I am going to start filtering some of my more private musings. Since blogger does not have a tool for that, you will need to visit my Live Journal and ask to be friended there. I will continue to post Daily Gratitude and other subjects here. There is also a FAQ for my Journal at the same link.
Creativity
| Friday, March 24, 2006 @ 08:24 next installment chronicling my current transition When I was in grade school, I was told by teachers and my parents, "you should be a writer when you grow up." I believed this was a possibility all the way through high school. I wrote stuff (mostly melodramatic teen angst poetry) and wrote stuff and wrote stuff. I was published in a state-wide anthology two years in a row and invited to the HS writer's camp. Ultimately, though, I gave in to all the other voices that were saying, "with your IQ and grades you can really make a difference in the world." They meant by becoming a lawyer or doctor or business person or, perhaps, an academic. After four-and-a-half-years (I took a semester off to work and think), I graduated with a B.A. in "general studies" from an Ivy League college. I had a piece of computer-generated paper (when did they stop with the sheepskin thing?) and an $80,000 education (not to mention several student loans that will take a lifetime to pay). And I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Now it's fourteen years later and I've accomplished squat in terms of career. I've worked a variety of office, admin, HR, and processing jobs. I published a "new age" newsletter for a few years. I've got loads of experience with event planning for non-profits and lots of time spent creating websites for little or no reason. However, none of this really matters, because I finally realized that the reason I couldn't decide what to do when I grew up is that I believe the current economic model is BS. I don't want to be a part of it -- not if I can avoid it. Last year I took some tentative steps. I created some digital art and some actual collage pieces. I painted my own papers to use in collage. While unemployed, I started reading books and websites on collage techniques and organizing materials for specific projects. Still, I remained blocked. I spun my wheels in the act of planning and organizing, but not actually creating. Then I got a temp HR job for two months. Then we moved to Kansas to take care of Mom. Then I broke my ankle. All the while following the Unemployment decrees that I prove I was searching for a job and having to accept any job that I was offered. Then the Temp-Job-From-Hell (TJFH) slammed into my life. The very day I was called in to do the TJFH paperwork I had started work on an artist website for mysElf. I planned to use it to post some of my visual work and maybe even stories or poems. I was also going to use it as a vanilla-info site. I was proud of the initial work I did and was astonished to realize just how many backgrounds I had created years ago to use in websites. boy liked the initial template, but TJFH sucked all the energy out of my life and the site was immediately neglected. I told mysElf (and boy) that I could work this job for a few months and schedule time to do art and website creation in the evenings. Plus with boy working weekends, I'd have time to mysElf to do even more. Great plan, but not possible. To paraphrase my Leather Sister: The Universe had to kick me again, since I ignored all the earlier signs that I wasn't meant for office work. I came to a place of commitment. I decided to stop the office insanity and drop any attempt to qualify for the last few weeks of unemployment. I would focus my life on creative endeavors: writing, collage, websites, developing the new business to feature boy's cooking & teaching skills, and, most importantly, creating ways for us to live outside the current work-money model. As part of this, I committed to working through Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. boy is relieved that I am finally "out of the box" with regard to work, since I've never been one to live in society's box regarding diet, spirituality, gender, sexual orientation, relationhip structure/number, etc. Since he is working a lot of overtime and is being trained for a new job with a higher salary, I may not even need to stay on as my sister's PCA for much longer. I have a few ideas of what I'd like to see happen in our near future, but I'm remaining open to options provided by the Universe (like the co-worker of boy's who has offered to sell us her used RV). I'm exploring not only the best media for expressing mysElf, but also ways to be creative in the economic structure of this world: how can I structure our lives so we aren't dependent on "jobs?" And I've also been inspired with a number of ideas for workshops to offer on M/s and SM topics (in addition to a few that have been in the works for over a year now). I plan to develop those and then find venues to present. I'm even revisiting the "fact" that we need to get 8-10 hours of sleep in a single block each *night*. With boy moving to work noon-10pm (or later), it may make sense to sleep from 3am-7am and from 3pm-7pm. The Universe is wide open to anyone who is willing to free their creativity and find the path that is best for them. I don't know that I've ever felt this free, this creative, or this passionate in my 37.5 years. "Hell" isn't other people or bad conditions. It is limiting your choices and ideas based on convention, tradition, or external judgement.
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