Reflections on the creator, the creation and the creative process

A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2008 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

It needs to be realized that what we think is creative such as works of music, art, scientific inventions, and the like are really only the fruits, and sometimes the waste products (yes, waste products), of a larger unfolding creative process. What we typically see as creative and what creative is all about are really only the products of the unfoldment of our creative spirit. Without the unfoldment of the creative spirit there are no works of creativity. We tend to look at the products of the unfoldment and fail to see the creative process that gives rise to the products we cherish. We think creativity is all about the product when it is really about an unfoldment. A nice story on this perspective is found in the topic, "Reflections on our creations - the creator, the creation and the creative process."

In talking about any creation, there are two areas that are often discussed separately. However, in reality, they are intertwined and connected and cannot really be separated from each other. Otherwise, the discussion of each is incomplete. These two areas are the origins of the creation and the experiences of the creator during the unfoldment of the creation reflective of the material captured in a resume, biographical sketch, their life story and the like.

One cannot separate the origins of the fruit from the process of the tree which produces the fruit. Without the process of the tree there is no fruit. When the fruit is small and undersized one must look at the tree and see how it is not being properly nourished. One does not directly nourish the fruit of the tree but one nourishes the tree that produces the fruit. The intent of the Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity understanding and material is to provide the nutrients to tree which produces the fruit. In doing so the fruit unfolds naturally.

By themselves, the topic of the origins of a creation and the biographical sketch of the creator are somewhat incomplete. The reason for this is one cannot really separate the origins of the creation from the life experiences of the creator. What needs to be understood is that the origins of any creation lie in the life experiences of its creator. In separating them, we can create two discussions that seem to adequately address what is desired,. But, in reality, important aspects will be missing and cannot be communicated. It cannot be over emphasized, the origins of any creative endeavor and the experiences of the creator are integrally connected and intertwined, much the strands of the DNA helix.

What needs to be understood is that creator and the creation are one. What we tend to call the creation, the piece of art, the piece of music, the book, is really the fruit or by product of the creation. The creation is really the process not what results from the process. This is why it is important for one who will lead a creative endeavor, such as a visionary leader or a rainmaker, to have experienced the process of creation for it is the experience of the process that is important now what results form the process.

From a creativity perspective, any understanding only becomes available after one has the necessary minimum set of experience to understand what needs to be understood. Yet, the understandings we have in any one moment are what leads us to the experience we have in one way or another in that moment. If we don’t have the necessary past experience as to understand how to create something different, we will not be able to understand what we experience is only the past in a new way. In effect, we are caught in a loop continually recreating the past. If we do not examine the experience we have, we will not glean from it the understanding and wisdom it provides as to how to break out of the pattern. It is this wisdom that will break the loop to step out of the past.

Analogously, one has to have the minimum pieces of the puzzle before one can begin to see the picture formed by the puzzle. Similarly, any piece of the puzzle we do have must be examined to figure out how the piece fits into the whole. When we begin to see the big picture, all the pieces suddenly begin to make sense and fit together. This fact, in turn, leads to the problem that we may think we understand something because it has been communicated to us. But if we do not have a direct experience of what is communicated, we may be fooling ourselves as to what we really understand. Intellectually knowing something is much different than experientially knowing it.

For example, an author can write pages describing what flying through a thunderstorm feels like. However, no words can adequately describe the experience. This is why simulators have become so important in training people in certain kinds of jobs which need the first hand experience to go with what they have been told or read in a book. Yet, to adequately describe what one will experience or to build a simulator, one will need to rely on previous experiences that approximate the experience we desire to describe. It is only when one who has been through the experience or after we have the experience ourselves that we can determine how correct the approximations are to the real experience.

In any creative endeavor, we may be faced with needing certain types and kinds of experiences to gain the understanding we need. An approximation will not do. But, because creativity is about bringing into reality something that does not exist, our mind, and where we think we will find the experience we need, will probably be wrong. In a creative endeavor we will often not find what we need where we expect to find it. In this regard, if we wish to see the origin of a creative endeavor, we need to learn to see the synchronicity between the events in the creator’s life and their understanding.

