The Sexual Subversive [The Erotic Imagination]

¡Hola! Everybody…
I’m currently trying out for different jobs, so wish me luck. One would entail moving to DC… yikes! LOL

If it’s Friday, it has to be about s-e-x!

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-=[ The Erotic Imagination ]=-

Erotic behavior is complex, often misunderstood, often feared, but the complexities of the erotic imagination are eve more so. We can (and do) create rules for the regulation and social control of erotic behavior; we can (and do) develop social conventions and laws with various punishments for what is considered sexually transgressive behavior. They make us all feel reassured and “safe.” But despite all the energy we invest in limiting erotic practice, erotic imagination travels its own path, most often to the very themes we deem forbidden, bizarre, even perverse. If Eros is the archetype of a rash, irrepressible, rebellious trouble maker, he seems most uncontrollable when he enters the realm of the imagination.

The sensationalist, distorted, hysterical language that dominates the political and social dialogue of erotic art and pornography reflect the cultural fear and confusion about our essential erotic natures. We equate the symbolic content of our erotic fantasies, dreams, or works of art with the literal intention to enact the fantasy. In no other area of imagination do we so fear confusing fantasy with reality.

For example, if you wake up from a dream of leaping off a cliff and suddenly soaring effortlessly through space, you would not imagine that you’re in danger of killing yourself by leaping off a cliff while awake. However, if you dream of being sexual in a subversive way, say by being sexual with a prohibited partner (the person next door, a colleague at work, a family member), you may likely fear there is something dangerously wrong with you. If a man fantasizes of being at a luxurious estate, surrounded by opulence and all the creature comforts, he may likely smile at the creativeness of his imagination. But if he becomes similarly excited imagining elaborate scenes in which one glamorous woman after another desires to have wild sex with him (as is typical of male masturbatory fantasy), he will probably be told (or tell himself) that he is a sex addict, a potential rapist, someone with an unconscious desire to dominate or degrade women -- someone who should be fundamentally fearful of his sexual desires.

That we perceive and react to sex-related imagination so differently from other forms of creativity is indicative of our culturally programmed and deep-seated fear of pour erotic impulse and its herald, erotic imagination. We experience these as dangerous forces which must be kept reigned in, under constant control, lest they destroy the very foundation of our seemingly rational, orderly lives.

The tragedy and harm is that when we impose reasonableness on our erotic desires and dreams, or ascribe literal accuracy on erotic fantasies, photographs, and art, we deny our erotic complexity, and lose a huge part of erotic self empowerment, energy, and spontaneity. We become “good” boys and girls, seeking the approval of our parents, friends, society, but at a tremendous cost to ourselves. If we cannot tolerate our forbidden erotic thoughts and desires, if we cannot trust ourselves to separate fantasy from reality, thought from overt action, when it comes to erotic and sexual matters, we by necessity from much of the natural wellspring of erotic power.

It is possible, however, to step back from this culturally exaggerated fear of eros and to ask real questions about and to explore how erotic fantasy and imagination actually function. We can learn to address the erotic imagination on its own irrational, symbolic, and psychological terms. When we do this, we then become capable of appreciating not only our own fantasies but also the works of erotic art and literature, just as we appreciate other creative works -- separating fiction from fact, art from life. By creating psychological space for fantasy as fantasy, we can begin to understand and enjoy how wonderfully creative our erotic imagination can be, and to derive pleasure from the assorted fruits of its inventiveness.

Until recently, before the advent of the internet, there were two major public forums for sexually explicit imagination. The most widespread is commercial pornography -- the traditional medium in our culture for the public exploration of sexual fantasy. Because we have ghettoized the creation of sexually arousing material to an underground outlaw subculture, commercial pornography is, for the most part, formulaic, trivializing, and filled with gender and racial stereotypes, and almost universally male-oriented. I should note, however, that with the advent of the video and the internet, pornography has become more widespread with an audience that includes almost as many women as men, and it has (admittedly to a very small degree) become more joyous and sex friendly. Besides, the biggest consumers of video porn (in the U.S.) are people from some of the most religiously repressive Red States. Cyber interactions have also served to change pornography with “cougars” and men exchanging sexually explicit photographs, expanding the form in terms of amateur photographs.

