THE WHEEL OF CREATIVITY

Marketing guru Seth Godin is talking about Tribes. And so were we, yesterday at the professional women’s networking meeting I attended, where the topic was Co-creation.

According to Seth, “A tribe is a group of people, connected to each other, connected to a leader and connected to an idea.” His book, and the topic. came up at our table.

I got to thinking. And my thoughts formed around three main ideas:

1. Belonging.

My concept of a tribe, developed through my life, has been that it was something one was born into, something you were part of without doing anything, just because of who you were. It gave context to the individual, the couple, the family and the community. It gave a sense of security and belonging.

Having been a student of Latin in my younger years, I like to know the origins of words. The origins of this word, to my surprise, indicate that it was used to distinguish and separate one group of people from another.

The English word tribe comes from the old French tribu, which comes from the Latin tribus. And tribus refers to the original three-part division of ethnic groups within the Roman State: the Latins, the Sabines and the Etruscans.

Thus, the tribe that joins us with some must also separate us from others. We belong with one group because we are unlike another. I question that.

2. Technology.

My father was born in 1910. He saw the introduction of the automobile in the small Virginia town where he grew up. He went to school sitting on the back of his father’s delivery cart, which was drawn by a horse. When I was a child, he used to say to me, “Our greatest problem as a society is that we are too mobile.”

As cars became buses and trucks and airplanes, my father watched the glue that once held his society together drying up and flaking away. The social structures it had held – family, worship, local communities – started to come apart at the seams. People moved for better opportunities and left their tribes behind them.

It’s perhaps just as well that he didn’t live to see the World Wide Web, the Internet, email or social media. The expansion continues. And, as Nobel prize-winning scientists are proving, the expansion of the universe is not slowing down; it is speeding up.

The physical and geographical walls that separated us are coming down. Unlike my father, I don’t think this is a bad thing. But the expansion of the world we live in is destabilizing, and learning to cope with it requires consciousness and creativity. This is where Seth’s subtitle rings so true, “We need you to lead us.”

3. The Global Tribe.

This weekend, I met an international high school teacher. He spoke of some of his students, young men addicted to video war games. Without the skills to express themselves in the world, “They are,” he observed, “angry.” And who can blame them? Expression – an essential part of the creative process – is not about art; it is about living. When life energy – especially powerful in young men and women – has no creative outlet, it becomes destructive.

My tribe, I recognized as a teenager, built a box to keep us “safe.” That box was an ideological (religious) viewpoint that separated us from all those who did not believe what we did. People were classified as either X or nonX. That was how my tribe saw the world, so it’s what I learned too. After enough attempts to see outside that box, I eventually caught a glimpse of a world where boxes could be broken down and ideas expressed with respect and compassion. And that has moved me through life ever since.

Many people never leave their tribe, so perhaps they don’t feel the vacancy I have. Yet technology is breaking down barriers, so that even those who never leave – from the backwoods of Texas to the deserts of Libya – see different ways to live. But without a common idea, these differences too often breed animosity and hate. It’s time to ride the tide of our expanding universe, and expand our thinking as well.

Hollywood said it first in 1938:  “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” I will always have my history. But I don’t have to continue to create my life from it. Especially as I see the splendor of life’s diversity throughout the world, I realize what a poverty that would be. For me, having come from where I did, I prefer to find the lowest common denominator of tribal belonging.

Webster defines tribe as “a group of persons having a common character, occupation, or interest.” Of all the biological life forms on Earth today, there is none more like a woman than a man, none more like a Republican than a Democrat, none more like Muslim than a Christian. Can we open up to rediscover our human heritage outside our tribes of origin? What if we could co-create a global tribe based on common character rather than intolerable differences? What kind of future might our young men (and young women) inherit then?

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You know, there are just so many untold stories in the world. So many anonymous lives, each lived by a single human being with dreams and hopes, confusion and despair. Together, all 6,980,079,851 of us (at this moment now), whether we ever touch or see or hear of each other, we weave the web of life together. As an old friend of mine in Chicago used to say, “We’re all just muddling through.”

Well, what if one of those lives – you know, the disposable ones – the poor and nameless, the faces you never have to see except by accident when changing the channel, what if one of them made it out of the abyss. What kind of story would she share? What would be the tenor of his voice?

Today, I heard that voice. I heard his story. It moved me.

By the age of 8, Emmanuel Jal was a child soldier in Southern Sudan. At five, he saw his village burned, his aunt and sisters raped and his mother killed in the war that has ripped his country apart. Unable to read and write, he was sent to ‘school’ where he was trained to fight. And he was a soldier for the next five years.