To understand the origins of a creative endeavor, we will have to stand back and look to see what is occurring behind the experience or giving rise to the experience. This point is highlighted here because it is a problem we will face in any creative endeavor we undertake. We have to be able to stand back to see what we know and what life itself is trying to communicate to us in the experience we have. This is the value of drawing something like a life map. Here we identify the key events of our life on a piece of paper before us. We then can stand back to look to see what the pieces are communicating.

For example, the author of this material found he needed to have a certain minimum set of experience before he could understand the nature of creativity and the nature of the deep inner longing that we all have to create something of intrinsic value to us. If we explore the inner longing to create something, at a variety of points along the way we think we see the big picture and understand for where the longing arises. But, only in time, as additional experience is gained, we can come to see what we think about creativity and this deep inner longing is not correct.

To see the true origins of any creation, we need to look at the life experiences of the creator as they are applicable to obtaining the minimum set of experience to understand how to manifest the desired creation and how those experiences allow this creation to unfold. This, of course, would require a one to read or hear the creator’s life story told in a certain way. Yet, hearing the story of the creator may or may not provide us with what we need for our particular creative endeavor in which we engage. However, there are some generalities that can be gleaned by looking at the life experiences of a creator. In this regard, there are four points of which we should be aware and are applicable to any creative endeavor we undertake as to the origins of the understanding of the material we need to create what we desire.

One is that certain realizations only come in living life and creatively pursing what we desire to create. We can’t get everything out of books or second hand through the experience of others. We can learn a lot from others, but not everything. Some things we need to experience for ourselves. We will have to do our own experiments. More important, we will be very limited in our creativity and will not access the truth of our being if we follow the path of another. We will have to do our own work.

At some point we will need to step into our own creativity whatever it looks like. If we do not know what our creativity looks like, we will have to find it. To find it, we will need to do our own experimentatrion. No one can do that for us. On this point it needs to be noted, our creative is not necessarily something that we are good at doing. Rather, it is something that makes us feel alive and full of life.

The second is certain types and kinds of experiences are more enlightening than others. Having one year of experience repeated thirty times is not the same as thirty years of experience. If we are going to consciously create, we will have to get accustom to doing things differently. Otherwise, we will only be repeating the past.

The third is that unless we examine the life we have lived and the experiences we have had, we will not become aware of what we experienced and we will miss the value of the experience.

The fourth is creativity is an unfoldment and is something that evolves and grows as opposed to simply building what we desire from a blueprint or a program plan. If we can build from a blueprint or a program plan, we are not creating. It is when the blueprint and/or program plan cannot address what we encounter and we have no idea as to how to go forward that we become creative and begin to create.

In regards to the above discussion, some aspects that the statement about the creator does not address are the key non career experiences vital to the understanding. Here the word career refers to what we do relative to our creative endeavor. Non career experiences reflect what we do in life that does not seem to be related to the creative endeavor. Also what we described as the career experiences relative to manifesting a creation do not reveal what piece of the puzzle those career experiences actually provided and how those experiences are, or are not, applicable to helping to create the space for the unfoldment of another’s creativity and the creative process in their life and that in helping another’s creativity unfold we are helping our own creativity to unfold for creation/Creation is not done alone.

In this regard, the normal approach provided the typical "resume" or biographical description to understand the creator neglects the process and true unfoldment. Within this material to get around what the resume approach neglects, several discussion or stories are give to "paint a picture" that can be integrated into an understanding. The discussions or stories attempt to give a flavor for the unfoldment and how one might see the Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity understanding and material is the fruit of the unfoldment of a creative endeavor. In particular, the creative endeavor to find an alternative way to live life and a subsequent effort to find a faster, easier and gentler way to access the live that alternative way.