However, I feel the most important development of public sexual expression in recent years has blossomed, is quite distinct from commercial pornography in its aesthetics, its content, and its general perception of sexuality and gender roles, and also its network of distribution. We have begun to see for the first time some measure legitimacy being given to sexual art, writing, and photography. My friend and poet, Puma Perl, for example, explores the outer fringes of the erotic imagination in her performance pieces, and she’s not alone. These new forms of sexual art go beyond pornographic conventions to offer complex, creative expressions of sexual themes and practices. Although serious artistic respect for sex-related art is still incubating, increasing numbers of talented artists and writers have begun to address sexual issues in their work, to defend the legitimacy and importance of a wide range of sexual themes, and to wrestle with the often elusive artistic questions raised by the erotic imagination.

The issues addressed by such artist are crucial in a growing cultural climate of sexual and political intolerance. Despite the current obstacles, growing numbers of artists are challenging the sexual status quo and do we ever need it. The alternative is to devolve into a postmodern nightmare of a sexually repressive (and dangerous) Victorian era. And may the gods help us all if that happens.

Love,

Eddie

Frozen Thinking

¡Hola! Everybody...
Was it just me, or did anyone else note that as the new neocon goobers were being sworn in, birds were falling from the sky and millions of fish were turning belly up all over the world. If this were Faux news, I'd come up with a silly conspiracy theory...

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Frozen Thinking
Convictions make convicts.
-- Robert Anton Wilson

I came across the above quote and I had to laugh for several reasons. One is the simple but elegant truth of the words, another because I am a former “convict.” I like what the great French writer, Camus, said about convictions -- something about not dying for them because he might be wrong.

I am struck by the sense I get from both quotes: that rigid thinking, or adhering to rigidly held beliefs, choke creativity. Oh yeah, did I mention I am obsessing about creativity? One common theme I hear coming up constantly is people’s need for more creativity -- especially in the realm of work and relationships.

I hear it from people all the time: how they wished they could work at jobs where creativity is valued, for example. The irony is creativity is a choice that can be taken anywhere at anytime under any circumstances. If I were to allow it (and sometimes I do), my work could quickly morph into a dry set of rituals of paperwork and referrals.

Anyway, in the past I have written about the “enlightened” or open heart. Today I am reflecting on the opened mind. I would say, and I think it would be correct, that when people think of the creative mind, they think of a mind full of ideas and brilliant new insights. My own experience tells me the creative mind is both full and empty. It is able to create within itself a space for the new to arise. A creative mindset is constantly opening itself to the internal and external world.

My experience of the opened mind is that it can be relaxed and playful. It is filled with curiosity and wonder. The opened mind has a childlike quality about it. It loves to go off the beaten track, to explore paths not taken by social convention. Playfulness is important. The opened mind likes to play with an idea or object, and enjoys looking at it as if for the first time. Try this one day: take a walk around your neighborhood and pretend you are a tourist. How does your perception of the mundane and “normal” things you see on an everyday basis change when you do this?

The opposite of that playful quality is what I call frozen thinking. Frozen thinking is what you get when you no longer think of possibilities:

“This place sucks.”

”My life would’ve been so much better without you.”

“I’ll never succeed in this shit job.”

Frozen thinking deals in absolutes, there are no possibilities in frozen thinking -- everything is preordained. Whenever someone begins a sentence with, You never... , or You always... you can be sure you’re in the presence of frozen thinking. In short, frozen thinking is the result of all our assumptions and beliefs about others and ourselves.

The open mind remains receptive to the possibility that we may not know everything there is to know -- and what we do know may be wrong. It challenges assumptions, makes new connections, finds new ways of perceiving the world. The opened mind can wander joyfully into areas others do not take seriously, and return with creations that must be approached in all seriousness.

Some of the most celebrated creative minds in history have allowed themselves to drift into dreams states and extended meditations during which they have played with the irrational, the symbolic, the metaphorical, and the mysterious. Often they have returned with images that they translate into scientific theories, musical compositions, and transformative actions.

