I actually never expressed much creativity as a child. That inner critic voice was too strong from a very young age. It changed when I listened to the outer critics, and found out most of them were imbeciles. One teacher said to my parents I was slow-witted and needed to go to a special education school (I went on doing DPhil at Oxford instead). Another one told me I was so uncoordinated I should consult a doctor (I'm a few marks off being top 12 in the world in ballroom dancing). I'm not saying they couldn't have been right, but I knew even then (and thankfully so did my parents) that there was something wrong with their assessments. It took me a while to understand where those critics were coming from, and a little more time to understand that my own inner voices weren't so different.
Anyway, it reminds me of Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales, when he lists the "Useless Presents": 'a painting book in which I could make the grass, the trees, the sea and the animals any colour I please, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds.'
Huh. I'll have to ponder the "tree climbing" as creativity for a while. I always thought tree climbing was a rite of passage, but I was shocked as an adult when I met several people who had never climbed a tree and didn't allow their kids to climb trees. Meanwhile, my son was 30 feet up... =)
Well, my first thought upon reading this was "Wow, Ira Glass thinks I have good taste." My inner critic immediately said, "How immature and silly you are," and then I thought of syllogisms--which are, for some reason mysterious to me, a part of my son's Geometry curriculum. He is terribly dyslexic and I am very free-thinking (a.k.a. "creative") so If A is sort-of-kind-of-almost like B--or even C--well, then why can't they all just get a long and have a nice time together. I think that's how I arrived at "Ira Glass thinks I have good taste." And also I'm a bit silly (remember that A, B, and C are all getting along nicely in my world.)
BUT--and I digressed at the ingress--I was reminded of a kindergarten assignment I had to do at home while suffering from chicken pox. Our letter for the week was P. The assignment was to color a cartoon outline of a pig, using pink and purple crayons. The pink--well, aren't all little piggies as pink as can be? That was no trouble. But the purple crayon stumped me big time. I was staying at my grandparents' home and my grandfather sat with me while I did my little stack of assignments. He saw my distress and offered to help. He took that purple crayon and drew little spots all over my pink pig--and wrote POX beside the pig. Now that was genius--that 70 year-old man had more creativity than I. I can relate to Vincent's comment about feeling a bit hampered as a child--I wanted to be correct and approved by the powers-that-were.
I wrote all that up once for a college symposium and had to read it to a large audience. It was the first time I'd told a personal story and had to take questions about it. I was ill with nerves and doubt--but since then, I think I've benefited from my grandfather's quirky wisdom and from just telling the story. Just tell the story!
Thanks for sending Ira's compliments along to the creatives and for reminding me to just keep writing.
Wow…I needed to hear this right in this exact season I am in. From time to time I get this feeling (Sehnsucht) that I want to convey in my writing but then I look at my stories and get angry that they don’t feel like I want them to feel. Yes, I am in one of those seasons right now. This is exactly what I needed to get me back on the right track with creating, creating, creating to someday get there. Thanks JR!!
I actually never expressed much creativity as a child. That inner critic voice was too strong from a very young age. It changed when I listened to the outer critics, and found out most of them were imbeciles. One teacher said to my parents I was slow-witted and needed to go to a special education school (I went on doing DPhil at Oxford instead). Another one told me I was so uncoordinated I should consult a doctor (I'm a few marks off being top 12 in the world in ballroom dancing). I'm not saying they couldn't have been right, but I knew even then (and thankfully so did my parents) that there was something wrong with their assessments. It took me a while to understand where those critics were coming from, and a little more time to understand that my own inner voices weren't so different.
Anyway, it reminds me of Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales, when he lists the "Useless Presents": 'a painting book in which I could make the grass, the trees, the sea and the animals any colour I please, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds.'
Huh. I'll have to ponder the "tree climbing" as creativity for a while. I always thought tree climbing was a rite of passage, but I was shocked as an adult when I met several people who had never climbed a tree and didn't allow their kids to climb trees. Meanwhile, my son was 30 feet up... =)
Congrats on the audiobook!! :) Simon Vance is one of my fave narrators!
Well, my first thought upon reading this was "Wow, Ira Glass thinks I have good taste." My inner critic immediately said, "How immature and silly you are," and then I thought of syllogisms--which are, for some reason mysterious to me, a part of my son's Geometry curriculum. He is terribly dyslexic and I am very free-thinking (a.k.a. "creative") so If A is sort-of-kind-of-almost like B--or even C--well, then why can't they all just get a long and have a nice time together. I think that's how I arrived at "Ira Glass thinks I have good taste." And also I'm a bit silly (remember that A, B, and C are all getting along nicely in my world.)
BUT--and I digressed at the ingress--I was reminded of a kindergarten assignment I had to do at home while suffering from chicken pox. Our letter for the week was P. The assignment was to color a cartoon outline of a pig, using pink and purple crayons. The pink--well, aren't all little piggies as pink as can be? That was no trouble. But the purple crayon stumped me big time. I was staying at my grandparents' home and my grandfather sat with me while I did my little stack of assignments. He saw my distress and offered to help. He took that purple crayon and drew little spots all over my pink pig--and wrote POX beside the pig. Now that was genius--that 70 year-old man had more creativity than I. I can relate to Vincent's comment about feeling a bit hampered as a child--I wanted to be correct and approved by the powers-that-were.
I wrote all that up once for a college symposium and had to read it to a large audience. It was the first time I'd told a personal story and had to take questions about it. I was ill with nerves and doubt--but since then, I think I've benefited from my grandfather's quirky wisdom and from just telling the story. Just tell the story!
Thanks for sending Ira's compliments along to the creatives and for reminding me to just keep writing.
Wow…I needed to hear this right in this exact season I am in. From time to time I get this feeling (Sehnsucht) that I want to convey in my writing but then I look at my stories and get angry that they don’t feel like I want them to feel. Yes, I am in one of those seasons right now. This is exactly what I needed to get me back on the right track with creating, creating, creating to someday get there. Thanks JR!!
Thank you JR! You are a good and encouraging teacher.
I love this article so much! Thank you, JR!
Lacey Dobrient, The Color Method
(tree climber)