When Jal was 13, a young British aid worker named Emma McCune found him, rescued him, and gave him a second life. That’s not the happy ending we’d like for our story, however. McCune was killed soon after in a car accident, leaving Jal to find his own way on the streets of Nairobi. From there, Jal took one step after another
following the journey of his extraordinary life to become the hip-hop star he is today, described by Peter Gabriel as having “the potential of a young Bob Marley.”

Jal, now just 29, founded Gua Africa, a UK charity whose mission is is to help individuals, families and communities overcome the effects of war and poverty. He is raising money to build a school in Southern Sudan, which he calls Emma Academy.

With music as his “weapon of choice,” Emmanuel Jal is doing the real work of the artist in society, transforming his suffering into light. But this work is not for the artist alone. It is for us all. For we all suffer. And the world is in need of light.

What does it mean to be creative?  What kind of person is the Wheel of Creativity for? It is for all of us.

• The hungry young boy whose voice cannot be heard
• The beautiful, elegant aid worker who sees his potential
• The person in his audience who wants to be moved
• The woman who accidentally finds his story online
• The person who reads her simple blog and decides to get involved

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All around the world today, Americans celebrate the 4^th of July at family gatherings, neighborhood picnics, community parades and public fireworks. It was on this day 235 years ago that representatives of the thirteen United States of America carefully and unanimously declared themselves to be independent of British rule. The most famous of their well-crafted sentences is the second:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

We do not so often quote the others. The declaration goes on to recognize that human beings are more prone to continue suffering under an abusive system than “to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” And it continues that when such abuses remain unchecked, leading to “absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”

From the American Revolution to now, we have built our lives on the shoulders of generations who came before us—fathers and sons, mothers and daughters—who fought and died for our inalienable rights. Many in the world do not agree with these rights, and millions still endure their domination. Today, hundreds of thousands are drafting their own declarations and fighting their own revolutions to secure them.

The powers of the Status Quo will always fight for their survival. Thus, the declaration of our independence from any repressive system comes with a cost.

From the signing of America’s declaration in 1776, the war to secure those rights went on for another seven years. The costs were tremendous, both…

In financial terms:

• Americans spent $150 million, paid for by foreign and domestic loans and an early version of quantitative easing.
• The British spent £80 million, finishing the war with £250 million in debt.
• France spent the equivalent of $90 million and its resulting debt of $300 million is said to have had a major influence on the French Revolution.

And in loss of life:

• At least 25,000 American revolutionaries died in active duty:  8,000 in battle and another 17,000 from starvation and disease (half to three-quarters of them as prisoners of war). Between 8,500 and 25,000 were seriously wounded or disabled. And, as was often the case in those times, disease killed another 130,000 as a smallpox epidemic swept North America.
• Of 171,000 British sailors, about 1,240 were killed in service, 18,500 died from disease (mostly scurvy) and another 42,000 reportedly deserted.
• Figures for casualties among other fighting groups (Germans, French, Spanish, Loyalists, British regulars, and Native Americans) are not known.

Rights, even inalienable ones, cost. We may not have paid those costs personally, but someone did. That is what gives them value. It is as true at the personal level as the political. Not claiming our rights costs too, as we choose to suffer in relationships, companies and societies where we cannot flourish rather than pay the costs for our personal freedom.

One of the core precepts of the Wheel of Creativity is that dissolution of old forms is absolutely necessary for the creation of something new. Dissolution is as much a part of the cycle of creativity as is creation. But real change begins within and spreads out from there. And when we set out on the journey to create a better life, our vision is in fact strengthened by  the resistance of the Status Quo.

The 56 men of the 13 states who signed the declaration we celebrate today knew there would be costs. In the face of that they committed themselves and what they held most dear to each other:

“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

We are not alone here. What we do (or don’t do) affects the global community. So, today, as we’re grilling our burgers and slicing the watermelon, let us remember those who made it possible, those around the world who are fighting still, and ourselves as we declare our rights and responsibilities in our own brief time on this Earth.

Happy Independence Day!

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I may have cracked a rib.

Last Sunday evening, I was on my way home from the movies. I had just seen Woody Allen’s new film, Midnight in Paris, which features a star-struck Owen Wilson wandering around the streets of Paris counting his creative blessings. I had a decidedly more urgent stride on for my walkabout, on that lovely June evening in Nice. The sun was on the horizon, the air was cooling down, and my osteopath had instructed me to do more walking (for my circulation). Dusk is the migration period for pickpockets, and I didn’t want to get caught dawdling. So my pace was a bit faster than usual.

