Keith Jennings | Keitharsis

There are 2 Types of People in the World (So What's That Mean For You & Me?)

There are two types of people in the world, the saying goes.

And you are either one or the other.

But you're really not, are you?

Then again, maybe you are.

I mean, you’re either a have or a have not.

An insider or an outsider.

Loud and gregarious or quiet and reserved.

An indoor person or an outdoor person.

Ectomorphic or endomorphic.  (Does anyone ever see themselves as mesomorphic?)

Beatles or Stones.

A little bit country or a little bit rock-and-roll.

Mac or PC.

Nice or naughty.

Oscar Madison or Felix Unger.

Right?

So how on earth does this relate to your creative life?

There are two types of people in the world.  And both live inside you.

They live inside me too.

It’s why “we’re a million different people from one day to the next,” as The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” goes.

It’s why we waffle back and forth over seemingly inconsequential things.

It’s why, as human beings, we are unpredictable and make illogical choices.

It’s why we struggle to "find" ourselves.

And why we’re never really comfortable in our own skin.

It’s why we’re complex and multidimensional.

It’s like the cartoons we watched as kids where a pitchfork-wielding devil sits on one shoulder offering us the world while the little angel with a halo on the other shoulder keeps contradicting everything he says.

Except it is not just good vs. bad.

It is not as simple as two poles in tension in our lives.

There are millions of poles in tension all at once within us.

“Should I get my workout in or play with my kids?”

“Should I fold the laundry and scrub toilets or get some writing done while everyone’s out of the house?”

“Should I query that editor or keep honing my craft?”

“Should I be more outgoing or keep more to myself?”

“Should I stick with the plan or be spontaneous?”

“Should I forgive or fire him?”

“Should I focus on today or the future?”

We’re not only in constant motion in the outside world, we’re in constant motion within ourselves.

We fluctuate between all these poles at work within us based upon an ever-changing mix of internal and external stimuli.

And it’s this internal chaos that makes us to want to simplify our lives.

Get control.

Find balance.

And shut up all those voices in our head!

But what if this internal tension is what fuels our creativity?

I can't name one perfectly content Creative who is producing major work.  Can you?

Most of us are running away from something.

Or running to something.

Or needing to prove something.

We're incomplete.

We're complicated.

We're hypocrites.

We doubt.

We care.

And I don't think this is something we can (or should) purge from our lives.

Quite the opposite.

I think it's what makes us real and human.

It's what connects us.

Because it's through our humanity (i.e. our struggles, pain, loss, hopes, doubts, quirks, insecurities) that we connect with one another.

You're reading this because I hope you sense a kindred spirit in the world.

I hope you feel a connection.

I hope you feel like you belong here.

And as for that creative life of yours you love so much...

The one that sustains you and gets you out of bed in the morning...

The one no one in your life will ever truly understand or appreciate...

...it is a shared life.

You are not alone.

And you are not simply one of two types of people in the world.

You are a portfolio of tensions, ideas, personalities and choices.

And that's what makes you uniquely you!

So head to your work space, lean into the tension in your life and let one of those voices in your head rise up and say the unsaid, see the unseen and feel the unfelt.

(Photo by Miss Sydney Marie on Flickr.  Used under Creative Commons.)

Keitharsis is about creativity, roots and the portfolio life.  It's written for writers, artists and other creative souls in the world.  New essays are published each Tuesday and Thursday.  A new creative exercise is offered on Wednesdays.  If you like what you read, will you please share it with others?

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Word-in-a-Word Wednesday: "Creative"

Today's word is "creative".

The word within it is "eat" - crEATive.

How does eating relate to being creative?

To help you learn how to join in this Word-in-a-Word series, here's my take...

We go to the creative to feed our senses, our heads, our hearts and our spirits.

Encounters with the creative are life-giving.

It's why a concert or song or movie or painting or photograph or play or book moves us so deeply and on so many levels.

It nourishes us.

It cleanses us too.

We are creative beings who have become uncreative in our understanding and practices of creativity.

And it's through our encounters with the creative that we can be filled in ways that allow us to feed others.

Okay, your turn!

How does eating relate to being creative?

If this is the first time you are reading a "Word-in-a-Word Wednesday" post, click here to learn how it works.

Keitharsis is a blog on creativity, roots and the portfolio life.  It is written for creative writers and artists.  New essays are published each Tuesday and Thursday.  Creative exercises (like this) are offered on Wednesdays.

Am I Good Enough?

That is the question so many of us ask ourselves.  And others.

Why?

Why is external validation so important?

And how can we know when we’re good enough?

In their book, Art & Fear, authors David Bayles and Ted Orland share the story of a ceramics class.

The teacher divided the class into two groups.

One group was to be graded by the quantity of their work.  Their grade was to be determined by the weight of all the pots they submitted.  The more pots, the greater the weight, the better their grade.

The other group was to be graded on the quality of one pot.  Which meant the one they submitted had to be perfect.

You might be able to guess what happened.

The quality of pots submitted by the “quantity” group exceeded that of the “quality” group.

Why?

Because the quantity group learned from their mistakes, made adjustments and kept improving their output, while the quality group “sat theorizing about perfection,” rather than doing the work.