I would like to point out that people often mistake obsessive thinking with creativity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Creativity entails dropping the mental masturbation. There’s a lot of letting go in the creative process -- a lot of “emptying out.” Creativity is about not thinking (in the conventional sense).

This is a scary journey into the unfamiliar for me, personally. There are times some discoveries are so strange that I want to cover them back up and run. Whether exploring the depths of the human soul or the depths of matter, artists, mystics, scientists, and ordinary folks like you and I, come face to face with chaos and disorder. Still, the enlightened mind thrives on this chaos, sees the emerging patterns, respects difference, and remains open to the paradox of life.

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

Redefining Your Life

¡Hola! Everybody...
First, my Jets were humiliated last night. That's ok... this will show whether the team has the spirit to bounce back, to play, to redefine itself. I owe you all a post on the third term of the Bush administration, also known as Obama. Perhaps I'll finish it later today or tomorrow. I'm trying for a vacation and I need to tie a bunch of loose ends here at my real job (the one that pays the rent -- I only play a blogger on the internet).

Today, I was reminded of this story by my son, who is a guitar player for a rock band...

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-=[ Making it Happen ]=-
Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.

-- Miles Davis

I want to tell you a story. A story I love -- perhaps you have heard it before?

Years ago, the great violinist Itzhak Perlman was giving a concert at Carnegie Hall, or some prestigious venue like that, and the house was packed...

He hobbles onstage, puts aside his crutches, and takes his seat. The orchestra begins, and then fades for his entrance, he begins to play, and when he hits the second or third note, a string breaks.

Goes off like a shot.

And everyone’s thinking, Well this is it. Instead, very quietly Perlman signals to the conductor to begin again. Perlman then proceeds to play the entire concerto on three strings. According to the individual who told me this story, you could all but see him rethinking, recreating, the part in his head as he was playing, rearranging it, recasting it, remaking it passionately. And he does this faultlessly, impeccably. He gives the performance of his life, in the process driving the audience to musical heights.

Afterwards he says, “You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

What a powerful example! Isn’t that what life is all about? To make a beautiful, sublime work of art with what we are given in this life? If you’re waiting for the right time and place, the right job, or the right lover in order to sing the song of yourself, then yours is a wasted life.

Love,

Eddie

Responding to Fear

¡Hola! Everybody...
Ever simply feel that someone or some thing, or some situation is just right? Have you ever followed that inner feeling? How was that? Then again, I know many people who had children on account of a “feeling.” LOL!

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-=[ Responding to Fear ]=-

Nothing in life is to be feared; it only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

-- Marie Curie

A shadow is created by blocking, deflecting, or otherwise obstructing light. Wherever fear comes into existence, it lives, grows, and remains a part of us by embedding itself between the light of creative vision and our intuition. It is the shadow, not a lack of ability, that is the biggest obstacle we face today as a global community. The shadow, as I see it, is the space between what we want and what we get. It’s the distance between who we are and who we are meant to be, with the biggest, deepest, and widest gap occurring between the present crisis and our vision.

Look around at what has so many of us mesmerized: paranoia, worry, doubt, disease. They cast a spell on almost every aspect of our lives. Fear prevents us from seeing or feeling clearly. It blocks the natural flow of our creative energy and hampers our ability to be radically innovative. We seem to be caught in a state of generalized anxiety that makes solutions impossible or paralyzes their implementation. When we do manage to get started, it is fear that often calls us back at the first sign of disappointment or problem. Fear, as a friend likes to say, keeps us “stuck on stupid” as in the example of the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. It stunts our growth and suffocates our awakening, causing us to repeat painful and habitual patterns of behavior and making us lose sight of our vision (or uncommon sense). In order for us to envision and create a better society we must get past this fearful landscape.

Historically, creative people have often felt separated from their communities. It’s as if their ability to see clearly between what is and what could be serves to stigmatize them. Innovators are often ridiculed, their ideas and insights too far ahead of the curve of the mainstream culture. This isolation strikes fear within us: we fear that if we express our ideas, or rock the boat a little, or act on them, others will ridicule us. the truth is that our visionary thinking is the only thing that will save us. But people are afraid to follow their own ideas. They’re sure they will be perceived as crazy, or radical, or -- gasp! -- outside of the political norm.

