Creativity for Insight and Joy

Creativity, Depression Antidote?

In the past, whenever I've felt depressed, it's like my mind is too tired to think about anything. My thoughts feel dull, dry, sluggish, and most of all, uninspired. Depression seems to be the opposite of creativity. Nothing sparks my imagination. Colors and sounds are empty and fail to tantalize me. My train of thought is more like a loosely connected line of diesel trucks farting along up the highway in the slow lane, holding everyone up. Solutions to problems elude me. I can't climb "outside the box" to think. Instead, I'm trapped in the box with no clue how to get out.

The last time I felt this way, I tried something new. Just as there are techniques for easing depression, there are techniques and programs for enhancing creativity. So, instead of focusing on relieving my depression, I focused on inspiring myself. I got a big anthology of science fiction short stories and began reading them at night (The Year's Best Science Fiction Twenty-Second Annual Collection). I even tried to write one. I didn't get far, but just thinking about it opened my mind to all sorts of new ideas. Reading the creative stories was like cracking the door in the empty darkness in my mind. The light coming in was warm and sparkly, and all I had to do was follow it to get out.

There's a whole industry around making people more creative. For instance, in the book, A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative, which I bought years ago, the author presents a collection of techniques for thinking outside the box and coming up with new ideas. As a graduate student studying emotion, I wonder if any of the programs and products for nurturing one's creativity can help when people feel depressed. It's an inspiring thought!

A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
-- Nietzsche

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
-- Arthur Koestler

Vision from Consciousness

Creativity is an act of vision. Your vision of the world, not just your interpretations or your point-of-view, but your consciousness, the essence of it, is alive through creativity. By creating, you sharpen your vision and breath life into your awareness.

When I think about painting, I think about what I want to paint next and I search my mind for a vision. I can think logically about it: "I want to paint a vase or a flower arrangement or maybe a landscape... I haven't painted a winter scene yet." But logic cannot create. Logic parses. And the results appeal only to logic and not so much to the spirit. Painting like that is also less fun. The art becomes tedious and stiff. Apart from logic, I have something much more alive and rich from which to draw direction--the vision intrinsic to consciousness. If you listen to your consciousness for beauty, it will show you beautiful things.

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
-- Marcel Proust

Patience and the Cultivation of Inspiration

Often I search for inspiration and the motivation to create, and it's a struggle. I try to force it out of me, but the time is not right. However, sometimes the inspiration is practically shooting out of me, and I'm full of energy. It's no work. In fact, I can't wait to sit down and write or paint. I welcome these episodes, and often I can even perpetuate them, harness their essence and keep it rejuvenated. But one problem I face during these bursts is impatience. I want to spurt out whatever is in me right away. My motivation is so vigorous and potent, I can't bare to be idle, and the result is quick burn-out. I become exhausted. The alternative is to have patience, feeling that creativity will be mine when the time is right, and in this patience, I cultivate my creative energy like a quiet swell of ocean inside me. When the time is right, the fruit will ripen and fall from the tree, the flower will open, and not having been forced will be big and beautiful. Now it sleeps, but I feel it there still, feeding me steady.

Last modified on: 08/08/06