I was really enjoying this walk when I spied a boy sitting on a post drinking from a bottle of water. I’m not sure if it was that certain glow of twilight reflecting off the water, or what was going on in my head, but I was distracted. I held my gaze on him for a split second too long, and when I let it go, voilà! I found myself up against an immovable post with a smack! I had enough time to get my hand up to touch this post, but not enough time to avoid smashing headlong into it.

It hurt. It hurts still, now one week later. A deep breath, a good stretch, a workout, a laugh, and certainly a sneeze are not as easy as they were eight days ago. So…

What to make of it?

When I was a child, I was deeply hurt by a boy I knew very well. It took me decades, countless hours of crying and talking and ranting with professional support, to get over it. What finally did it for me, after all the emotional detoxing, was an enlightened insight emanating from my own grey matter about Friendly Fire. I finally realized, knowing that the boy never would, that he did not set out to hurt me. Rather, in his flailing attempts to right himself from his own childhood wounds, he inadvertently struck me. In the same way, on the battlefield, from time to time we end up wounding “one of our own.”

The outside circumstances of life cause us problems. Right? The surly woman behind the counter, the company that restructured you out of your job, the business partner who stole your wife; they are all malicious posts on the sidewalk. It’s an easy misjudgment to make.

But it’s hard to blame a post. And that makes it a great example for how much power we actually do have over what follows the Smack!

Getting trapped in trying to change things that can’t be changed robs us of our power to change what we can. I can’t say I didn’t question why those stupid posts are there on my sidewalk! The ludicrous nature of the argument becomes apparent pretty quickly. Not so easy with the people, places and things of our lives. But, for me, three creative guidelines emerged from that traumatic moment:

1. Be mindful. A sage old Buddhist man I met in Sri Lanka last year said it best for me: “Keep your mind where your feet are.” How I wish I had!
2. Tell the truth. The problem is not out there. The posts are just being posts. I can trust them to be exactly what they are. And I’m wasting my time and energy demanding that they be anything else!
3. Make a choice. With the first two guidelines in place, I am empowered to walk down the same street with confidence and joy… and the presence to dance with whatever comes.

Circumstances are the most powerful partners we have for choreographing our lives. What we call circumstances could as easily be called What-Is or even Life. I can’t help thinking of Fred Astaire, and what he might have done with that post. I guess I need a little more practice.

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I’m sitting on the bench in the Laundromat doing my monthly laundry, waiting for the last of my clothes to dry. It’s a lovely place, really, owned by a friendly chap, helpful and committed to running a quality establishment. He is, in my experience, successful.

About 90 minutes ago, a woman arrived whom I have seen here before. She smiled a big smile at me; and I smiled back, though at the time I was not exactly sure who she was. This is unusual here, as I have learned that the French think it strange to smile at someone you don’t know. But she did, and I did too.

There were two other women on the bench then, speaking English. I asked them where they are from, and learned they are sisters, from Samoa. One now lives in Australia; the other in Paris. But they have gone now, on their way to Italy for the day.

It is now only the two of us in this place. The smiling woman has draped her body across the bench and covered her face with her scarf. She is talking incessantly, and laughing without restraint. I can’t quite make out her words. Sometimes it sounds as if she’s praying, sometimes having a conversation with herself. She is not here to do laundry.

I remember her now. She was here the last time, on another Sunday morning, a month or so ago. The same thing happened then. And I felt the same discomfort. She is a mirror. So, while my clothes are tumbling, I look at myself.

First I feel my fear. I’m afraid to make eye contact with her for too long. Afraid to engage her in conversation. I think of what I could do, should do, but…. I decide to just sit here and be present with her and me and the moment.

I think of Minnie, my mother’s mother, who in 1938 was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. My mother was 14 when Minnie “went away.” She was incarcerated in an affordable mental hospital in Wichita Falls and treated with restraints, insulin shock, electric shock, and eventually (then in its first year of clinical use) a lobotomy.

My mother always wanted to be a writer. She became a physician and eventually a psychiatrist. She always said that Minnie was too creative for her life as a poor sharecropper’s wife isolated buggy distance from a tiny town in the Texas Panhandle. My mother never believed Minnie was schizophrenic. And my mother never became a writer. I did.

My heart goes out to this woman. I wonder about her story. I notice that she is well dressed, but she has only one sock on. I want to reach out to her, but what am I prepared to do?

I could have just written her off, called her crazy and alienated her even farther than she already is. I could also have done more to reach out.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with a beautiful young family of friends. Over a delicious meal of fresh vegetables, homemade vegetarian tart, artisanal bread and wine, the conversation turned to independence, community and self-reliance. One of my hosts talked about how dependent we really are on each other. We turn on the tap and water comes rushing out. We go to the market and someone has grown the food and transported it there, and is willing to share it with us in exchange for our money. Then he showed me his vegetable garden, and gave me free samples.