We are defeated not by our uniqueness, but by our fear of the unusual, the new, the strange. We live in a society obsessed by numbers and norms, with its averages, means, and medians spurring us to believe in something called “normal,” which has little to do with being real. The idea of “average” or “typical behavior” is nothing more than a mathematical conceit.

Similarly, we fear information that challenges our ingrained worldview. Most of the resistance we see today is really about killing the messenger than a defense of reason. Those yelling about fictitious death panels, or decrying marriage equality, or those who have made it their business to discredit all forms of science are protecting hidden agendas composed of fear and loathing.

We fear losing as self-doubt zeroes in on the space between our potential and insecurity. We’re not thin enough, smart enough, or committed. As a nation too many focus on what we can’t do, rather than what we’re capable of. We’re too late with too little. Such doubts and fears make us hesitate at a moment in time in which we can ill afford to hesitate. Others fear something actually succeeding and taking hold because it means their worldview was wrong -- fear of success. Many fear death, or loss of control. Whatever the case, it’s fear-based living at a time of crisis.

A sure recipe for catastrophe.

The people who insist that nothing needs to be done demonstrate a complacency that’s both ignorant and disempowering. Awakening to our full potential is not a spectator sport. If we’re going to respond the challenges we face, we must act and act thoughtfully with foresight. Whenever a group tries something different, there’s an initial period of turbulence. Many people, fearful of new ways, mistake the turbulence for change itself and decide they would rather go back to the “good old days.” In this way, we dismiss the world of potential and vision for a past that never existed.

If we allow ourselves to be led by a creative vision, we will never lose. We can let go of right and wrong, winning and losing, approval and disapproval. Right now, we are on the cusp of a new world emerging and behind us an old world imploding upon itself. The only rational response to fear is to fully embrace this new world. Our potential can only be realized by us collectively. This new world has been hovering over us for a long time and it has nothing to do with some bullshit calendar and everything to do with being awake, and we have heard it speaking all our lives:

Seize the day. Go for broke. Walk the walk. Try your wings. Do unto others...

Stop the fear.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Imperfectly Perfect]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Catastrophes kill, social policies decimate...

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-=[ Standing on the Verge ]=-

Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better... and the catastrophe towards which the world is headed -- the ecological, social, demographic, or general breakdown of civilization -- will be unavoidable.

-- Vaclav Havel, joint session of the U.S. Congress, 1990

Truly, we don’t really live in the world, we live in the conversation we have about the world. Only we limit the shape and tenor of this conversation -- it is completely malleable. The world may or may not be a changeable place, but we have complete power over the conversation we engage about it. This is where genuine change happens, where health, safety, and love come about. This is the wellspring of compassion and forgiveness. This is where the future lives, where possibility and reality converge.

We live at a pivotal time in human history. On the one hand, we’re caught in a global thrall of an ego-centered paradigm, or what I call the Mini Me. The mini me is a state of mind marked by a painful sense of separation from others, a sense of lack, and an overwhelming experience of limitation, fear, and desire. We engage in all manner of activity in order to numb ourselves. We rush to consume in order to avoid our feelings. This is the trance of problem-based living, and though regarded as normal, it fuels a never-ending struggle. It seeps through the cracks of our armor and manifests itself as disease, conflict, and failure. From a global/ collective perspective, the Mini Me is expressed as war and economic and environmental madness.

This is no hell and damnation rant. Certainly there has been greater cruelty, inequality, and imperialism in our history, but up until now, it has always been localized to a tyrant here, a despot there. Hitler and Stalin may have yearned for global dominance and caused much destruction and suffering as a consequence, but ultimately their insanity was isolated. Today the cancer has become systemic rather than local. The dominant neoliberal paradigm of today affects everyone, everywhere.

We are all in this together, for better or worse.

