Meditation takes on different forms for me. It could be reading, practicing music, breathing, walking in nature. But, almost daily it takes on the form of journaling. I usually do it the first thing in the morning, and I keep my notebook close throughout the day for whenever the need to write something. My journals in the past were reflections on my life in particular either as analysis of events I’m going through, or records and interpretations of dreams I would have. But, for the last 2 years, I’ve been broadening my scope and writing about life at large, concerning myself less with my own individual life and more with life in general… if that makes any sense at all.
On the morning of November 4th, after sitting at the Piano with my morning coffee and exploring new ideas, I wrote:
“If you venture into the unknown fearfully, the results you seek will be familiarity and safety.
If you venture into the unknown lovingly, the results you seek will be novelty, ingenuity, and new scraps of the large puzzle we call the truth.”
I know where this comes from. I haven’t really had much time for myself in the last 8 months. Work is abundant, and I’m grateful. But, that means that my creative time is limited and that most of the work I do is for other people’s projects, or technical (not creative) work on my own projects; things like arranging music, organizing rehearsals, contacting venues, making promo videos, teaching classes, and so on. This busy-ness makes it difficult to find the right mental space to just sit down and try new things without a goal in mind, and it’s very important not to have a goal in mind if we are doing creative work. It’s strange, I’ve been thinking about this subject since 2012.
Sometimes, I’d tell myself, it’s enough to set aside half an hour a day to do this work, but it’s really not about the quantity of time that I can set aside, as much as the quality. If my mind is cluttered with other affairs during that half hour, I cannot draw inspiration from anywhere. Inspiration, what a word. What is inspiration? Lately, I’ve been more and more convinced that all these creative ventures of mine are not really of my own making. Inspiration comes when it wants, the best I can do is be ready to materialize it somehow, so I can build on it in the future. But, what I’m always asking myself is, where does it come from? Does it come from outside?
There are studies and theories about creativity, most of which suggest that it is an unconscious process that happens in the brain. Essentially, the brain connects bits of information in fresh ways, and we call these “original ideas”. But, what about the Muses? What about invisible, external, spiritual forces that bring forth new ideas? Someone made the analogy of human beings acting as antennas which receive new ideas from somewhere outside of them, and that the best they can do is tune in to the right frequency and receive.
Well, I’ve drifted, forgive me. I’m writing this blog entry without a goal in mind. Let me get back to the couple of lines I wrote in my journal, develop on them, and call it a day.
“If you venture into the unknown fearfully, the results you seek will be familiarity and safety.
If you venture into the unknown lovingly, the results you seek will be novelty, ingenuity, and new scraps of the large puzzle we call the truth.”
When I sit down on any instrument from which I channel creativity (all of which are incidentally my forms of meditation: reading, practicing music, breathing, walking in nature), I am opening myself to the unknown. Now, to be in the unknown generally triggers a sense of insecurity, it’s human nature, men fear the unknown and generally regard it as a source of danger while the known is a source of safety. But in the creative world, the opposite is also true and perhaps more useful. To channel creativity, I must be ready to drop what I already hold to be true. If I go into the unknown holding on to what I already know, I will be seeking to defend it and apply it in situations that don’t call for it, which makes this venture one of high cortisol, nothing more. But, if I go into it ready to be transformed, ready to discover something new about myself, and about the world, then happiness comes… and that’s a sign of doing the right thing. Happiness always comes when I do the right thing, and leaves when I do the wrong thing.
I’ve been witnessing this idea form in my mind recently: The truth, the absolute large truth, can only be attained in one way. Everything must be discovered and experienced from all possible perspectives, then assimilated in the mind for a complete picture of the universe. That is to say, if we want to know the truth about a boat floating in the water, we must experience it from the perspective of a fisherman, or all fishermen who have ever used a boat at any point in their lives, then we must see it from the perspective of the fish that swim below it, and the birds that flock above it, and the woman on the sand watching the sunset as the boat moves along the horizon and intersects at a point where the setting sun meets the ocean… well, you can read Borges’ short story “The Aleph” if you want to get a clearer picture of what I mean… because it’s almost impossible to explain the infinite (universe) by use of the finite (language).
I know there are signs I can detect in myself when I am fearful and not ready to step into a new world. If I am not interested in listening to new music for example, or defensive about my own perspectives and setting up a highwall for other people’s ideas not to come through to my mind, or if I’m coming up with all sorts of excuses why I shouldn’t go looking for a new hiking trail, when I resist watching a documentary someone suggested or that pops up on my recommendations because it’s it’s about an unknown subject which I claim to have no interest in, or if I’m critical of other people’s work and achievements rather than celebrating it…
You know what’s frustrating thing in life? It’s seeing the ideal way by which we are able to live, and falling short of it. Oh, look how I’ve drifted again. Maybe this is a good place to stop.
