Creative Darkness

"All creation emerges from darkness."

-- Michael Meade

We seem to have a natural aversion to darkness. When the days grow shorter so many people become depressed that there is now a medical name for it -- Seasonal Affective Disorder. When we face similar dark periods in our personal lives and relationships, we either push the darkness away, run towards the light, or attempt to ignore it. And our culture's attitude towards death, what many consider the ultimate darkness, is perhaps best epitomized by Dylan Thomas' poetic injunction "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

And yet, nearly every scientific theory and religious mythology has the Universe beginning in darkness. More great literature, music, and art have been inspired by periods of darkness than by all the happy times put together. And where would country music be without alcoholism, divorce, prison, and heartbreak -- all major manifestations of darkness?

So, instead of pushing away the darkness, bemoaning it, or slapping on a smiley face and pretending it doesn't exist, what if we embraced it, snuggled into it, explored its every nook and cranny? What might we find? What might we create? What might we redeem?

There's no way of knowing without going there personally. Second hand reports of darkness, while entertaining, can never replace first hand experience in terms of sparking creativity. Because that's what creativity is -- a spark in the dark. It's not even a small flame at first, much less a conflagration. It's a tiny spark in a large dark expanse, a spark so small that if you're not paying attention you miss it altogether.

But the tiny spark is where it all begins. Enflamed by idea, intuition and passion, it is the mini-spark that grows to burn away both the darkness and its causative factors. Each new creation brings a bit more light into the world. It does not permanently destroy the darkness, but it does give the world one more of those thousand points of light.

If you avoid the darkness, no new sparks are created. You can run toward the light, but you won't be adding to it. You will at best be one of those people who just seem a bit too happy to be real, who fill their lives with light that others have created in hopes of avoiding their own darkness.

Don't do that. Share your light with everyone. Enter the collective darkness, enter your personal darkness, emerge with a new spark and watch all our eyes shine!

Transcending Experts

"Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it."

-- Robert Heinlein

Experts know the past. They know what was probable when they became experts. They're betting with the house, but as every gamble knows, the house doesn't always win.

Experts are a great form of motivation. Nothing feels much better than proving the experts wrong. Their forte is trouble shooting. They can show you all the possible pitfalls, sinkholes, and swamps that lay ahead, even before you even take the first step on your journey. And then you can choose altenrative route.

Every new discovery, every creation, every innovation proves the experts wrong and places a fissure in the monolith of tradition that passes for wisdom. If you're the creative type, it's your job to crack their world wide open, and send the experts scurrying into retirement. Just be careful: Don't become the new, petrified, calcified expert yourself!

Breaking Them Rules

"Creativity originates largely in the breaking of rules."

-- Bill Romey

Many of the rules that we live by are so embedded in our unconscious that we don't even realize how they shape our lives. You work regularly until 65 and then you retire; that's just how it's done. Monogamy is the only moral form for intimate relationships. And, of course, desert is always eaten after the rest of the meal.

But what if you retired at 43 for 7 years and then went back to work at 50? What if you had three lovers instead of one -- sometimes simultaneously?! What if one meal a week you ate all your deserts for the week and skipped the so-called healthy food altogether?

Would the sky fall? The temple tumble? Or God zap your ass with lighting bolts from above?

I doubt it.

Would you have fun? Probably. Would you see the world differently? Definitely. Would your breaking of the usually unquestioned rules of everyday conduct lead to creative breakthroughs? Maybe.

Creativity isn't just about inventing a new mouse trap. It's first about transcending ruts and SOP's and experiencing the world in new and different ways. Even if they are only new and different for you.

Ultimately creativity is about consciousness. Consciously trying new ways of doing and being rather than continuing to follow the well-worn paths.

What rules does it make sense to break? Any rules the breaking of which will not directly hurt another person. So, if you eat your desert first it's not going to put weight on the other folks sitting at the table. If you rob a bank or kill your next door neighbor or dump chemical waste into the drinking water, then you've created trauma in the lives of others and have obviously broken the wrong rules. A little low level discernment should help you to know the difference.

So, today is Rule Breaking Day! First you got to find the rules, because they are usually submerged in your psyche not posted on the wall. Then break a couple. See how it feels. Guilty or freeing? Or both? See how the world changes, how your world view changes simply by surfacing and breaking few rules.

The possibilities are endless! Your playing field expands! So energizing, so interesting -- life is born anew.