The call of the wild...or shall I stay indoors?

I went for a run yesterday. Running can be quite meditative. It shakes my mind and my body and draws up any lethargy that's been collecting. It leaks out in my sweat and I feel like I'm running away from my own laziness. Or running to combat my laziness. I also get restless. So running is a great antidote to restless jigging and building frustration.

I'm in the south of Finland on holiday. I kept to the road on my run, but there were tall silver birch and pine trees either side of me, where the forest stretches out.

As I ran, I stole glances into the trees. I always associate the forest with peace and stillness. But as I peered into it, a deep sort of anxiety started to well up. The forest here was wild, unkempt, close to people, but not looked after by them. I could spy rotting, fallen trees and thick darkness. Masses of moss and tangled branches. There was something chaotic and futile about it.

 

I am the first to romanticise nature and idealise notions of 'returning to the wilderness' but I started to realise just how divorced I really am from the wild. I am a smart-phone wielding, distracted, safety-groping modern person with little knowledge of nature beyond the greenness we cultivate in our back gardens. I am a massive, laughable hypocrite. I love the ideal postcard picture of a forest, not the real thing.

As I ran and looked into the forest, I thought about creativity, artists and anyone who dares to travel to the edges and beyond what men and women have already cultivated. I thought about madness. Henri Matisse famously said 'creativity takes courage.' Looking into the dark forested chaos from the paved road I started to feel like I understood what he meant.

The act of creativity involves submitting to chaos. It means going beyond the social constructs of all the labels and boxes we have created to order things and put ourselves in a position of mastery. To create something new, one first has to screw up and destroy all sense-making maps and step off the trodden path. Creativity is walking into the wild and trying to keep your wits about you, letting yourself be an instrument, absorbing what you see, using your eyes as if for the first time, and then hopefully coming back with new forms of meaning. Prolific American artist Georgia O'Keefe's words in a 1923 letter to Sherwood Anderson ring out; 'whether you succeed or not is irrelevant - there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing - and keeping the unknown always beyond you.'

We worry about creating meaning as a species. Don't all our forms of progress come from creativity? Daring to imagine something new? Realising there are endless ways of making sense of chaos. Submitting to nothing, and coming back with something.

In 'The Courage to Create', American existential psychologist Rollo May distinguishes creativity as the product of a raw, undefended encounter between self and world. Courage is needed to withstand the intense anxiety provoked by a natural world with no meaning ascribed to it. When one puts aside empirical fact, order, the history of everything we 'know' and meets the world just as it is,

'Our sense of identity is threatened; the world is not as we experienced it before, and since self and world are always correlated, we no longer are what we were before[...] The anxiety we feel is temporary rootlessness, disorientation; it is the anxiety of nothingness.'

May goes on to define artists as those who 'do not run away from non-being, but by encountering and wrestling with it, force it to produce being.'

I wrote the below after my run and wanted to share it here. There's a sense  of futility to it, but I'm not going to apologise for that. Futility is uncomfortable, but it exists. Artists probably know it well. It's a scribbled homage to all the artists out there, sacrificing themselves as instruments, travelling beyond their edges, and bringing back visceral meaning for all of us.

What if we veer off course?
End up lost, among the fallen trees, compounded by moss,
Confused by thick, impenetrable bracken.
Weighed down by the damp, with just an echo for company,
An echo that fritters away, gets swallowed by the deepest forest,
And disappears.
Into nothing.

What if we submit to the chaos and it devours us?
Turning to see the path we marked on the way here, to keep us safe,
We are shocked to find that it's gone.
Was it ever there, we start to wonder...
Did order exist at all,
Or did we dream it up to put ourselves at ease?

What now?
We summoned the courage to create,
And we teeter on the edge, grabbing at the hand of destruction,
Desperate for company when we find ourselves alone.
Futility creeps in on us with the beetles.
Is this the only way back to ourselves?

What if we lose the web of language that keeps us rooted,
If we see new forms we cannot live without.
How do we express them?
How do we share them?
Will people call us crazy?
Will we be crazy?

Trapped in limbo with the longing call of the wild,
With messages for men and women who no longer possess ears to hear.
Will you take us back, when we have been away so long?
Or maybe we've walked too far,
Stepped over the edge.
We're knee-deep in chaos and there's nothing left.

Either way, wouldn't you rather say you took the risk?

 

 

The Sins of Literature: BBC Radio 4

This morning I caught an interesting programme on Radio 4 about the writing process.

It turns out it was the second segment of a three-part series. The last segment will be aired at 9am next Monday 19th August. Each slot is 30 minutes long and focuses on a particular 'sin' involved in the writing process. The segments are titled:

1) Thou Shalt Not Bore  - first and most important rule of writing. If you are writing, you obviously want readers.
2) Thou Shalt Not Hide - writing is a weird way of life as it requires stepping outside life and into solitude - how do writers get the balance right to ensure that they don't turn into distracted public figures, or go the other way and become disconnected hermits?
3) Thou Shalt Not Steal - yeah, if you're going to write, try not to steal from someone else - it may seem obvious, but it can be harder to not do this than you may think.

