Creativity, How To

[Integra]

Hey @barefooter , that's really wonderful to hear! Unfortunately, I never went back to that class. You win some, you lose some, eh?

On the suggestion to just 'drop it' and 'flow': I completely agree with you that some people first need to be taught skills (or just believe they need, but it doesn't matter as it affects their behavior the same) to learn to be able to 'flow'. I think it's fair when a person asks "How should I do this?" many, many times, for the teacher to actually offer guidance. I am not against directing people when it really seems that they need it. I feel like that about many activities, but not dancing, for example. I was one of those people that can sort of just 'relax into it,' but then, if asked to teach to dance, I would have no idea how to do it.

I think this has to do with how I conceptualize levels of knowledge (when it comes to skills such as dancing or acting):

1. conscious declarative knowledge (you can define, explain, point out formal aspects, analyze)
2. conscious procedural knowledge (you can perform when focused and perhaps with some guidance)
3. implicit declarative knowledge (you just 'know' things but it's hard to explain why they are the way they are)
4. implicit procedural knowledge (you know how to apply things, to perform, may not be able to explain how)

(1 & 2 overlap, so do 3 & 4, I mean this as more like an outline, not some kind of a hierarchy)

So this is why I think when you jumped to 4 in drawing let's say, it's very difficult to deconstruct your action in a way that will have explanatory value to someone who's looking for type 1 instruction. Okay, this was a lot of speculation.

 

[Regina]

Yes part of the discipline of creativity is to make up your own rule, create your own frame of work because otherwise being a headless chicken overwhelmed with too much freedom means we (at least I) don't do anything. :)
Good job on mentioning Bach, he is one the gods of discipline and creativity, led by example throughout all of his life despite working like a mad man.

"Bach, he is one the gods"... THEE god.

 

[Xisca]

"Bach, he is one the gods"... THEE god.

Yeahhhhhhh
Eeyhww no, INSPIRED by god! This is the baroque, sacred music.... For me, art is what put you in contact with sacredness, with the flow of life, with the beauty, and we can merge with the topic about spirituality, art is a way of contact with the soul.

It is beautiful to just feel it like this without thinking much, BUT there is something behind it, because we anyway feel all this through our incarnated bodies. I do not want to remove any charm to the beauty of art nor the beauty of spirituality, but we feel this from our autonomic nervous system, and that is why it is difficult to pass through the mind and connect to creativity. This as actually a way to connect the 3 parts of the brain, cortex, limbic and autonomic. This last one is fundamental. Creativity is when they are all there working together.

 

[Xisca]

"What does not need addiction is negative reinforcement, which means to reinforce by SOUSTRACTION , the sign - and it does not ean "bad"!
You are reinforced by the result you gain, which is to REMOVE something that is not pleasant."

What do you mean by SOUSTRACTION, I'm not familiar with it?

Sorry, subtraction in english....

So, I RE-WRITE myself and profit to add more....

What does not need addiction, but a spoontaneous reaction, is called negative reinforcement, which means to reinforce by SUBTRACTION , the minus sign -, so in those words "negative reinforcement", negative does not mean "bad"!
(and in "positive" reinforcement, the sign + does not mean good either...)
You are reinforced by the result you gain, which is to REMOVE something that is not pleasant. Thus the subtraction...

There is additive reinforcement, and subtractive reinforcement.
You can reinforce (a behavior) either by an addition of pleasant consequence of your behavior,
...or you reinforce by subtracting something that was unpleasant.
The latter is quite automatic, and it is usually seen as something that FORCES you, as an obligation.

The additive reinforcement needs.... addiction! That's nearly addicitve reinforcement!
May be it would change a lot if we could rename positive reinforcement....
Everybody or almost, think that the Word positive means positive, good.
But this is not at all the original meaning!
(let's say here that I am trained in this, that is why I am used to explain it, and I also have practical experience of its possibilities)
We need to like what is "reinforced by addition" for itself, or else we would not learn to repeat this behaviour as much as we learn to repeat a behaviour that removes the unpleasant states.

Flow belongs to this part of reinforcement.... And creativity as well, though I think it belongs to both reinforcements ways.

 

[Xisca]

Is someone familiar with the psychological state of flow? It was theorized by a russian guy by the way. I think that everytime I was satisfied about my creativity, I was in this state of mind. Flow (psychology) - Wikipedia

Are you referring to the book Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi? I think I meant to read that book years ago and forgot about it, and I should probably get around to it because I'm big time into flow. I like this idea that addiction is not the problem, it's what you're addicted to that is, and I agree that addiction is integral in nature. I think balance is still really key, because even things that are good for you can have a negative impact on your life if you become too addicted and neglect other areas of life.

Yes, but I refered only to the wiki page that mentionned Parsifal, because I did not know the theory before he mentionned it!
When I started the page, I imidiately thought about my experience of drawing without stopping, and I imidiately thought about R+ and r- I just talked about (reiforcement), and the addictive caracteristic of reinforcement by addition.
While Reading, I saw that he he also refered to art, and that at the end he also mention the addiction of the state of flow.

What is important when we learn about these laws, is that they are laws at work ONLY if the result comes after doing something. If there is a promisee before... well we know about this in politic, in economy, in business, this is called BRIBE.
And this does not reinforce nothing.
And when you bribe your child or your dog, next time they are not so comfident, because they feel they have been had before by you!
The mínimum considered aceptable is to lure, just to show the way, more as a suggestion and as a help, a sort of communication to understand beyond words, even without words.

The paradox of flow is that it comes alone as a reward. The reward is what creates the addiction, that can create addiction, because there are more laws at work here.

 

[Xisca]

I will quote ray again, talking about Blake…

Talking about limiting, control… that "rested on a dichotomizing of soul from body". Shamans talk about inviting the soul to come back to the body. The freeze response in trauma separate the soul from the body, they dissociate. In SE, and for sure in many more that I do not know, and for sure in shamanism, we all aim at uniting what got separated. The one that has the strongest desire for this, is our nervous system, the forgotten key. It has to be forgotten to be able to work, because you cannot force it. But you can observe it and do like the little prince with the fox. This part of us is the main one that is at work in creation. You can look for all the ways to eat and decide to take supplements, but then you have to come back to your body and feel what it says about your decisions.

Blake seems to think that the solutions to dichotomy, rigidity, petrification… is in "unity of consciousness and substance, a living world rather than a dead world".

We all create by chance some day, as I did when drawing a tiny flying bird, and some people just manage to "invite the muse" more than others. They provoque the chance, which is not easy when you invite not less than the nervous system! Let's say that is it as easy as deciding at what time you fart! It just comes… If you work properly with your endotoxin, will they cooperate? When you are a professional artist, you must do things at command, you must enter the theater scene when expected, and it is as easy as farting spontaneously at the time you decide! Do artists decide to be spontaneous on command? Can you force the unforceable? Yes, this is even the definition of ethics…. The obligation to what cannot be obliged!

Now, now, what's about discipline, rules, rebelion… I have heard many time something I think is true, that rebelion or following the main stream is the same: it is reaction, it is conditional.

There is creativity when you invite the nervous system at the felt sense level. And what boosts it most? Obligation. Boom. You have to cook, and you become creative so that it is playful. The obligation is there, and you find a creative solution to enjoy the obligation. Then the obligation becomes too strong, and instead of being in a playful hide and seek, in a playful replay of fight and flight, you are overwhelmed. You freeze, you get rigid, petrified, a fossile instead of a living being.

Of course you cannot create any more, and you think that obligation is the cause of the lack of creativity. No. Obligation and too much obligation are 2 different things.