Creativity.

Another short post today, since I've spent most of the day in a hospital hanging out with my sister (who is doing well, by the way). 

While she distracted or unconscious or something, I pulled out a book I haven't picked up in a while. 

Image shamelessly stolen from Amazon.  Clearly.

Yes.  That's right.  Orbiting the Giant Hairball.  Great title.  Its subtitle, "A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace," really does describe a large part of the content of the book.  It's about how to be creative in an environment that isn't always creative.  It's about not releasing yourself in wild abandon to pursue creative things outside of any system, but using the good things of those systems while transcending them.  It's a really good book.

After reading just the first two chapters, I may have to add another point to my list of ways I'm creative.  Read at least two books about creativity a year.  Maybe more.  I dunno.  We can play with the number later.

The moral of the story is that I need to be inspired.  I need to be reminded that I am, in fact, a creative person.  I need to be challenged in a more broad sense. 

Sometimes, when I get into the mundanity of creative output, I forget about the creative part.  When I write, I think about my story structure analysis.  I think about my characters and their goals.  I think about the point of the whole story and why I'm writing it in the first place.  I start relying (rightfully so) on systems and rules that have helped me make a better product in the past. 

But in all of those details, I forget what it is I'm doing.  I am creating something (hopefully) fresh and new and interesting and unlike anything the world has seen before.  I am using my brain and imagination to echo the creative God who gave me both.  It's a huge privilege and tremendously fun while carrying a gravitas that I almost never realize.

The creative act is, I think, a bigger deal than we typically make it out to be.  It is books like Orbiting the Giant Hairball that help me remember that. 


I leave you with chapter 19 of Orbiting the Giant Hairball, in its entirety: "Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license."  Go ponder that for a while.