The programme includes interviews with well-known authors about how they write and how they tackle each of the thematic problems.

Worth a listen...

Click here to listen to the 'Thou Shalt Not Hide' segment aired this morning.

I find different people's writing processes fascinating. Creativity is bred and nurtured differently in all of us. It is totally individual. Some people have set die-hard daily schedules. Those that don't usually develop some sort of funny little traditions or rules to cement a looser routine. Some people love background music. Others would never be able to pen a word with noise and need silence in order for words to unravel on the page.

One thing is certain - writing requires endless discipline and is actually the antithesis to life in many ways. This factor always reminds me why it's so hard to consistently pick up the pen. Sometimes I scold myself and think 'well I clearly don't want this enough do I? There is no way I'm dedicated enough to ever be a proper writer!' And maybe that is true. I enjoy the outside world of distractions too much at the moment, and am too restless and irritable in my own company during prolonged periods of time.

But, I do love writing. I always come back to it. Whether it ever becomes a money-making career for me or not, listening in to the radio this morning reminded me that I have a little niggle inside somewhere again saying 'please sit down and write something'. There is a story brewing. I have no idea what it's going to be about, but I never do until I start writing it.

John Cleese on Creativity

John Cleese's 1991 lecture for Video Arts on the nature and process of creativity is well worth 36 minutes and 10 seconds of your time.

Here is why...

Light bulb jokes aside (watch and you will know what I'm on about), Cleese expresses some enlightening views on the process.
He opens his talk with a disclaimer for the audience:
'I can state categorically that what I have to tell you tonight about how you can all become more creative is a complete waste of time.'

Why is Cleese going to waffle on if it's a waste of time? Because, he continues, creativity simply 'cannot be explained.' I agree with him here. The definition of creativity is as follows:
'the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc' 
Essentially the very fact that I just looked up 'creativity' in the dictionary proves Cleeses' point; trying to pin it down is ridiculous.

 

The process entails making something that does not yet exist from what does exist before us. It is the development or rearrangement of an idea. It is the unexplained, the force outside knowing and science and all that can be pinned down and labeled by humans. It is a willingness and openness to connect with the unknown elements and play with them; enter them fully and try not to be afraid or conscious of the time or pressure for a decisive outcome.

Cleese agrees with American psychologist Donald Mackinnon's analysis that creativity is not a talent or an inherent skill, but 'a way of operating'. It has nothing to do with IQ, or the sort of person you are.It merely depends on an individual getting themselves into a certain 'mood'. Mackinnon believed that this mood was strongly based around a state of 'playfulness'. Creativity involves play for the sake of enjoyment, rather than merely a practical need to solve a problem.

Cleese reckons there are five factors that must be met in the transition from the everyday 'closed' state many of us inhabit in the workplace etc, to the 'open' state where we are exposed to the unknown and free to make new connections and play. I have summarised the five factors Cleese speaks about below:

1. Space - a quiet space where you will be undisturbed and cut off from the pressures and demands of everyday life.
2. Time - we must decide on a time that we will inhabit our quiet, sealed-off space so that we can indulge in play, which is entirely separate from everyday life.
3. Time - not a typo, time is important again here in a different sense. Time was utilised above to create a period for play. Now it forms an important factor during play. The longer we are prepared to spend on a creative idea, the better it is destined to become. The discomfort of staying in this 'open' mode with no decisive sealed off answer rewards us with a greater outcome at the end.
4. Confidence - the fear of 'making a mistake' will stifle creativity. In the 'open' mode, it is essential to stop censoring ourselves. Play requires the confidence to be open to anything; to realise that any 'drivel may lead to the break-through'. 
5. Humour - This is a key factor to playfulness. If we are too 'solemn', play will be stifled. Cleese emphasises the difference between 'solemn' and 'serious'. He attributes solemnity to ego and pomposity. We may on the other hand, consider a 'serious' problem or issue, but we should not be afraid of humour in such situations. It relaxes us and frees us into play.

After listening to John Cleese speak, I am more positive than ever about the merits of creativity. What better way to spend ones time than playing and making something new? The process has the ability to refresh us entirely and knit together the reality of the everyday and the magic of the unknown.

On being awake

Remember that well known phrase we have all used since we were young children looking for something out of a car window or elsewhere - "keep your eyes peeled".

How hard it is to keep our eyes peeled all the time in real life!

My older sister and her boyfriend have just left on an 18 month trip around Asia and Australia. My sister and I worked together for three years and recently even somehow ended up sitting opposite each other in an open plan office of 40 people. Her departure has left an empty office chair opposite me and got me thinking about change. Whilst she's sipping chai for the first time in Mumbai, I'm turning up to sit in the same room for the same 8 hours, five days a week. I don't mind it, the people are lovely and I can think of worse places to be. But how did we, so many of us, worldwide, get to spending 8 hours a day in one room, in the same chair, in front of the same screen? I still find it bizarre.

