stick it out: ira glass on the creative process

I think this bit from Ira Glass (which I found here) correctly identifies the problem I've had with any creative work I've done in, say, the past ten years. I quit when what I produce doesn't match up to the vision I have in my head. But what I really need to do is just produce lots and lots more of that unsatisfying work--produce it until it becomes satisfying.

It's the same kind of advice I give to my students: You don't know what to write? You don't know how to say it? Well, just pound something out. Even if it's bad, just pound it out because then you at least have something to work with--something to revise, something to turn in, something. I'm always surprised at how exponentially better a student's writing can become when that student simply produces even one additional, genuinely-revised draft. When she's willing to start over and try it again, her mind starts to make sense of that messy first draft. It doesn't usually make the final draft all the student wants it to be, but it moves it a little closer to what she envisions.

I think creative types (or maybe it's just me, and I don't know if I really qualify as a creative type) sometimes don't want to believe that creativity itself can come down to practice and skill. Granted, some people just seem to have a personality or a mind that's more bent towards creative work. But innate talent isn't enough. Success comes with persistence and hard work. And there's not a way around that.

I guess it's time for me to follow the advice to just pound stuff out.

It's Not About You

Good advice for new college graduates.

My new favorite website

This link contains excellent justification for study in the humanities and even some reasons to stay away from the infamous business major . . . Huzzah!

Check it out.

Made with love

"Craftsmanship to be artistic in the final sense must be 'loving'; it must care deeply for the subject matter upon which skill is exercised."

--John Dewey, Art as Experience, p. 69

This is why, then, my Thai curry is art, and my thesis is not. Today I do the work of writing the thesis and tomorrow I practice the art of making curry. (Yum!)

A neverending story

Last semester, one of my students concluded her writing reflection with this idea: "But in the end, I neither love nor hate writing. It’s just one part of my life that will probably never go away, and I’ve accepted that."

In echo of her words, I write, "I neither love nor hate my thesis. It's just one part of my life that will probably never go away, and I've accepted that."

Solitude

"Every person, especially every woman, should be alone sometime during the year, some part of each week, and each day. How revolutionary that sounds and how impossible of attainment. . . .

"Actually these are among the most important times in one's life--when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer, to work out his thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray. But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves: that firm strand which will be the indispensable center of a whole web of human relationships."

--Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea, pp. 48, 50

Patience and marshmallows

Intellectual insecurity

"In short, the painful truth we voracious students discover, at twenty, or forty, or sixty, is that what we sometimes call the 'knowledge of explosion' has left us all ignorant of vast fields of knowledge that every educated man and woman ought to have mastered. Is it any wonder that we tend to be defensive in debate, sure that our next class or public lecture will reveal the fatal truth: We are ignoramuses, and since we call ourselves professors, scholars, even doctors, we risk exposure as frauds?"

--Wayne C. Booth, "The Idea of a University--as Seen by a Rhetorician"

A Sunday afternoon with Madeleine L'Engle

Yesterday, I read Madeleine L'Engle's memoir, Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage. I've had this book in my collection for nearly ten years, but this is the first time I've read it, and now I know what I've been missing. It's a thoughtful, spiritual book that explores some of the more difficult questions about suffering in this life--the kind of questions I wished we talked about more often in Sunday school. L'Engle's contemplation of marriage in this book reminded me of Stegner's in Crossing to Safety (another great book). My copy of the L'Engle book is now littered with post-it notes marking insights that struck me, like this one:

"As a human parent I have had to allow my children to make their own mistakes, to become free adults. I cannot rush in and correct every error in judgment, fix everything that goes wrong. Parents who attempt to do that usually end up with children who grow into emotional cripples. If we accept that we have at least an iota of free will, we cannot throw it back the moment things go wrong. Like a human parent, God will help us when we ask for help, but in a way that will make us more mature, more real, not in a way that will diminish us" (99).

I love this idea that even in the moments when God comes in to rescue or help us, He does so with His eternal purposes in mind. He won't deviate from what is best from us, and the reason for that is so that we can become more mature and more real. Perhaps this is why we sometimes feel like we're not being rescued--that we're being allowed to flounder--because God's goal is not to save us from pain, but to allow the pain to purify us until we're changed, inside and out--until we're more expansive as human beings, and not less so.

Potential

"We see ourselves in terms of yesterday and today. Our Heavenly Father sees us in terms of forever. Although we might settle for less, Heavenly Father won’t, for He sees us as the glorious beings we are capable of becoming."

--Joseph B. Wirthlin, "The Great Commandment"

Thinking

Today, I read this:

"Thinking, which is a method of reconstructing experience, treats observation of facts, on the other hand, as the indispensable step of defining the problem, of locating the trouble, of forcing home a definite, instead of a merely vague emotional, sense of what the difficulty is and where it lies. It is not aimless, random, miscellaneous, but purposeful, specific and limited by the character of the trouble undergone. The purpose is so to clarify the disturbed and confused situation that reasonable ways of dealing with it may be suggested."