On the other hand, there is an opposing, countervailing “emerging paradigm,” or force. We’re on the cusp of a major evolutionary quantum leap. If you look closely, there’s a movement afoot, a small movement, but a movement nonetheless. The head of a new human being is being pushed through, and its first faint cries can be heard. Yes, it is a dangerous time, but childbirth is dangerous and we are experiencing the birth of a new consciousness on earth. These dangers are part of the birthing process. We are riding the crest of a wave whose consequences are unimaginable, and which contains the only true basis for optimism for our planet and its inhabitants. On this edge we can already sense the possibility of a quality of life that has been seldom been dreamed of. But as with all evolutionary leaps, there is an inherent danger. If we fail to take advantage of this opportunity, we will become the first species to make ourselves extinct.

As I look with a broken heart at the consequences reverberating in Haiti today (and Katrina before), I realize that natural disasters kill, but social policies act as fate. Today, as in the past, poverty, corruption, apathy are doing more to kill than any earthquake or natural disaster ever could. Haiti should stand as a reminder that the threat to our world’s stability comes from a collective expression of greed, most sharply embodied by global corporations, which put the bottom line before integrity, profits before people.

Those opposing the current paradigm are quite possibly outnumbered or at least much less powerful, but we are increasingly motivated to act for social change. Will we see life as we know it mutilated beyond repair by corporate greed and fundamentalists bent on proving themselves right and the (made up) enemy-of-the-month wrong? Or have we finally arrived at the dawn of a collective shift into sanity? Here’s the kicker: there’s nothing to be gained twiddling your thumbs awaiting the ending of this Bond movie gone mad. The final pages of this script are still being written, and you and I have been handed the job of writing the last act...

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Reinventing Your Life]

¡Hola! Everybody...
The holidays have a way of taking us out of our routines. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing...

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-=[ Creativity ]=-

“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”

-- Miles Davis

I want to tell you a story. A story I don’t think I’ve ever told you. Perhaps you have heard it?

Once, years ago, the great violinist, Itzhak Perlman was giving a concert at Carnegie Hall, or some huge venue like that, and the house is packed. He hobbles onstage, puts aside his crutches, and takes his seat. The orchestra begins, and then fades for his entrance, he begins to play, and when he hits the second or third note, a string breaks. Goes off like a shot. And everyone’s thinking, Well this is it. Instead, very quietly Perlman signals to the conductor to begin again. Perlman then proceeds to play the entire concerto on three strings. According to the individual who told me this story, you could all but see him rethinking, recreating, the part in his head as he was playing, rearranging it, recasting it, remaking passionately. And he does this faultlessly, impeccably. He gives the performance of his life, in the process taking the audience to musical heights.

Afterwards, he says, “You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

What a powerful example! Isn’t that what life is all about? To make a beautiful, sublime work of art with what we are given in this life? If you’re waiting or pining for the right time and place, the right job, or the right lover in order to sing the song of yourself, then yours is a wasted life. And a wasted life is the only sin in my book.

Love,

Eddie

Manic-Creatives

¡Hola! Everybody...
I used to hold Mondays for dispelling commonly held beliefs... I’ve stopped that for some time, but here’s one that has always bothered me...

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-=[ Creativity & Madness ]=-

No great genius is without a tinge of madness.

-- Aristotle (384–322 BC)

Since the time of Aristotle (and most likely before), the assumption has been that the truly creative, particularly those in the arts, are a little “touched” or crazy. And it wouldn’t be hard to document. After all, the list of artistic kooks stretches as far back as known history and there are enough contemporary artists to support the idea that insanity and creativity are intimately connected.

But my blog isn’t called unCommon Sense for nothing and part of what I do is question “conventional wisdom.” To wit: Just how true is this assumption?

Well, several researchers (of course! LOL) have looked at groups of creative individuals to see how many were suffering serious emotional problems. The results were eye opening. In one study of 47 artists and writers, psychologist Kay Jamison (who suffers from bipolar disease) found that 18 (38 percent) had been treated for a mood disorder at one time or another. Half of the poets she interviewed had been hospitalized or received medication for such a problem.

Another study by psychiatrist Nancy Andreasen monitored faculty members of the renowned University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop. In 1987, she found that twenty-four of the thirty creative writers had at some time been diagnosed with a mood disorder -- nearly three times the rate of a matched group of professionals in other fields. In addition, Andreasen found that the writers’ parents and siblings were similarly much more likely than the general population to have had a psychological disorder as well as to have reached a high level of creative achievement.