Since reading this vignette years ago, it continues to feed me and my creative work.

Harvard Business Review published a blog post by Heidi Grant Halvorson in February 2011 titled, “Nine Things Successful People Do Differently”.  It remains one of the more popular posts on their blog.

One of the things she cited was a “focus on getting better, rather than being good.”

These two ideas fit very nicely together.

The more pots you make, the better your pots will get.  And if you focus on getting better, you will eventually be not only good enough, but among the best at your craft.

But, despite what it appears, this isn’t about being “the best”.  Or being “successful”.

Both are very distracting ideas.  Like being “good enough,” they are born out of a desire for external validation.

My maternal grandfather was a master gardener.  His tomatoes exploded in your mouth.  My grandmother would can his tomatoes so we could make homemade vegetable soup throughout the winter.

Not many outside our family new my Pop had perfected his tomatoes over years of trial and error.  Which meant just a few of us (in a world approaching seven billion people) got to experience and celebrate them.

Pop’s joy was in the craft of growing tomatoes each year.  And in seeing if each year’s patience and practice yielded a delightful crop.

He knew.  Even when the tomatoes tasted incredible, he knew if they fell short of his discerning tastes.

Like my Pop, my joy lies in my craft and the challenge it brings me.

It’s what gets me out of bed.

It’s what keeps me from going to bed.

It feeds me.

And in feeding me, I’m able to feed the heads and hearts of a few others.

More than I ever expected, actually.

But the reality is this: I’m not good enough.  Never will be.

My creative work will never be good enough either.

I always see ways I (and my work) can get better.

Because I deeply care about it. 

And that is good enough for me.

I hope your creative work is good enough for you, as well.

Let it spill over for others.

Keitharsis is a blog for creative writers and artists.  It seeks to help you find fresh perspectives and inspiration for doing your work.  New essays are published each Tuesday and Thursday.  A creative exercise is published each Wednesday.

The Tension

Everything exists in tension.

Our personalities are a mix of tensions: introversion vs. extroversion, spontaneity vs. order, emotion vs. reason, etc.

Ethics is built on tensions: truth vs. loyalty, short-term vs. long-term, individual vs. community, justice vs. mercy.

Even taking a sip of that coffee beside you requires tension: the upward force you create must overcome the tension of gravity plus the weight of the object, right?

Tension is simply the energy (positive AND negative) created by two or more objects pushing and pulling against each other.

If you were to go back and read every essay on this blog, you would discover that the vast majority of my essays are built on tensions.  And the most interesting tensions are “right vs. right,” rather than “right vs. wrong”.

Here's a sampling:

• Should we seek depth or diversity in our creative work?
• Should our lives be balanced or harmonized?
• Is creativity received externally or self-generated internally?
• Are our lives paths or portfolios?
• Should we embrace mystery or demystify it?

Tensions cannot be resolved.  They are perpetual.  They exist because of the co-existence of opposing forces.

At best, we can find relief from tensions, but not release.

I believe our creative lives serve as cathartic agents for the tensions in our everyday lives.  (Get the name of this blog now?)

So my hope is to challenge the way you view all the tensions you are experiencing as you do your creative work.  And I hope you can channel them into groundbreaking work. 

One of the most prevalent tensions inherent in my work as a writer is the tension of process vs. product.

My desire to produce great work (i.e. products) makes me want to spend too much time and energy within my processes: researching, re-writing, proofing, editing, etc.

At the same time, I can't call myself a writer without a portfolio of published work, right?

To acquiesce to product would result in a surplus of crappy, drafty products due to unrefined, rigid processes.

And to acquiesce to process would result in a spin-cycle of projects that get tweaked to death and never actually produced.

So what to do?

The fact is there is no right or best answer.  I need both my processes and my products as a writer.  It’s simply a tension I must recognize, accept and manage.

If you are trying to rid your creative life of tension, please stop.

The tension is your energy source.  Your secret sauce.

Not just the tensions surrounding you as you do your work.  But the tensions your work hopefully creates in the world.

And great work creates tension.  Debate.  Study.

So please take note of the tensions in your life.  Accept them and try to figure out how to use them to your advantage.

After all, no tension…no attention.

It’s that simple.  And hard.

This week’s essays focused on “the circumstances” and “the tension” that surround our creative work.

Our natural tendency is to see these as threats to our creativity.

But I don't believe they are.

I believe they are root ingredients in our creativity.

(Photo by Scott Anderson on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons.)

Keitharsis is a blog about creativity, roots and the portfolio life.  It is written for writers and artists from all walks of life.  Please tell you friends about this blog.  Also, save time and join others who receive these posts via email, click here.

Word-in-a-Word Wednesday: "Generation"

Today's word is "generation".

The word within it is "era" - genERAtion.

Does a generation define an era? 

Or does an era define a generation?

If this is the first time you are reading a "Word-in-a-Word Wednesday" post, click here to learn how it works.

Keitharsis is a blog on creativity, roots and the portfolio life.  It is written for creative writers and artists.  New essays are published each Tuesday and Thursday.  Creative exercises and challenges are offered on Wednesdays.