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Sunday 27th April 2008
Is suffering necessary to creativity?
Earlier last year I went to the Cambridge Music conference which sounds stuffier than it actually is.
In fact, it was a conference on the theme of "suffering". Many of the sessions focused on the Parzifal story, cast perfhapsmost famously into words by Wolfram von Eschenbach. So much of the arising discussion explored whether suffering is always necessary to human growth. In many story traditions, the "hero" is taken through a journey of suffering, a fall only to rise again (though sometimes to die in the process of striving). The dark night of the soul isa theme explored in so many art forms and stories.
In order to climb the "twelve steps" out of alcoholism (according to Alcoholics Anonymous) must we always fall to the very bottom. Must it always been the 12 steps or can we half fall and then just climb the top six? Many accounts of the 12-step program claim you have to reach rock bottom, to fundamentally admit to the reality of "I am an alcoholic" in order to successfully climb out of the pit into which you have fallen?
A speaker at the conference, one time Beirut hostage, Brian Keenan, described how, in the pit of despair and the daily emotional torture from his captors, he stumbled upon his "true self", his inner light, his physically untouchable "free spirit", which then extinguished much of the power his captors held over him. In his view, "suffering" was once framed differently. In earlier days, the suffering artist rarely truly starved - the storyteller's value was recognised by the community and the bowl was always filled with some food. The "hermit" in India is often visited by the villages and given food and fuel. Community becomes a kind of legitimisation of suffering, as suffering of the artist or inner traveler is seen by the community as somehow fundamental to its own survival and growth. Superstition? Or something more tangible?
Is suffering necessary to the creative process? Do we need shadow to enjoy our light all the more? To come out of the wretched contentment- the numb mediocrity of the current age - must we make ourselves wretched? Or can we short cut out of wretched contentment, through some creative steps, directly into a state of real, deeper happiness or satisfaction? Must we always go downhill in order to then go uphill "properly"?
Is pain necessary to a longer term appreciation of joy? Must we cut off our ears in order to then realise how valuable our hearing was?
Monday 28th April 2008
A new session added to the programme from Chris Tero and Amy Barnes. Look’s every emergent and positively unplanned. I wonder if the practice of emergence is possible? Can we actually structure around an emergent process or does that undermine it? Amy and Chris are very much about minimal process allowing a “space” to be provided where emergent play and creativity can “happen”. Interesting and intriguing.
Tuesday 29th April 2008
Jack Martin Leith is joining me for an extra session on the 14th May which strays into “taboo” territory of daring to question the dogma of “Open Space Technology”. We are going to positively suggest some new development for this approach to spontaneous meeting and conferencing. I wonder if the creator, Harrison Owen will join in on Skype? Or even storm the walls?
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