It would be so easy to spin various theories from the results of these studies. Manic states can heighten the senses, accelerate the creative process, or flow of ideas, for example. Jamison explains, “Such people have a higher energy level. They think faster.” Another possible explanation is that it is possible that both elation and depression provide good material for creative work -- a road often not taken that leading to experiences as yet explored. Then there are those enamored of biological explanations who assume (even in the absence of any convincing evidence) that it’s all genetic.

However, is mental illness really necessary for art or even more useful than mental health? Andreasen stressed that psychological disorders in themselves do not lead to higher levels of creativity. It’s not so much that mental illness makes people more creative. Rather, it’s more likely that they have a fundamental cognitive style that makes them more creative and also makes them more susceptible to mental illness. That cognitive style could be described as an unusual openness, sensitivity, or intensity. What we can say is that creative people often have what some psychologists call “thin boundaries”: a tendency toward being sensitive, vulnerable to stress, loss, and rejection -- all of which are known as precipitants of mental illness.

Creativity and mood disorders are indirectly related, with each being connected to a third factor, and because of this virtually all researchers deny any real connection between madness and art. In other words, the great majority of creative people are not psychotic and the great majority of psychotic people are not creative. If you go to a psychiatric hospital, you won’t find eccentric, creative people, you find apathetic, sick people.

On the contrary, when given personality tests creative thinkers score high on what is called “ego strength.” Ego strength can be defined as persistence; a sense of reality in the midst of confusion, the ability to function after you have been tossed around. According to researchers, creative people are rather well organized, well-put together people who happen to be vulnerable to mood disorders. In fact, contrary to the popular notion, creative people seem to do their best work during their healthy periods. They don’t do well when their moods aren’t normal. For one, they’re too disorganized when they are high and too despairing when they’re low.

I will go further and say that the seeming eccentricity of creative people have led them to being misdiagnosed as bi-polar. Mood swings don’t always imply mental illness. In addition, there is the question of defining mental illness and its relationship to power and norms. In Madness and Civilization, Foucault explored how “madness” could be constituted as an object of knowledge on the one hand, and, on the other, as the target of intervention for a specific type of power: the disciplinary institution of the asylum. Artists and original thinkers are often iconoclasts whose pursuit of their ideas takes them away from the mainstream. It is possible that being a creator, especially in a society that doesn’t value the creative process, can cause, or worsen, the illusion of psychological difficulties.

So, yeah, it does not follow that madness and creativity are all that connected...

Creatively Yours,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Gettin' Naked]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Happy Sunday and all that! BTW, if you want to grow and be an Intellectual just like your Uncle Eddie, then the first rule goes as follows:

Eddie Rule #1 for Intellectual Wannabes

You cannot disagree with something you have failed to understand.

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-=[ Gettin’ Naked ]=-

Fear is excitement without the breathing.

I just recently met someone (I call her the African Princess) and we were talking about creativity. She is an artist. Mostly, we spoke about how creating art and taking that out into the world for its judgment is often an act of courage. Or, better put, it is often very scary. Who among us doesn’t fear public exposure of our creative ideas because we then will feel naked and vulnerable in front of others, and believe we may end up rejected or laughed at in our vulnerability.

Our creative output usually holds special significance for us. They express something that we have been quietly nurturing in our inner life, away from the eyes and ears of others. It is risky, or seems so, to go public with them. All of sudden, we’re out there, and despite being clothed, we feel a profound nakedness.

Yet we must find a balance between the need to expose our creations to possible public criticism with the fear that our offerings may be somehow cheapened or ridiculed -- maybe even stolen.