Albert Einstein described insanity as ‘doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.’ This worries me slightly, as it probably means we are all insane?

Groundhog day is ingrained in most of our lives. It's distilled in the 9-5 model. Even if we don't work a job that obviously illustrates this repetition, patterns are inevitable in our lives. We crave routine and we simultaneously despise it.



Einstein's observation reminds me of a drawing from David Shrigley's exhibition 'Brain Activity' (reviewed in a previous post). Forgive me for the distortion I'm about to make to your work Shrigley (my memory is hazy), but the drawing that springs to mind was a simple illustration of some zig zag lines in patterned formation with a caption that read something along the lines of 'You recognise all other patterns except your own'. So true. We have habits, thought patterns, behavioural patterns and an ingrained compulsion to do things over and over again, once we have learnt a certain way of doing them, even if it doesn't work. We recognise these repetitive models in others and wander why they do it to themselves, completely oblivious to the fact that they are probably watching us, with the same weary gaze, asking the same question.

Human history is, in itself, a long narrative of repetitions and eternal returns. The forms and models change, but most events are echoes of events or scenarios that have gone before. It would be impossible for things to always be different. Time is so infinite that it will be full of echoes. Humans are so limited and influenced by each other that our experience will of course be similar and mirror the experience of our fellows to some extent.

But every now and then we feel the promise of something new. Whether it is being plunged into a new environment, or an event that changes our every day reality and forces us to see differently. Nothing matches up to that feeling of newness. That clarity of seeing the same old world with new, sharp eyes. Every now and then something shakes us to this mode of clarity. It never lasts. We drift off into distraction again. But for a day, two, a week, or even a glorious month, the world feels fresh, new and we can do anything. The energy at our fingertips flows fully. Can we really hold on to this for prolonged periods?

Life is about endurance too. Sometimes it is boring and rubbish and things go wrong. It’s about riding through, for the next new moment; when a cool breeze billows beneath your t-shirt with the enchanting promise of the unknown.

Creativity allows us to make things new. It is a way of reacting to the repetitions we encounter and transforming them into understanding or an alternative mode. It is a natural process. Anything natural possesses its own rhythm and cycle. I find that when I write a story, there is an incubation period, a period where the piece grows slowly. Then it is formed and finished and remains static on the page. I must leave it for a long period of time before returning to it for editing. I also often encounter periods when I feel frustrated and uninspired to put pen to paper. I scold myself for being lazy and undisciplined at these times. But these times are inevitable, like being asleep and awake, curious and bored, creative and destructive. We swing between these forces.

Yesterday I happened to catch an interview with author Tony Parsons on Channel 4's 'The TV Book Club'. Parsons claims that the one fundamental quality a writer must possess, is curiosity about the world.

The Russian-born, French artist Marc Chagall also spoke similarly of the role of the artist:  
"The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep."

Having a big, long sleep is vital if we are to wake up at some point. If we didn't sleep, the feeling of being awake would fail to impact on us. It would cease being remarkable. Sleeping is great, it is just important to remember to set an alarm clock from time to time.

Letter from Martha Graham to Agnes De Mille

I want to share the best piece of creative wisdom I have ever come across...

There is a famous letter that the influential dancer/choreographer Martha Graham (1894 - 1991) wrote to her friend Agnes De Mille (1905 - 1993), also a perpetual figure in the twentieth century dance world. This letter is often passed along in creative circles across every sphere of the art world, and no wander. I think it captures the essence of creativity perfectly. These are words to encourage everyone to develop their creative side; artist or amateur. I don't think this letter is exclusive to the art world either, the words can also be applied to how we live our lives. They struck me the first time I read them and I return to them everytime I feel lazy, bored or restless for a little kick up the bum.

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all Time, this expression is unique.

And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it.

It is not your business to determine: how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions.

It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.

You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open … no artist is pleased…there is no satisfaction whatever at any time.

There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

We only need to watch Martha Graham's dance works to appreciate her words all the more. Much of her choreography could easily be described as frightening, angular, and even uncomfortable. For example, her pivotal piece Lamentation (1930) expresses grief and inner turmoil. Graham performs alone dressed in a purple tube of material. Her movements are tortured and self-conscious, a far-cry from the classical ballet style typical of the 1930s dance world. The piano accompaniment is harsh and dis-jointed and adds to the morbid, drained tone of the movement. There is no averting ones attention though or gliding over the aesthetics, we are gripped by Graham. She has us completely in her possession for these few minutes. Many find her style ridiculous, pointless, ugly - 'that's not dance' is a popular reaction. There is no technical prowess or talent displayed in her movements it could be argued.

I would, however, agree with the opinion that Martha Graham was very much the founder and 'Mother' of Contemporary dance in America. She bared herself unflinchingly through her love for movement. Her work was true to herself and therefore could speak to others who understood the movements and emotions she conveyed. I am not a big fan of the style itself but I admire Graham's approach to her art and determination to stay true to herself through her dance.