It is 10:10 now. The smiling woman sits up and arranges her clothes. She covers her head in a headscarf. And then she leaves. I have my thoughts about the life she is going back to, but I cannot know.

We are all connected. We do need each other.

What can I do for this woman? What could I have done for Minnie? I guess my answer to that is what you’re reading now.

Perhaps what each of us needs as much as anything in life is someone to witness us. Someone to remind us that we exist, and that we have value.

Minnie could not tell her story. This woman tells hers on a lonely bench in stolen words while covering her face from the world. But I do tell stories, theirs, mine and ours. We all do.

Whose story were you witness to today? Share it.

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We all have good reasons to ignore our creative longings.

Five Top Reasons

1. “I don’t have time to be creative; I have to make a living.”
2. “I would love to explore my creativity, but all my energy goes to more important things.”
3. “I can’t afford to get creative; but I don’t have money for supplies.”
4. “I would love to [fill in the blank], but I’m afraid to try.”
5. “I admire creative people, but I’m not one of them. I have no talent.”

We invest ourselves in the day-to-day demands of our lives and complain powerlessly about the status quo. Not enough time. Not enough energy. Not enough money. Not enough courage. Not enough talent.

So we live with our dreams still sleeping and our visions unrealized. Books are never written. Businesses are never created. Children are never born. Partners are out there still.

Creativity is no luxury in life. The flow of the creative force is as essential to human beings as sun, air, water and soil to plants. It flows when we say yes to it, and we grow strong and happy and purposeful. When we say no, we lose our connection with Life itself, and we suffer.

Our lives are one-way streets. We wait for the perfect time; what we get instead is older, weaker, poorer, more tired and more fearful. We live with the consequences of our choices.

But our reasons have antidotes.

Five Antidotes

1. “I am more engaged and effective at work, because I work creatively.”
2. “I have abundant energy, because all my challenges are creative opportunities.”
3. “I am generating income through my creative gifts, and loving what I do.”
4. “I have shed the restrictions of my fear by taking small creative steps.”
5. “I admire creative people, and I am learning to acknowledge my own talents.”

Easy. Not really. It takes time and energy and courage – and money and talent, to some degree – to change the Status Quo. We need to be inspired and encouraged, and sometimes held accountable. We need the support of others along the way. But life is an altogether different experience when we choose to Live Creative. We cannot afford not to listen to what our hearts are telling us.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”  (John Wolfgang von Goethe)

It’s easy enough to say yes and to start the flow. Take a moment, after the period, to listen to your heart. Now. What are you longing for? Share it now.

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Every year in England around this time, a late crop of small red flowers starts blooming on people’s lapels, in a poetic echo of events on Flanders Fields in World War I. This is the annual Poppy Appeal, sponsored by the Royal British Legion to raise funds to support members of British armed forces and their families. This year, the Legion sold 46 million poppies, an all-time record in close to 90 years of the tradition. The annual poppy crop continues increasing until Remembrance Sunday, when the UK holds its annual ceremony to honor those who have fallen in battle.

My husband and I spent this Sunday morning watching the somber ceremony in London, led by Queen Elizabeth II and attended by thousands. Of all the stories I heard today, the one that brought me to tears is that of young Royal Marine Mark Omrod. In 2007, on a tour in Afghanistan, Mark was so severely injured that he lost both legs and his right arm. The only member of British forces’ to come home a triple amputee, Mark could have given up the fight. Instead, he tested his everyday courage on the battlefield in a much more personal battle.

This week, Mark completed a 63-day race across America, on prosthetic legs. The Gumpathon, which finished in Santa Monica on Veterans’ Day, was created by Colour Sergeant Damian Todd to raise money to help the wounded and ill in the Forces, and their families, through their recovery.

Today, as I watch those who have survived unspeakable hardship honor those who have not survived, I am humbled by their uncommon humanity. Today, in the remnants of my own recent emotional dry spell, I am in awe of these whose daily courage – global and personal – allows me to take their principles for granted. Today, with my own husband working alongside them, it has never struck me so deeply.

The choices I have made in my life have caused many of my friends to tell me I am courageous. Yet for me, what they call courage has often felt an awful lot like fear. Somehow, by a grace beyond me, I have managed to keep going; and every day has become sweeter through it all.

As we move around the Wheel of Creativity, our choices define us. It is not necessarily the choices that produce the biggest results that make or break the quality of our lives, but the choices we make in response to things we cannot control. On that sometimes stony ground, Life’s creative impulse either takes root in us and blooms or lies stillborn at the gate.

What does your life ask from you today that requires your courage? How will you respond?

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