People say I am an excellent public speaker, but I suffer from an almost debilitating fear from being on a stage, or in front of a crowd. Add to the fact that I often am presenting controversial views in front of other professionals who often disagree with me, and public speaking for me can be both a fearsome and exhilarating process. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that being in front of others can be rewarding, and that a part of me thrives on the attention and the adrenaline rush. Perhaps there is a healthy exhibitionism beneath the courage to go naked -- but we had better have something to back it up! LOL

On the other hand, after a while, there can be the realization that was once an experience that produced trepidation and excitement now has become humdrum. What for some can be an experience of a lifetime can become routine for others. We need the courage to go naked, but it is much more than simply overcoming fear. Perhaps stage fright is not just a fear of being out there naked, but a desire to be out there and really naked. Perhaps along with presenting our creativity to others, we also need to know that we are pushing our own boundaries, along with those of our audience. We are naked to ourselves as well as to others.

This all involves a degree of risk-taking, to be sure, if only because we have invested so much of ourselves in our product that we do not want to see it flop. We have risked everything -- our hopes and dreams -- on our creative ideas, and we desire some measure of recognition and reward, whether the rewards are social or financial.

I guess the moral of today’s “sermon” is to get out there and do it! Take it off -- take it all off! As in love, in the realization of the dream resides self-realization; in its impact is its proof, in our creations we complete ourselves.

Love,

Eddie

The Open Mind

¡Hola! Everybody...
I have ahead of me what promises to be a challenging and busy day ahead...

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-=[ The Open Mind & Frozen Thinking ]=-

“Convictions make convicts.”

-- Robert Anton Wilson

I came across this quote and I had to laugh for several reasons. One is the simple but elegant truth of the words, another because I am a former “convict.” LOL! I like what the great French writer, Camus, said about convictions -- something about not dying for them because he might be wrong.

I am struck by the sense I get from both quotes: rigid thinking, or adhering to rigidly held beliefs, choke creativity. Oh yeah, did I mention I am obsessing about creativity? One common theme I hear coming up constantly is people’s need for more creativity -- especially in the realm of work and relationships.

I hear it from people all the time: how they wish they could work at jobs that allowed for more creativity. The irony is that creativity is a choice that can be taken anywhere at anytime under any circumstances. If I were to allow it (and sometimes I do), my work could quickly morph into a dry set of rituals of paperwork and referrals.

If we take a look at our internal dialog we will find thought constellations and belief systems in that often act as self-fulfilling prophesies. If you think and believe you’re ugly, stupid, or incompetent, then it will be so. In fact, we come to take these thoughts and beliefs as real -- as absolutes. I call this “frozen thinking.”

The creative potential within all of us is the most effective tool for combating the negative consequences of frozen thinking. A mind directed by the creative force is by nature an open mind.

In the past I have written about the “enlightened” or open heart. Today I am reflecting on the open mind. I would say, and I think it would be correct, that when people think of a creative mindset, they think of a mind full of ideas and brilliant new insights. My own experience tells me the creative mind is both full and empty. It is able to create within itself a space for the new to arise. A creative mindset is constantly opening itself to the internal and external world. The open mind is like a stream of clear water -- in constant translucent movement.

The open mind can be relaxed and playful. It is filled with curiosity and wonder. The open mind has a childlike quality about it. It loves to go off the beaten track, to explore paths not taken by social convention.

Playfulness is important. The open mind likes to play with an idea or object, and enjoys looking at it as if for the first time. Try this one day: take a walk around your neighborhood and pretend you are a tourist. Take note of how your perception of the mundane and “normal” changes when you do this.

The open mind stays receptive to the possibility that we may not know everything there is to know -- and what we do know may be wrong. It challenges assumptions, makes new connections, finds new ways of looking at the world. The open mind can wander joyously into areas others do not take seriously, and return with creations that must be approached in all seriousness.

Some of the most creative minds in history have allowed themselves to drift into dreams states and extended meditations during which they have played with the irrational, the symbolic, the metaphorical, and the mysterious. Often they returned with images that they translate into theories, compositions, and actions.

This is a scary journey into the unfamiliar for me -- there are discoveries so strange that I want to cover them back up and run. LOL! Whether exploring the depths of the human soul or the depths of matter, artists, mystics, scientists, and ordinary folks like you and me, come face to face with chaos and disorder. And it is the larger patterns of this perceived disorder that we find our intuitive voice. The open mind thrives on difference and remains open to the contradictory.

Paz, Amor, y Dinero,

Eddie