Creativity and innovation was what was supposed to happen. Two days, two different groups gathered for that purpose, focused on creativity and innovation..The first day was a “public event.” Anyone could join in. Well, anyone who could find a way to fund the experience. People were from a wide range of backgrounds and variety of reasons for being there. Four people from the same company came together as a team. Everyone learned the same things, but applied it to their own goal.
In its own way it was lonely. In it’s own way, it was like attending a meeting at my old company.
I learned more about how I think. I learned more about how other folks think. I got to see thinking in action, got to hear and make observations, got to hear all of us talk about how we responded to what we did.
I was the only one who had to physically stretch to take in information, walk around to process it, stare out the window to look inwardly in order to close off a thought with a period at the end. Other folks might have said I was lost in my own thoughts. I might have said I was lost in a roomful of them.
I went home exhausted, wondering why I wasn’t feeling filled up with energy.
Being creative alone in a roomful of people, isn’t joyful. It’s limiting. Somehow not all of the colors seem to fill the room and dancing seems not quite appropriate, sitting up straight still seems like a good idea. When everyone has their own goal, creativity is work, even when they’re being truly creative too.
Creativity does not work well with lines around it.
−me strauss Letting me be
12 comments:
Being creative alone in a roomful of people, isn’t joyful. It’s limiting.
The reality you write of Liz, is a new thought for me. As soon as I read your post, I knew the feeling in my gut. I had a very visceral reaction to the experience you write of. I know what it feels like to be lost in a roomful of thoughts.
While I know the feelings, your words helped to put them in a context I had never thought through before. Being creative alone among others is like parallel play with children.The fundamental connection is missing.That is what causes exhaustion for me.
I notice that your title says Day 1. I hope that means there will be a Day 2.
Hi Dawn,
You notice everything, don't you? :)
Good morning!
It's wonderful to read your comment as if I have finally explained something that I could never explain. I doubt that I've never explained adequately, but to know that you understand is powerful.
Parallel play with children is meant to be and therefore, for them, is not strange, but a wwya of life.
The fundamental missing connection that you and I both feel, that causes us both exhaustion is that there is something exclusionary about being creative alone in a roomful of people. It makes each of us "one," in a way that is risky and filled with potential for failure.
When creativity isn't about succeeding or failing at all.
I sure enjoy watching you reach conclusions.
Hey, Doug,
Thank you. That is the nicest thing you might say. I'll be at the bar Saturday.
I've heard that one before. I'll still be here.
What city are you in???
... testing, third time tryng to publish a comment ,
You made it!
This time it publihed....
Hello,
Well, as I was making a visit, I reminded to say that near a real friend I don´t have to be more than what/who I really am.
Near some people, I even feel kind of stress ( maybe the same stress that animals experience in zoos, and they even vomit, or autists that have psychosomatic health problems when they are out of their familiar surrounding ) / might be becoming older, after all(?!)...
...good that I was fearfull in youth and absolutely free ...
...I reminded this words from one of the greatest poets, hope you enjoy them them too:
" I am nothing
I shall never be nothing
I can´t want to be nothing
Apart from this, I have in me all the dreams in the world."
( Álvaro de Campos/ Fernando Pessoa )
Wish you the best creative moments, and the best friends near whom you can be "what"/ who you really are...not more than this...
Near a friend . . .
That is how I told my son to recognize a lifelong friend. "you will know that person by the fact that you don't think about who you are when that person is near."
What a wonderful comment! I am grateful for your wish. Thank you.
Imagine a world in which we could be.
Hello again,
I am glad that you could appreciate my commentary.
....Perhaps I can imagine that "world",in fact that was perhaps what I had been looking in Heideggerian philosophy, sense I was 17 ... ????????!!!!!!!!!
( it is me Cristina Melo, but, sense blogger doesn´t accept to publish my commentaries unless as unonymous, I publihed as anonymous )
Hi Christina!
It's wonderful talking about it! Day 2 of this creativity experience was so much better. It was freeing in a a roomful of strangers. . . .
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