After discussing the creative process with my students today I thought I should add more voices to the conversation. We always enter into this dialogue with a Bukowski poem, called “air and light and time and space,” and then contemplate our own dedication and our personal and group processes. To continue the discussion, here are some other valuable thoughts on creativity.
We’ll start with Ira Glass, host of NPR’s podcast This American Life….a great, short (just over a minute) talk on refusing to quit when your creative pursuits get tough, and on pushing yourself past mediocrity.
And here are a few less direct, yet honest thoughts:
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.” – Graham Greene, in the novel The End of the Affair (One of my all-time favourite books. It’s wonderfully moody and atmospheric.)
“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (I admit it: I glued this quotation into my agenda when I was in Grade 10, before I had even a vague sense of who Nietzsche was; it’s possible I also owned the magnet.)
“Free running for agility, archery, climbing, combat and yoga…But that’s all.” – Jennifer Lawrence, on her preparation for her role as Katniss in the Hunger Games (Also, on developing the character using the novel, Lawrence says, “for an actor it’s an amazing thing to have my character’s inner dialogue.”)
“Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it” – Salvador Dali (And really, perfection might be kind of boring…)
Be it an abstract thought, a liner process, or a cycle of conception, analysis, and feedback – creativity eludes stillness. Feel free to add other quotations in the comments.
IN THE ROUND 