I’m getting rid of my old blog. I decided for a number of reasons that it just wasn’t for me any longer. The scope I set out to cover was abit too limited for what I’d like to be able to accomplish with a blog, and so I’ve decided to take all the posts from there (called exporting, quite easy actually), and put them here, because while this is a new blog it is still my space so it’s easy enough to move along with the same old thoughts that I had last year. So, go ahead and update the new RSS feed into your feed aggregator, I’ll wait… done? Good. Let’s move on.
My life as of late has been centered around expression. The picture above is a horse my roommate Ian has on a bookshelf in our living room. While he was gone one day I took a camera into the darkest room in our house and experimented with different lighting and exposures to get a neat picture of that little horse. Some of the pictures turned out kinda cool, others were pretty lame but it felt like I was doing something for the day, and in that pursuit of accomplishing something, anything really. I felt good.
What is it about us that requires us to create? What has the Lord put in us that causes us to build, or write, or paint, or destroy something? Most of my life has been driven by the desire to express myself. To get something out. For a while working out fulfilled that desire, but as of late it has left me wanting more. Sure work does a bit of that, though most days I’m doing stuff that I normally wouldn’t want to do, so the creation that I create seems cheapened by ‘the man’, in my case TexAgs.com. So the desire remains.
Elizabeth Gilbert spoke of this need to create, and what drives that creation, quite eloquently at the TED conference early this spring: A Different Way to Think About Creative Genius. I love the way that she speaks about the creative force flowing through the artist. How the Greeks and Romans referred to this ‘genius’ inside of an artist directing the creative flow. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that there is some sort of demon directing my life’s brush strokes, but I think that the Spirit of the Lord moves in the same way. I think he gives us chances to glimpse a beauty and a glory that the Lord has for us at a certain moment in time. When was the last time that you had one of those moments? That you were sitting in a restaurant and suddenly a lightning bolt of inspiration struck you such that that you felt like you just had to get it out or you’d lose it? I don’t have enough of those moments in my life, but I want more.
I was at breakfast with Ross this morning and we started talking about what inspires us to act. He was talking about writing songs, and I was just referring to a more broad theme of creative thinking. (*Note, in using the word creative, I don’t imply that everything is overtly artistic or poetic in some way. Rather I’m speaking of anything ‘create-ive’ at it’s core, where you create something, be it a thought, a painting, or a song.) Ross has said from time to time that his best creations are those that take him something like 3 hours to complete from start to finish. When he described his creative process as being sometimes a flash in the pan I was greatly encouraged. I often look at wonderful works and think, “That took years to create from start to finish. The greatest works of creation must take lots and lots of time.” But in thinking more about it, I believe that is a wrong way of seeing what we create. Just because something comes very easily to you, like writing a song for Ross, or painting something beautiful for my friend Josh, doesn’t mean the creation is somehow worse, or any less valuable. Maybe those things that come very easily to us are the moments of true inspiration from the Spirit, and those are the times that we must be most willing to concentrate and capture the expression as it comes through our being.
That is what I want my life to be about. Finding those moments of inspiration and capturing them before they’re gone, maybe forever. I’m toying with the idea of documenting any and every idea that I have for a while just to see where it leads. To see if, when I go back and visit those moments of inspiration, I can see something that feels right. I want more of those moments, more inspired moments of creation. But inbetween those moments of inspiration I want to be able to work, create, see beauty and appreciate goodness even when I’m not feeling particularly inspired by much of anything.
I’ll leave you with some more pics I took in the dark a couple of weeks ago.
5 Comments
March 12, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Love this, Andrew! I love who you are and how you are approaching creativity and the way you are wired. The photos are way fun and I will continue to check back in the new blog!
March 13, 2009 at 3:07 am
I like you Andrew. I feel like God has given me such a peek into who you are this week and I am very blessed. Your story and this blog are inspiring to me. Thanks for sharing. I love the photos and the thoughts about creating. I have my own thoughts about creating and have been in a bit of a creative mode myself this month. Mine comes in the form of decorating. Lately I will spend hours decorating and painting and moving furniture in my head, hoping for the chance and time to make it a reality.
March 13, 2009 at 1:54 am
Hey man, I dig this. I don’t know if this is a help but I’ve always found enjoyment and satisfaction in know how to understand and enjoy other great works of creation. I took that art history class in high school and as much as I hated the busy work, it sank in and now I LOVE looking at the creations of others. It makes me feel as if I’ve created the painting, or sculpture or building facade or whatever, WITH the artist. The same can be said for other things of great complexity. It made me wonder how it was that people who are very deeply involved in a certain hobby or idea could possibly describe it as a thing of beauty, because I considered it so mundane. It’s like how everyone says I’m pretentious about my guns… I don’t like alot of cheap stuff because I appreciate the beauty in the design and artistry that goes into making something like that so eloquent.
I don’t know man, I don’t have many Eureka moments either. I think my last one was a month or so ago with my book. It comes and goes. I hope I’m not wasting those moments on that book. But I enjoy as much as I can as often as I can through understanding and knowledge about many many things.
I love seeing a salt shaker on the table and then thinking about some obscure fact that I know, like the fact that scientists not matter how many times they try, can’t synthesize salt. I love that. It’s a marvel in the beauty of the human brain, God’s ultimate creation, aside from his own son.
I’m sorry for rambling. Give me a call this weekend and we’ll talk man.
April 2, 2009 at 2:01 pm
sir – i like what you’re getting at here. we need more chats about these things in the weeks to come. particularly over summer. because this is my last semester of grad school, and because i felt that i had way more to do that normal, i made the stupid mistake of nixing time for creativity and art from my life altogether. dumb mistake. now there’s this area in my head that is all numb and tingling, like my hand after i’ve accidentally sat on it in the car for too long.
hey, i’m new to your blog. just seen it here for the first time. will be back more often. glory.
April 2, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I wanted to thank you for posting the video link, “A Different Way to Think About Creative Genius”. I watched it and am extemely happy I did. So thanks!
Also, for the record, I’m not a random stalker. I’m just new to comchurch and happened to come across your blog. Anyway, thanks again! Peace!