I have recently fallen deeply back in love with act of creating and this is a little scribbling about embracing the wonderful creative spirit that rests inside everyone.
Creativity is not as hard to harvest as its reputation makes it out to be. It stretches deep; penetrating right down to the inscription in every individuals’ DNA coding. The recipe is simple: just be yourself. The difficult part lies in harvesting the courage to choose to be the individual that you are (quirks & unforgivable parts included). It’s about not playing a game of social hide-and-seek with your own differences, but embracing them. In a society that continually cultivates mimetic practices, belonging, and sameness (even the sameness among differences), it is not surprising that people become shamefully defeated; throwing their individuality gem under the bed, like a dirty sock, hoping nobody lifts up the bed skirt. Acting different, simply for the sake of being different, falls under the same crime as well. The questions people continually find themselves asking are: “Do I belong or not?,” “Is this good or not?,” “Is this accepted or not?,” “Is this cool/smart/[insert value here] or not?,” rather than: “Is this right for me?,” “Is this something I value?,” “Is this something I believe?” And, most importantly when asking the latter set of questions, not apologizing for your genuine answer. All creativity requires is seeking beyond what culture has already thrown up on you and finding nourishment in whatever sustains, inspires, and moves you. No two eyes ever see exactly the same perspective: the illusion is the sameness not the difference. Don’t cheat yourself out of what you have to offer yourself by living in the shadowy lie of desiring to be or copying someone else. Take up an identity in who you truly are. Genuine creativity is choosing to be you, and what’s more inspiring than that?
The fact is, we can no longer tell someone’s financial reality by what they eat, how they dress, and where they grew up. While I’ve technically surpassed my parents in terms of education and advantage, I am still dependent on a restaurant job, and my peers are now considered the first generation of youths to do worse than their parents. Suddenly, we’re all on a level playing field shaking cocktails side-by-side, and my own burdens of privilege-jealousy have come to a dizzying halt, because even the middle class, of whom I had been previously so resentful, are my coworkers and low-income housing neighbors. At this point, I wish I had never attempted to transcend my class with education; it would make life that much neater. For those of us who have taken the leap to maintain or jump our classes—the interns, graduate students, and college-bound—and who’ve come out disappointed, we’re not alone. The permanent poor are right there with us, and this is a good thing.
- an amazing, amazing article on GOOD
Speaking as someone who, as an unpaid intern for ‘The Daily Show’ working long hours (privileged), pawned stereo equipment and jewelry just to eat, (poor) this covers everything I’ve wanted to say about being privileged and poor.
We need to stop judging people we deem “privileged” “middle class” and “poor.” It’s impossible to know what’s really going on with someone so please, please stop throwing these around as insults based on assumptions.
(via gabydunn)
All parents want to do is drag one down to them, back to the old days from which one longs to free oneself and escape; they do it out of love, of course, and that’s what makes it horrible.
Franz Kafka’s Letter to Felice on 21 November 1912
Here is something to fight; and when I wake early I say to myself Fight, fight. If I could catch the feeling, I would; the feeling of the singing of the real world, as one is driven by loneliness and silence from the habitable world…
Virginia Woolf, from a diary entry dated 11 October 1929 (via
proustitute)
The knowing of feeling
Swallowed by nerve endings
Dwell in worlds of vibrations and pressures
A sensitive contingency
Distinguishing rough from smooth
Where soppy steam dehydrates
Unnoticed ridges of individuality
Alternating oval layers
Depress inward towards self
& poke outward against atmosphere
Leaving each dragging swipe raw
Eating the earth to keep for its own
& imparting a trace impression
of belonging & difference,
wrapped tightly in skin.
Remembering pours onto pages
Like salty raindrops
Free falling from excretory ducts
Indeterminate in its nature
An ambiguous molecule composed of sorrow and elation
The struggle of release
Diffusely slicing time with words
Neurological impulses insist on stirring
Until emotions materialize into symbols
Urging to be read
My embodied spirit tousles the wind
Fibrous filaments tangled
Unfolding threads extend from my mind
Traversing covert barriers between self & earth
Like spiny dendrites connecting thoughts
Swept and fettered by directions tugging gently
Twisting strands in unprecedented patterns
Elusive to all but the imagination
Each extension, a trace
Back to the burrowing follicles beneath my scalp
I may never be happy, but tonight I am content. Nothing more than an empty house, the warm hazy weariness from a day spent setting strawberry runners in the sun, a glass of cool sweet milk, and a shallow dish of blueberries bathed in cream. Now I know how people can live without books, without college. When one is so tired at the end of a day one must sleep, and at the next dawn there are more strawberry runners to set, and so one goes on living, near the earth. At times like this I’d call myself a fool to ask for more…
