I read a blog entry today by an old teacher of mine that got me thinking about creativity and inspiration. As people, we experience so many things throughout our days, our weeks, our years. As a photographer, I capture a split second of that ever rolling reel of experiences. Stop, examine, admire, and continue rolling. Rewind, reminisce, continue forwards. We are the main characters in our own major motion picture, and the product of our lives is reflected in our own expressions of creativity. Our adventures bring us new experiences to revel in. Our friends lend us stories and companionship to contemplate. Our family provide us with the mystery that is the never ending battle of love and frustration – no one can really get under your skin like your family can.
We reserve the right to dream our dreams, and from these subconscious thoughts we explore their meanings by sharing them with others. Pictures, paintings, letters, poems, notes, instruments, blogs, facebook, websites. Whatever your method for sharing is, that is your canvas for the output of your creativity. It may be many things. I’ve begun to paint anything and everything that I think can be painted. Old yogurt cans – great for recycling, and a great canvas to express a myriad of revolving thoughts. Picture frames – to dress special people and special times in my own style of design. I’ve also started banging on the piano whenever I feel a surge of expressive energy coming on. Sit and play. What I hear sometimes is so experimental sounding, but the continuity of the notes fit together like an eerie audible artpiece. I doubt that anyone else would appreciate my creative string of notes.
What I was trying to say here is that we may have a million thoughts suspended in the air, dangling before us, twinkling in the atmosphere and waiting to be plucked from their intangible existence and brought out in concrete words or images or songs. Our creativity defines us. So in that way, our creativity is the text that writes our autobiographies. We engrave our names into the finalized product and rest in peace – admiring a lifetime of creative abundance and satiated appetites.
We are the interesting ones. I watched a movie about Harvey Pekar, and his life as reflected through the comics “American Splendor”. A grumpy man with a seemingly ordinary life, dealing with ordinary issues. But his view of the world was what made them interesting – how he acted and reacted to so many of these situations that everybody goes through every day. His take on the world, his view. He was the interesting one. Knowing that we are the interesting ones puts so much color into the drab stick figures of our characters, and brings to life the excitement of our screenplay. The more interesting we become, the more interesting are the things we create.