Entertained AND Inspired

To follow up on thoughts about how we humans either find ways to celebrate our creativity or deny, mistrust or misuse it, the old adage holds true: we stand to lose what we don't use. Not that I believe that creativity can really be lost, but what we can lose is the moment, the chance, as my poet/wife says, "To be a part of it all". And what is the loss when the curtain opens on the grand drama of our lives, if we find a way to slip out the back door? What is the result of the muse giving us a call when we don't pick up?

The personal loss is that we begin to form a pattern of denial that allows us to misread the cues of our calling and write ourselves out of the drama. A pattern that strengthens over time. The cycle of creativity is broken. The Muse's call becomes infrequent. The story still is written, but without our involvement and input it is no longer our story.

If we become non-participants in the creative act, we may also become lesser audience members to those we call the creative. This disconnect can cause us to idolize the artist or the creation. A performance or artwork can entertain or even amaze, but it may fail to inspire, if the creative process isn't awake within us. Without the connection that comes from the experience of creating we may quickly  lose interest in the next wonderful new thing that has come into our lives.

This disconnect repeated in person after person leads to a collective loss of creativity. We can see this effect manifested when we look around at negative aspects of our shared world, created without our input, and say "Is this the best we can do?" It is tempting to think that the state of our country, our community, and our environment is not part of our doing. We may think that we are not personally responsible for the terrible waste of human potential as we sit stalled in the traffic jams of our cites. Or the strip malls that are our vista as we sit idling. We didn't participate in designing this, but we were part of an uninspired audience while someone else took on that task.



When we acknowledge that we have a creative self and actively seek to develop it, when we use it in any way that expresses appreciation for life and the beauty and needs of this world, we are contributing to positive change. Invested, we can all offer new life to the collective act of creativity.