Notes from The Creative Brain
- Key to Creative Living: Reclaiming our passion
- Children are our best teachers
- Creative space for the child
Key to Creative Living: Reclaiming our passion
A major key - perhaps the key - to living creatively is passion. By
passion I mean a highly compelling, energetic attention to something.
Turned-on people of all kinds are passionate. So are people who've
just fallen in love. So are collectors, sports nuts, horse-crazy kids,
boys who've just discovered baseball cards or video games, computer
hackers.
Little children are passionate about almost everything they see. Their
passion embraces life itself with all its experiences of seeing,
feeling, smelling, hearing and tasting. Children resensitise us
repeatedly to the wonder of the world around us.
The natural passion for life in all its unexpectedness that
characterises children also features strongly in the personalities of
people who have chosen to retain or reclaim their own creativity. They
are constantly exercising their curiosity, trying new things, and
delighting in the experiment for its own sake - even if the results
themselves don't please. They are open to the moment for whatever it
may bring. They approach life with expectancy, enthusiasm and
energy.
How do we reclaim our passion if it has been allowed to dim in our
lives? One way - an important way - is to increase the amount of
genuine pleasure we allow into our lives. There are many things that
make life more pleasurable - listening to good music, exercising,
eating what nourishes your body - but I want to concentrate on four
things:
- We can learn - or re-learn from children.
- We can affirm ourselves and others, and accept affirmation.
- We can take stock of our lives - ask if the way we are living truly
satisfies us, and if not, what must be changed so it does.
- We can provide ourselves with proof that reclaiming our passion is
worthwhile and possible.
Children are our best teachers
Children have a lot of special talents to offer. Their pursuit of
novelty and wonder is both a cause and an effect - a gift of the life
fully lived and one of the things that makes life worth living. Anyone
who knows children can tell you that they do the following:
- Children follow their interests.
- Children seek out and risk experimenting with new things.
- Children pay attention to their own rhythms.
- Children honor dreams and daydreams.
- Children consider mistakes as information, rather than as something
unsuccessful.
- Children play. Many adults have withdrawn permission from themselves to be
silly, to expose the part of themselves that feels young.
Creative space for the child
Nurturing and encouraging the child within. We should help children maximise
the number of mental options they have for responding to a given set of
circumstances as well as allowing them to follow their natural inclinations
toward dominance in one or more quadrants.
Instead of the three R's, look at the four P's:
- Permission
- Praise
- Play
- Personal uniqueness
Permission
Includes free rein to do mainly what comes naturally. You can try it all,
follow your own favourite way, and take your time.
Praise
Permission and praise are very closely linked.
Play
Play is the essential business of children. It's the means by which they learn
how to live in their world. It's also a lifelong source of joy. Much of the
unhappiness and lack of imagination people experience in their lives springs
from having forgotten how to play. Spend time playing with your children -
they need as much quality time as your partner.
Personal Uniqueness
Children don't have to do what their parents did, or to follow their parent's
dreams. Respect the dreams and goals of your children.
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist after he
grows up". Picasso
"Man's most serious activity is play". George Santayana.
Last updated: 5th October 1996