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Creativity, like love, requires a soft focus; an ongoing
flirtation with the unknown and the irrational; a state of mind open to the
serendipitous accident or the unexpected flight of fancy that can come along and
lift you right out of the everyday. (from Zen and the Art of the Macintosh)
Continuing with our series of quotes from Zen and the Art of the Macintosh,
this quote seemed most apropos.
I'm spending my spare time these days doing a
renovation project for some customers. It's a nice break from counselling. I'm
putting a bathroom into a basement and also redoing the laundry room. I have to
work around the structures already present in the basement – drain locations,
duct work, wiring and walls.
The work is progressing. What I notice is how often what I think I'm going to
do is altered by externals – for example, I was getting ready to install the
shower base, and noticed the plumber had installed a drain pipe a quarter inch
proud of the wall. The concrete is poured, so there's no fixing the pipe. So, I
stood there and re-examined my options. Now, I could have blamed the plumber,
had a fit, got angry, stormed off (all things that happen regularly in rocky
relationships, by the bye) or otherwise delayed the inevitable. What I did
do was visualize a solution, which involved shims, nails and a dead zebra. (OK.
I lied about the zebra…)
To play with our quote – a hard focus only sees the quarter inch pipe
problem. Soft focus means one can see "through" the problem to the goal, and
from there, to see a way around what seems to be an obstacle.
It is easy for people to get sucked into focusing only on the problem and
thinking there are no options. Sort of like that pipe, set in concrete. And
when we see a situation with hard eyes, we are well and truly stuck. Because,
you see, such an approach demands resisting even the idea of finding another
way.
I watched an 8 year old struggle with this principle. She was walking ahead
of me, and got to a set of swinging doors. She pushed. Nothing happened. So she
pushed harder. Nothing. Harder. Nothing. She actually started to whimper, and
looked like she was going to cry. She leaned against the door in frustration as
she contemplated being locked in the building forever.
Her mother said, "It opens in. Pull it."
The kid was quite embarrassed, but pulled, and low and behold, the door
opened.
Now, I know, you're thinking, "Everyone knows that if a door doesn't open
out, one should try pulling it." That's hardly the point. Instead, look at
anything you regularly confront – a relationship, work, your approach to life,
and notice how often your approach remains the same – you're pushing a "pull"
door. And you blame the situation. And in that, you stay stuck.
Many are the friends and clients who bring issues to me, and it's always the
same thing. The players or the issues change, but their response stays the same.
And many are the friends and clients who annoy themselves when I point out that
their issue has nothing to do with the pipe cemented in the wrong place. It has
to do with the person's unwillingness to change the focus from
what's broken to seeking options for what might actually work.
When I read the words, "ongoing flirtation," I see a decidedly light touch
practiced repeatedly. Flirtations are gentle, whimsical and decidedly fun. A
delicate interplay, if you will. And notice that this interplay, in our quote,
is with the unknown and the irrational. Scary words for rational westerners.
The word irrational means non-rational. We've taken it
to mean "wrong" or crazy or "not thinking right," as in "You're being irrational," said in
the midst of a fight. Non-rational actually means "using a channel of
understanding other than thinking." We might think of intuition, a
felt-sense, or using creativity.
It's the expectation that serendipitous accidents are the norm, rather than
an occasional event or something that only happens to other people
The unknown also seems to slow people down. We spend our lives wastefully
trying to make things known and predictable, so as not to scare ourselves with
the absolute unpredictability of life. We expect that just because something is some way,
it's always going to be that way. Like the kid and the door. It doesn't open
out, so I'm stuck here forever.
Letting go of the expectation of predictability frees us to try new things.
Think about it. You were born, for all intents, lacking any experience. Each
experience, then, was an unknown experience. And, if you are reading this,
you've, so far, survived every single one of them!
The Port Elgin / EAP drama I've mentioned had an interesting semi-resolution.
The lady I was talking with decided that all of my former clients really love me
and ask for me and won't see anyone else. So, the EAP decided I could keep seeing
my old clients. No new ones, though, until they figured out which ones to give
me – ones I wouldn't insult by expecting them to accept responsibility for their
lives.
I said, "But that doesn't make sense. All of my old clients, at one time,
were new clients."
She replied, after a pause for her brain to fart, "I'm just doing my job."
That was when I decided to leave Port and not work for EAPs.
How stupid. All experiences are new experiences, just as, in a sense, all
clients are new clients. There is no way to predict anything. All there is, is this
situation, and then this situation, and the flexibility or rigidity of the response.
One's mind is either closed, and therefore stuck in one way of seeing things, or
open, and therefore flexible and capable of choice.
Creativity is the flow of the unexpected, the non-rational, the instinctual
and intuitive. It is learning to trust the cosmos to always leave a door open.
There is always a way out.
The problem comes when you refuse to admit that the
choice is yours. The door was not keeping the kid stuck in the building. The
door was just standing there "door-ing."
Escapes requires soft eyes, a change of focus, and a willingness to let go of
pre-conceived notions.
If the pipe won't move, in other words, move the wall. |
E-Zine 
