Every creative person has myriad ways to block creativity. Each of us favors one or two ways particularly toxic to us because they block us so effectively.
For some people, food is a creativity issue. Eating sugar or fats or certain carbohydrates may leave them feeling dulled, hung over, unable to focus -- blurry. They use food to block energy and change. (Page 162.)
As an artist, I can literally die from boredom. I kill myself when I fail to nurture my artist child [inner artist] because I am acting like somebody else's idea of an adult. The more I nurture my artist child, the more adult I am able to appear. Spoiling my artist means it will let me type a business letter. Ignoring my artist means a grinding depression.
There is a connection between self-nurturing and self-respect. If I allow myself to be bullied and cowed by other people's urges for me to be more normal or more nice, I sell myself out. They may like me better, feel more comfortable with my more conventional appearance or behavior, but I will hate myself. Hating myself, I may lash out at myself and others.
If I sabotage my artist, I can well expect an eating binge, a sex binge, a temper binge. Check the relationship between these behaviors for yourself. When we are not creating, artists are not always very normal or very nice -- to ourselves or to others. (Page 181.)
Edited on 2010-04-23 to add a title to this post and to replace the Philanthropy tag with the Quotes tag. I was so sleepy when I wrote it, I don't even remember posting it!
Edited on 2011-02-22 to add link to the quoted book.
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2 comments:
You have read my post on my late artist wife and the other artist who has come back into my life after many years. In the early seventies of the last century, my late wife used to be very active in her profession and our small home was host to a number of artists, some of them very big names now. The common thread in almost all their discussions on creativity would be getting into a kind of frame of mind that would just enable them to create. I find that happening to me too when I write my blog posts as, almost without effort, thoughts and words flow and I make light of it by saying that my Muse creates my posts and not I. I have mentioned TAW in one of your earlier posts and would still maintain that it is for more serious creative people than me!
I remember your remark about TAW. Yes, TAW does take a bit of a commitment.
Thank you for reading and commenting!
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