The discussions related to the unfoldment of this material are called stories for one can argue there is a variety of way to string together the events of ones life. Some are more creatively empowering than and tend to foster creativity. That is, they foster further and deeper insights about one’s life and how our interpretation of our memories and life events do, or do not, allow us to see the creative power we have. Since a story can be told in different ways, one is free to see the facts of one’s life in a new more empowering way. A resume approach on the other had, is an attempt to give the facts. But in doing so, since all the facts are not given, what is given "fixes" or freezes the view in a very particular way. For example many see engineering, which is based on the facts, to not be creative where something like art and music are creative because it is perceived the artist or musician is free to do whatever they wish.

Most view their life events as things that happen to them. That in turn leads to a victim consciousness about life. From a creativity perspective, one can ask a series of "why" questions beginning with, "Why would I create or agree to participate in such an event?" We don’t have to believe we actually created the event but what we will see is how circumstances caused the event. In this understanding we can begin to see how we do have options for our life that we had not previously considered.

In any case, the story approach hopes to show that all our lives are the same in regard to the fact whatever we do and create is only the result of a larger process. It has been said, "we know a tree by its fruit." We only need to look at the fruits unfolding in an individual’s or organization’s life to know how the creative spirit is or isn’t free to unfold. In the same way we can look at the fruit of a tree and know whether or not the tree is being properly nourished, we can look at the fruits of an individual’s life and know. How we tell our story is the fruit of our creative spirit and reveals much about that spirit and how effectively is has been or is nourished. Often what needs to be said can’t be said in a way another wants to hear it or can even understand it.

The unfortunate aspect about looking at the fruit to determine whether or not the tree is being properly nourished is that we can do little for the fruit which is in season. Rather, we will need to wait and entire cycle for the benefit of one’s effort to be realized. Yet if you don’t learn to properly nourish the tree, the full potential of the tree is never realized and every season of fruit will be of a much less quality than it can be. So there is question each of us will have to face. The question is, "Are we nourishing our creative spirit?" The answer is of course, is found in simply looking at the fruits of one’s life.

Similarly, any statements made as to the origins of a creation normally address when the major pieces came together and loosely addresses the shape they took. However, the statement normally do not address how and why those particular pieces appeared when they did and how their appearance influences the approach utilized. Often the pieces for a creative endeavor come together in a way that initially looks correct but in the end, they don’t fit together and everything seems to fly apart only to come together again in a new and tighter formation. The path of a creative endeavor is very much like a spiral. The pieces assemble, fly apart, come together again in a tighter, more appropriate way only to fly apart again repeating the cycle spiraling inward. The process is non linear and if we expert a linear process we will be frustrated.

In any creative endeavor, eventually a point is reached that indicates there is more to explore and the pieces still don’t fit together properly but all the pieces remain in focus and they are no longer totally disassembled. Rather, we now see the whole process assembling and disassembling within a constantly held field of view. When this occurs, we can say our span of observation has grown too now cover all the applicable pieces or we can say we have pulled all the pieces sufficiently together that we can keep them in focus and prevent them from flying apart. When this happens we can say we are enlightened about the creation. But, no matter how we look at it, we will see there is more to explore but a deeper exploration may not be necessary for what we desire to create. The issues discussed here may appear irrelevant to most individuals, but they are key to understanding why we create what we do and what we can expect to experience in a true creative endeavor.

The key point to understand here is there is an interconnectedness or weave of our life experiences and the understanding we have. Our understanding is not separate from the life we have live. We cannot really separate the two. As a result the life experiences we do or do not seek become much more important than the experiences themselves for they are creating a weave. Only in telling our story and reflecting on what we have experienced will we reveal certain things we have learned. Also, to obtain certain understandings, we will have to live our life different from how we currently do. We cannot do what we always do continually repeating the past and expect to become consciously creative. The more we are able to stand back and see how the pieces of our life fit together to provide the understandings we have about life, the better we can see how to find that creative solution that will effectively solve the problem we face, which of course means, to step out of mind for the mind which created the problem we face is not the mind which will provide us what the solution.

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Reflections on our creations - the creator, the creation and the creative process

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