I often imagined the joy I would feel when I finally finished. I was impatient to see the complete work and anticipated a feeling of great satisfaction. The anticipation kept me going when the work was tedious, which was thankfully not often. Most of the time, I was extremely motivated. I felt that I had something to say and that it was worth saying. I worked with an extremely talented designer, Pluto Panoussis, who ensured that the book was beautiful to look at and I was delighted as I watched the final product unfold. And then we sent it to the printers.

It has been very strange since then. I unexpectedly felt completely empty. I needed to start thinking about marketing the book and telling people about it, but the more I imagined what I would say, the less I could think of anything to say. I felt as if I have nothing more to offer. That is fortunately no longer the case, I am starting to reconnect with the wellspring of ideas inside me. But, the expected euphoria of completing a creative process did not manifest as I imagined. It was more as if I was compelled to allow the flow of the work through me, and then was exhausted and depleted by the process. To me it seems as if creativity is bigger than the human being who delivers it to the world, and that in the end we are merely vehicles for the life force. In retrospect, the biggest joy was the sense of being meaningfully occupied in the creative process itself, the joy of being an instrument that is being played.

Blogs

Blogs are are hard to do regularly. Sometimes I have plenty to say, but I am better off not saying it in public. Sometimes I have nothing to say that feels like it would benefit or interest anyone else. A blog implies that that you are either doing something interesting that others would like to know about, or that you have wisdom to share, or that you are funny and interesting. Many of the things that I do are mundane; often I doubt myself and seem unable to behave wisely myself and so there is not much point in sharing that, and often, when remarkable things happen, I am too busy to write about it. However, here is a summary of some noteworthy things that have affected me or that I have observed in the last few months:

  • A dear friend died in a fire. All I could do was mourn the loss of his life and his phenomenal creativity.
  • A boy that I care about a great deal was diagnosed with cancer. He is being treated and I feel for his suffering – both because of the invasive treatment and the enormous changes to his life and the lives of his family.
  • Two young men that I mentor both landed up in prison and although they are both doing well under the circumstances, all I could do was remain supportive and accept the complexity of their struggles.
  • I have moved house, finally sacrificing the empty promise of rural greenery for the complex joy of living at close quarters with a community who knows your name and occasionally invades your privacy, but also importantly witnesses and supports your life.
  • I am learning how to overcome extreme childhood wounds in order to risk sustaining an intimate relationship with a significant other, while some days holding the fear in my throat rather than re-enacting old defense mechanisms.
  • I have continued to teach the things I believe in day after day, and hopefully I am adapting my teaching to reflect my learning, and finding an optimum balance between fear,  realism  and hope in doing so.
  • And finally, by chance, I found an arum lily frog (surprisingly) in an arum lily. I had never seen one before.