The
Question of Talent and Culture
(Part 2)
(This is an excerpt
from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course
at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
In truth, we
have a highly creative unconscious, and the key is learning to listen to
it. Allen recounts his lesson in leaving hotels or home with a sudden nagging
that he’d forgotten something. Invariably he would realize that he’d
lost his keys, or left his wallet. And at that point he began to realize
that when things “went wrong” he could usually trace a preceding
feeling of something not being exactly right. He began then to pay close
attention to these feelings and came to the conclusion that his subconscious
was always operating perceptively, and that his conscious awareness was
usually screening out thoughts that seemed irrelevant, though these “irrelevant”
thoughts were invariably valuable. (This hearkens back to Freud’s
surmise of the psychical quality of the unconscious).
The question of “relevancy” is decidedly that of a learned anticipation
of what is accepted or expected by those rules and laws we have established
in our culture. Many times we have seen or experienced the thought, “I
could have come up with that!” Whether it’s a simple movie story
line, some gizmo, gadget or toy that makes millions, or a new idea for streamlining
and cost saving at work, we are inevitably struck (and often envious) of
the simplicity of a solution. “When the solution is simple, then God
is talking.” (Einstein) Why then aren’t we all creating these
million dollar gizmos, the next great toy or receiving big bonuses and promotions
for making the company run better? Because we are, in the words of the old
adage, looking at the problem and not looking for a solution.
What does this mean? It means that, in the grand scheme of things we are
not players. We are pawns. We have been taught and accepted, from our parents,
past failures, society, and our bosses, that there is a formula, a process,
a way of doing things. This isn’t necessarily all bad. It keeps traffic
moving, it ensures that products are shipped, received and placed on the
shelves. It means that at 6:00pm the news is there on the television. If
everyone were to try to be creative and imaginative all the time, most likely
nothing would get done and a lot of energy, time and money would be wasted.
You don’t need to be creative when you brush your teeth. You don’t
need to be imaginative to boil water. But, if you are aware while you are
doing these things, you might just invent the sonic toothbrush or the electric
teakettle.
In The Care And Feeding Of Creative Ideas (1986), James L. Adams says, “We
should neither steer the same course as we used in past rapids nor should
we pull in our paddle and just let the boat go.” Creativity is that
which allows you some control over the new and unusual; not a white knuckled
grip on the reins, but rather a loose hold that expresses a confidence in
both yourself and the creature you’ve imagined. Creativity is inevitably
“change,” something new, a departure from the usual. We are
best at understanding things over time. But that is a rather lazy sort of
engagement, requiring something predictable. “Creativity implies something
new and without precedent.”
Currently there is a great focus, or at least lip-service, paid to creativity
and change. There are good reasons for this preoccupation. Much of the economic
and social norms have become unstable from that which we have fixed as a
cultural icon. It would be best, perhaps, if we were to stop and consider
for a moment. In Why Didn’t I Think of That, Charles McCoy spends
approx. 200 pages giving examples of real life situations where sloppy thinking
and assumptions failed to grasp the right question, or the right problem
and re-acted rather than acted. From the New Coke debacle to the tragedy
of Vietnam, our great failures as a culture and society have usually been
about the inability to correctly perceive the problem.
Consider that our society, this sociological model, the “ideal”
if you will, is basically a construct that has existed only since the 1950’s.
Post WWII found our society industrious and expanding. The corporate models
and the white picket fences were planted as a “fixed reality”
by the expanding television and entertainment industry. The marketing giants
swooped into this media and quickly found that they could paint a picture
of ideal America. However, the reality is that pre WWII America was primarily
rural, farming, communities. A scant few years prior to WWII, the American
Army still fielded cavalry units. Twenty years before that we were still
trying to settle the west with six-guns. Of course, by the 60’s, after
a scant 10-15 years of “ideal America,” we experienced the rebellion
of the counter culture symbolized by Woodstock, and we had already begun
to deconstruct our own myth. Yet the myth persists and lives on.
For most of America, both corporate and private America, it is that 10-15
year window that exists as the perception of what America has always been
and what it stands for. Now, 40 years after the beginning of the death cries,
society finally seems to understand that the model doesn’t work. Corporate
America has its bases in other countries where it can exploit laborers for
only a few dollars a day. American workers are replaced by cheaper labor,
and thus cheaper products come home to roost on our shelves. The foundations
on which we have based our lives have tottered. For now there are less jobs
to support the American dream with.
We have a great need to re-discover our creativity, even as a survival tool.
If we think of those pioneers of the past, cruising in ships and wagons
across an unexplored frontier, we find remarkable creativity. These are
not just backward reminiscences for a beloved myth that never, or only briefly
truly existed. We must recognize, that along with any cultural myths come
the personal labels we have accepted in order to fit into this imposed,
mythical structure. We should become therefore, those pioneers, fearlessly
advancing and sure of our abilities to creatively manage any challenge before
us. Becoming more creative would cause us all to be more present, aware,
and in touch with our spiritual connections.
Society and Culture, whether pop culture or business club, have rewrote
the google rival rule, search is transformed just like the Chinese Japanese
religion warrior arts, be ready for the American religion culture shock