Where Creativity Begins

I used to think creativity meant making something.

A poem. A photograph. A piece of music. An invention.

I still think those are creative acts.

But I have come to think creativity sometimes begins earlier.

Sometimes it begins when I notice a relationship that I hadn't seen before.

An old song meets the person I have become.

Something I learned years ago suddenly becomes useful somewhere completely unexpected.

A Taoist image changes the way I look at a river.

Someone says something that makes me stop and reconsider what I thought I knew.

A fox walks into a poem.

Two things that had been sitting in separate rooms suddenly meet.

And something happens between them.

The kaleidoscope

Years ago, I wrote a poem in response to three questions:

Who are you? What are you? Why are you?

One of the images that appeared was a kaleidoscope.

At the time, I thought I was writing about identity.

The kaleidoscope contained fragments, mirrors, patterns, and pieces accumulated through everyday life. Turn it slightly and the pieces entered into different relationships with one another.

Another pattern appeared.

I've never quite gotten rid of that image.

It has become one way I understand creativity.

A book I've known for years encounters something that happened yesterday.

A poem encounters a philosopher.

Science encounters an image.

Something I see in Nature encounters something I once read in Lao-tzu.

Another person sees something from a place where I cannot stand.

The pieces move.

A relationship appears.

The kaleidoscope turns.

Something happens between

This is the part of creativity that interests me most.

Things do not have to become identical in order to enter into relationship.

A poem doesn't have to become psychology.

Science doesn't have to become poetry.

Lao-tzu doesn't have to become Jung.

Another person doesn't have to agree with me.

In fact, sometimes the difference is what makes the encounter interesting.

Someone else may notice something I cannot see from where I am standing.

I may see something that person doesn't.

We may disagree.

One of us may be wrong.

Both of us may be wrong.

But occasionally the encounter allows something to appear that wasn't visible before.

Difference does not prevent relationship. Difference can make relationship creative.

Dust on the mirrors

There was another detail in that original kaleidoscope poem.

Dust collected on the mirrors.

I imagined discipline as occasionally stopping to clean them so I could see more clearly.

I still like that image.

But I've changed my mind about something.

I don't think we always clean the mirrors ourselves.

Sometimes another person does it.

Someone asks an inconvenient question.

A character in a television show says something I can't forget.

A philosopher says something I don't believe.

A poem produces an image I don't understand.

A fox starts an argument.

Every once in a while, something shows me that I've been looking through a dusty mirror without realizing it.

A little dust comes off.

I see differently.

And I can't quite return to not having seen it.

The kaleidoscope turns again.

Things can remain different

This matters to me.

I enjoy making connections, but a connection isn't proof.

A poem remains a poem.

A measurement remains a measurement.

A river remains a river, although somewhere in these essays a fox is probably going to argue about that.

An image can open a question without answering it.

Another person's perspective can change mine without becoming the final truth.

Distinction does not require isolation.

And relationship does not require sameness.

Sometimes the most interesting thing is simply to let two things encounter one another and see what happens.

Where these essays begin

That's what I want to do here.

I don't have a system to teach.

I'm more interested in following things.

A poem may lead to a fox.

The fox may pick a fight with an ancient philosopher.

An old song may become a river.

A walk in the woods may turn into an argument with Lao-tzu.

A television character may ask a question that follows me around for several days.

I don't know beforehand where all of this will lead.

That's part of the fun.

Something appears.

Something answers.

Something resists.

Sometimes nothing happens.

And sometimes two things that seemed completely unrelated enter into relationship.

Something becomes visible.

The kaleidoscope turns.

And I follow whatever appears next.

Further Study and Sources

C. G. Jung, Psychological Types. Jung’s work provides part of the background for the psychological ideas that have influenced my thinking about images, perspective, and the ways we encounter experience.

James Hillman, From Types to Images. Hillman’s attention to images as images has been especially important to my effort to stay with what appears before rushing to explain it.

The kaleidoscope, the fox, and the connections developed in these essays come from my own poems, reflections, and encounters with these ideas.

About These Essays

These essays are for reflection, education, and life-coaching purposes. They are not psychological assessment, diagnosis, psychotherapy, counseling, or mental-health treatment, and they do not replace care from a qualified mental-health professional.