Creativity

When I was in first grade, my teacher told my parents that I was "creative."  I think this was probably a nice way of saying I made things up.

Future Artist

My parents took this as an indication that I had a future as an artist, so I was immediately enrolled in piano lessons and taught to crochet.  I wish they had enrolled me in dance, at least I would have been getting some physical activity and I might have had the stamina to run from the other boys who wanted to beat the crap out of me.

I suppose I should be grateful because it did lay the foundation for the kinds of artistic pursuits I enjoy as an adult.  And I appreciate that my parents, who lacked any sort of formal artistic training themselves, were doing the best they could.  It did make being a kid pretty tough. 

Right up until my last year in high school, when I wrote my senior class song.  It was one of those cheesy we'll-be-friends-forever songs and I'm not sure I remember any of it.  But my classmates loved it because it belonged to us...and they loved me, voted me "most popular" and "most likely to succeed." 

That was the first indication that I ever had that creativity might get me somewhere socially.  And, of course, at 18 my primary concern was getting somewhere socially.  So I cast off the expectation that I would go to a local university in Dallas to study pre-law and went to East Texas to study music.

If you have ever studied music on the collegiate level, you'll know that "creativity" is not really encouraged until year 3.  I gave up half way through year two to study something truly creative: psychology.  Now, I know that any of you that are pro psychologists or counselors will take issue with this statement.  But I found psychology to be so intuitive and subjective that any claim to it as a "science" is laughable to me.  Of course, my professors disagreed.  So did my wife, she went on to finish her degree in psychology.

In truth, I was almost finished with my psych degree when I found a truly creative outlet, also masquerading as an academic discipline: Theatre.  With one semester before graduation and one 3-hour course in acting, I changed my major and finished a degree in Acting and Directing in 3 semesters.  I loved every minute of it and you can tell by my transcript.  I went from being a marginal student to making Dean's List (WITH honors), 3 times in 3 semesters.

Tulips

Fast forward to yesterday: I was having an exceptionally creative day.  I was able to get the ball rolling on my short novel (I had been stuck), write a verse to go along with a chorus that I've been bouncing around in my head for a couple of months and take a pretty outstanding still-life photo.

It's unusual for me to have creative bursts like this for several reasons, but the biggest reason that I've been able to identify is my processes for creating in different media.

I'm not what you'd call a "method actor" though I've seen some pretty good ones.  If you're not familiar with The Method, the short explanation is that you have to get yourself immersed in your character so that if your playing an angry scene, you get yourself angry first.  I never could do that.  I'm a chraracter actor, primarily, and I can be joking around with you back stage and then convincingly rip your heart out and feed it to you on-stage two minutes later.  That's how I act.

BUT, I really have to psych myself up to write.  I've been trying to write Part 4 of my short novel for two weeks.  I'd get about three pages into it and delete the whole thing.  It just wasn't very real.  The problem was that I can't write a discouraged character when I'm feeling happy.  So, last night I employed Method Acting exercises and drafted out almost 8 pages in about an hour.  It was very productive.  So, that's how I write.

But, when I write music, it is always in the context of worship.  I wrote a whole rock opera this way.  I can't sit down and write a poetically metered, technical song.  I've tried and I suck at it.  The lyrics and music both come off really forced and canned.  When I write in worship, the syntax may need to be corrected and the rhyme may be lacking, but it's real and it plays well.  So, that's how I write songs.

When I take pictures, the opposite is true.  My tendency is to take perfectly symetrical pieces of crap unless I employ technical practices in framing my composition.  If I fail at this when I'm capturing the image, I'll correct it in post-processing.  Since we got our digital camera, my tendency to be technical has increased.  So, that's how I take pictures.

Try having a day when you can get discouraged so that your prose writing flows, worship until your heart's cry to God flows out in original music and then turn on the left side of you brain and take technically composed, still-life photos.  Only in unemployment-land.

Oh, and I learned that left-brain/right-brain thingy when I studied pshychology....go figure.