Quotes

"Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives...when we are involved in it, we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life." -Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi

We are usually so caught up in our everyday lives that we rarely take a moment to step back and look at the big picture. Where we want to go, what we want to do with our lives, who we want to meet, what goals we have to fulfill before the ends of our lives. Though I know I'm not really old enough to be writing about this like I know what it's like being full of worries and dreams and ideas as a person that is fully dependent on themselves, I know enough to know what I'm talking about.

I certainly have lots of goals, worries, dreams, and ideas that I know I need to fulfill before my life is over, and sometimes I stop and wonder how what I am doing is helping me get there. Of course there are many things I have no control of; whether or not to go to school, what is being taught in those classes. Eight hours of my day is taken up with school. This doesn't bother me. Because I know that, of course, one of the things I must do before I die is graduate from college, and so these daily eight hours are necessary. But what about when I get home? After all the work is done from homework and chores, I usually watch TV or go on the computer and waste my time there trying to find something to entertain myself. When I know there are many thing that are would be more valuable to my time, which would help me reach my life goals.

Yes, I do have life goals, and so, yes, I have projects that I work on to achieve those life goals. All of those life goal achieving projects demand creativity. This above quote directly relates to that.

When I have finished a project, I feel like I'm one step closer to my goals, even if things didn't turn out as I hoped, I try to look at it as a learning experience, what to do, what not to do next time. I feel more satisfied, knowing that I ignored the siren songs of the computer, particularly Facebook, and TV, particularly TLC, E!, ABC Family, all the channels I check. It always seems like I have so much work to do, the TV and computer seem like an easy guarantee that I will be distracted from being bored. But I have never had that same satisfaction like I do from finishing a project; the one thing they can't guarantee. I know it's because I have finally finished something I might have been working on for years, months, who knows long, but that it's finally done. The fact that I produced something of my own work, that I try to make creative, has come out of my time and effort, that I have something to show for the time I put in. All that sitcom re-runs do for me is temporarily numb my brain, stopping creativity.

I do feel like I am living more fully when I have produced a project I know was creative. And that gives me that feeling, that I am feeling more alive than at other times. This quote is like a direct sum of my feelings at those moments.

"Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." -Scott Adams

This quote means to me, that to reach that ultimate life experience the first quote expressed, you have to allow creativity to take over. Creativity to me means letting yourself pour out ideas, anything, even if it sounds ridiculous, they can lead to sparks of genius. You let the creative part of you take over so that the artistic part of you has something to pick from. Just because you make a mistake, that doesn't mean that it can be a bad one. They sometimes seem like that at first, but sometimes the artistic instinct knows what to do with one, that transforms it into a masterpiece.

"Your mood doesn't really matter. Some of the best creative work gets done on the days when you feel that everything you're doing is just plain junk." -Julia Cameron

I write, and while doing so, I create characters, places, and most of all, situations. These situations test characters, and can do whatever I want them to do. Then it's up to me to see how these characters react.

That means that emotions are important to me. If the project that I am working on is writing, then the days when I feel a particular emotion like what I am doing is worthless, those can be some of the best days.

I can channel that feeling and energy into a reaction to a situation, so I can easily see how this quote directly applies. To someone else, though, it might not. However I decide to use my creativity, I know that even if I don't feel like it, it needs to happen. Just looking back one day and knowing that, even on the day I felt like my work would never amount to anything, I still worked, it gives you a tremendous feeling of commitment. It makes you feel the opposite of how you felt that day, that you were not going to be able to create anything worthwhile, because you see that you stuck with it, and so something good has to come out of it someday. Even if it's another one of those days where you feel like nothing good is happening, you stick with it because of one thought. Why not that day, when something amazing happens today, when my results show, the day I know that my work is worth something, be today?

Image: http://www.bbc.co.uk/jersey/space/images/poetry_270.jpg