--John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, pg. 141

Yes, I've been reading for my thesis. Yes, I'm enjoying pragmatism.

AND, next time someone tells me I'm over analyzing, I'm just going to say that I'm simply trying to "clarify the disturbed and confused situation that reasonable ways of dealing with it may be suggested."

Just sayin'.

Thank you, John Dewey.

The benefits of mindless work

These past few days at work, I've been doing a lot of copying, pasting, and editing--important but not very mindful work. In order to keep myself going, I've been listening to BYU devotionals from bygone years. And, I must say, this site is changing my life.

I've thoroughly enjoyed listening all of the Hollands' devotionals from the time with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland was president of BYU. I may post more on these later.

I even listened to a devotional today given by my thesis chair. Very good.

Another highlight, which I re-discovered today, was a devotional given by Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi.

You should probably listen to it right now. He tells some great stories about his grandfather.

Enjoy.

Good things to come

This video comes from one of my favorite talks by Elder Holland. My trainer gave me a copy of it on my mission, and I read it often. Enjoy.

A valuable lesson for us all

This wisdom was displayed on a sign above the printer at work today:

Electronics clipped to your pants are ok only if you are Batman, Superman, and or any other kind of man who needs them to SAVE LIVES, not to send email.

Why you should be an idealist

Viktor Frankl: Why to believe in others | Video on TED.com

Believing in others more than they deserve makes them better than they are.

The enabling power of the Atonement

I was reading a great talk today by Elder David A. Bednar (which you can find here). The whole talk is good, but I especially loved this passage:

"Nephi is an example of one who knew and understood and relied upon the enabling power of the Savior. In 1 Nephi chapter 7 we recall that the sons of Lehi had returned to Jerusalem to enlist Ishmael and his household in their cause. Laman and others in the party traveling with Nephi from Jerusalem back to the wilderness rebelled, and Nephi exhorted his brethren to have faith in the Lord. It was at this point in their trip that Nephi's brothers bound him with cords and planned his destruction. Now please note Nephi's prayer in verse 17:

"'O Lord, according to my faith which is in thee, wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren; yea, even give me strength that I may burst these bands with which I am bound' (emphasis added).

"Now brothers and sisters, do you know what I likely would have prayed for if I had been tied up by my brothers? My prayer would have included a request for something bad to happen to my brothers and ended with the phrase "wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren" or, in other words, "Please get me out of this mess, NOW!" It is especially interesting to me that Nephi did not pray, as I probably would have prayed, to have his circumstances changed. Rather, he prayed for the strength to change his circumstances. And may I suggest that he prayed in this manner precisely because he knew and understood and had experienced the enabling power of the atonement of the Savior.

"I personally do not believe the bands with which Nephi was bound just magically fell from his hands and wrists. Rather, I suspect he was blessed with both persistence and personal strength beyond his natural capacity, that he then "in the strength of the Lord" (Mosiah 9:17) worked and twisted and tugged on the cords and ultimately and literally was enabled to break the bands.

"Brothers and sisters, the implication of this episode for each of us is quite straightforward. As you and I come to understand and employ the enabling power of the atonement in our personal lives, we will pray and seek for strength to change our circumstances rather than praying for our circumstances to be changed. We will become agents who act rather than objects that are acted upon (2 Nephi 2:14)."

I love the concept that God, instead of changing our circumstances (which He easily could do), more often gives us the strength to internally change and meet the challenges in our lives. Facing challenges allows us to develop the attributes we need to become like God and act for ourselves. If God simply removed our trials, we would not be able to become the people He wants us to become. We wouldn't become those people because, if everything were always easy and burdens were always lifted, we would have no need to display Christlike attributes like patience, temperance, and endurance. This is why prayers pleading for relief from trials sometimes go unanswered.

God wants us to develop the strength and character to overcome trials, not just the faith to pray for deliverance. This doesn't mean, however, that He leaves us to fight our way through mortality alone. Rather, He blesses us with the enabling power of Jesus Christ to give us the capacity to overcome our trials.

Wanted: a nice man

"A woman should have the same chances in the professions as a man. But a woman's work about the house is never ending; the care of a child is the sweetest of professions; and that woman is neglectful of her best interests who goes out into the world to work when she can get a nice man to do the work for her."

--Sarah Grand (1854-1943), feminist activist

Oh, the gems you find when you're writing a paper titled "Women's Heads Weren't Made for Thinking"!

Fairy tales

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave a really great talk in the Young Women's session of General Conference about once-upon-a-times and happily-ever-afters. I recommend watching it.

A particularly good insight from President Uchtdorf (or, as my niece would say, Presnent Uchdort)--

"It is your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself, that determines how your life story will develop."

Wise words

It isn't necessary to be rich and famous to be happy; it's only necessary to be rich.
--Alan Alda