NANDINI NAYAR
 May05 Enid
Blyton II
Apr05 Enid
Blyton I
PENI GRIFFIN
Mar05 Last
Column
Feb05 What's
In Your Notebook?
Jan05 Read
A Little Louder
Nov/Dec04 Creativity
IV
Oct04 Creativity
III
Sep04 Creativity
II
Aug04 Creativity
Jun/Jul04 Social
Angst and All That
May04 Reading
In Public
Apr04 Elephant
In The Living-Room
Mar04 Literary
Synchronicity
Feb04 The
Most Important Thing in the World
Jan04
Year-End Wrap-Ups
Dec03 Editors...
They Ain't Want You Want, They're What You Need
Nov03 The
Secret Formula for Originality - Revealed!
Oct03 An
Incoherent Message Concerning Narrative Structure; or 'Reality. What a
concept.'
Sep03 Preaching
to the Choir
Aug03 FanFic
on ACHUKACHAT, the website discussion board...
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Creativity
by Peni Griffin
Part 4 and Last - The Pursuit of Happiness No. 4: If it's fun, it's not work; if it's work, it's not fun. Therefore, people who can make a living at something they enjoy are lazy drags on society who are paid too much; but people who hold full-time jobs and also freelance are overworking themselves.
Work is fun - if it's your work. We all have to do things we don't like, but to get that out of the way as fast as possible and proceed to the things we're good at is healthy, not lazy. I write on my lunch hour and do research on vacation, spend my "time off" doing housework and yard work and writing work, and enjoy myself immensely. My day jobs are a waste of my time, but my life circumstances have been such that I've needed them to provide a steady income. We are striving for the day when I can quit for good - but that will increase my work output, not decrease it. I'd have more stress if I gave up and resigned myself to working for The Man for the rest of my life.
I shouldn't let it get to me - but when people who ought to know better accuse me, on the one hand, of being a workaholic because I choose to spend my "leisure" time producing stories, or on the other hand of thinking that the world owes me a living because I'm honest about the role of the day job in my life - well, it's hard not to mind! What the heck does society want from me, anyway? I don't tell other people what to do with their time; though I often listen to them complain about their lives and wonder why they expend so much effort on being miserable, when happiness is just as hard, and more rewarding.
And oh, the inconsistency of it all! Someone who complains about overpaid and lazy artists will cheer sports figures who make millions of dollars for chasing balls around courts. But even sports fans sometimes talk as if their idols should play for free. Music listeners are incensed when music producers won't let them have free downloads, readers who will pay $50 for a dress mass-produced in a sweatsthop won't pay $15 for a lovingly crafted book, viewers would rather pirate an inferior copy than buy a superior one. The love of the game, or the art, or whatever it is that you're doing is important - but love puts no food on the table in the modern economy. The laborer is worthy of his hire.
Make no mistake about it - creativity is hard work. If your field is sports or carpentry, you're out there sweating every day. If you're a writer or an artist, you're working while others play and sleep, likely to wake up in the middle of the night thinking: I have to go back and set that element up when they first meet, or it won't make any sense. And what's her mom doing all that time? Creation is a non-stop process, though with dormant stretches when neither you nor anybody else can see you do it.
These dormant periods, alas, create two kinds of problems when they are misunderstood. When the spouse or child or employer of a person engaged in creative work sees that person staring out a window, it is impossible to tell whether that person is working or goofing off. This can lead to resentment, unrealistic expectations, interruptions - all kinds of difficulties.
More insidious, however, are the misunderstandings of the creative person himself. Since you can't see yourself working, only experience can tell you when the dormant periods are necessary, and when they're counterproductive. I have a long history of pushing myself past my limits to collapse. Experience now tells me when to walk away from a problem and come back later, and that no matter how blank I feel right now, if I behave in such-and-such away, the next story will come along. Yet I still worry that I'm not working hard enough, that I'm not doing all I could, that I'm wasting time. I ought to do this, I ought to do that. If I'm not working, what am I doing? Am I goofing off, am I lazy, am I missing opportunities?
No, I'm not (usually). Dormancy is a research mode for me, and if I go with those feelings, push myself to produce instead of playing with ideas and soaking up new material through my pores, I'm going to wear myself out and not produce anything worthwhile. I've been here and I've done this - I know how it goes.
But this wasn't always true. I've spent 43 years getting to know myself this well, focusing on a single goal. Young people, without proper models, cut themselves up - sometimes literally - over their inadequacy and the horror of choice - do they make a living, or do they try to be happy? Who will tell them that they can do both? Older people who only discover their creativity after years of daily grind are no better off, floundering when they try to do what they want to do after doing primarily what they have to do for so long. You can go two ways on this - you can worry yourself to death, making joy into a chore; or you can convince yourself that you're working when you're not. In my experience, the former is more common than the latter, but the latter is what you're more likely to be warned against.
Don't listen to the people who would make you choose between happiness and responsibility. They are not mutually exclusive. Happiness is hard work. We must choose it every day, if we are to have it. We must plan for it and take it opportunistically. We must know ourselves well enough to set the right goals - not the goals that society tells us we should have, but the ones that will let us accomplish what we really want.
I know far too many people who work for goals they assume they want, realizing only after years of effort that they wanted something entirely different. I know too many people who can't even say what they think they want.
I know too many unhappy people. The End I don't know why people are so anxious to tell me what I'm supposed to be doing and who I'm supposed to be. I feel judged a lot of the time, and I resent it; but the complex truth is that, however valid my complaint, I would not be so bothered by the perceived misjudgements of others if I had no share in them. The interaction between my culture and myself sets up mental and emotional war, as I try to reject misconceptions I have internalized. I know better than to care what others think of me, but I project onto them what I fear about myself. I try not to judge others, but I know that I sometimes make them feel judged.
I am not elite, but I am different from the people around me. How can I not know that, when they're constantly telling me so? But does my being different make them all the same? They don't look all the same to me.
I am not lazy - far from it - but I am incompetent at a lot of things, and my areas of competence are not always valued by others.
I know what I want to do, and I cannot hold myself back in order to avoid the disapproval of those who don't understand it.
I write partly in order to lead myself out of this societal/personal morass. Any profit to anyone else is gravy.
November/December 2004 © Peni Griffin
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