How many times i've heard this said at meetings - "lets follow the tried and tested path ... the stakes for experimentation are too high"

How many times i've heard a parent tell her child - "do this because its been done this way since generations ... and none of us is the worse for it"

How many times i've heard a teenager pat his pal's back and say "c'mon now stop daydreaming .... you'll never get good grades that way"

How many times i've heard unhappy employees say "how do i remain creative in this competitive and hostile environment" ... or "how can i handle all this pressure of an impossible workload"

How many times do we bury our dreams by saying "dreams don't matter ... they're only dreams ... you should be more sensible"

How many times have we come across a person who still has that ability to sense, rather than see the world - and once or twice in all our lifetimes we actually do, if we let ourselves recognise them -how often have we marginalised people like that - or treated them for some obscure mental illness - or find ourselves telling them they have no grounding in reality ?

We aren't creative :

• because we are so caught up in the routine of daily life
• because creativity is seen as the antithesis to tradition and practicality
• because creativity requires you to temporarily abandon logic
• because the creative process requires time that we perceive we donot have
• because we aren't taught to be
• because we fear we cannot be

Or simply because we fear. 

I recently read the 'The Artist's Way' by Julia Cameron.  It's a book involving a 12 week program ... i quote here from the back cover ... "For writers, Poets, Actors, Painters, Musicians - and Creative People in all walks of life. ... with the basic principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, Julia Cameron leads you through a comprehensive 12 week programme to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks, including limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions andother inhibiting forces replacing them with artistic confidence and productivity"

Its approach is through linking creativity to spirituality (she refers to the higher power).  Now i'm not a great believer in 'God' in the conventional sense really, so i was initially a bit put off by her references to God, yet as i read it deeper i realised that one could interpret that 'god' in any way one wants.

I've been doing the program and it is tough - it takes committment and time, and can be a real pain.  I found it was better when i did it along with a friend ... we keep each other on track, though we're still stuck at six weeks !

What i've found particularly useful are two basic tools - morning pages and artist's dates. Morning pages can be sometimes irritating, at other times painful - you are expected to write about anything you wish everyday.  Writing is merely a tool - its not meant to be an art - so no editing - just a spontaneous flow of thoughts and feelings.  The artist's dates are much more fun - a block of time, say an hour a week - where you take the creative child in you for a date - just you and your inner artist - no lovers, no spouses, no kids, no friends, no taggers-on at all.  It could be anything -spending a morning at your favourite bookstore or junkstore, getting yourself pampered at the parlour, going for a movie, a walk through an unknown suburb ... 

The book has helped me get over some of my fears and blocks, and a few of those masks society forces you to wear.  It has also reminded me to "smell the roses" ...

Cameron has also co-authored a book called The Artist's Way at Work ... with Mark Bryan and Catherine Allen, my take on that one is that its more useful for 'employees'.  Some useful learnings there for workshops and facilitation sessions among executives. 

I love this little comment by Louis Armstrong that so neatly sums it up 

 .... "what we play is life" .....

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