Tuesday, March 21, 2006

A week or so ago I read an article called “Divine Inspiration” by the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips.

The one paragraph in the article that particularly struck home was the following:

“… when people fear that domesticity, or a regular job or even therapy will destroy their creativity, it is usually because they have an apprehension that something about themselves is already sabotaging their inspiration, and this is then attributed, delegated to the family, or the work routine or the therapist. Of course, making anything depends on making the time and creating the best conditions for the work; indeed, actively creating the worst possible conditions for one's work is one of the commonest ways people have of sabotaging their inspiration. But it is also true, as anyone knows who has let themselves rely on their inspiration as well as their discipline, that it is willing what cannot be willed to believe that you can make an appointment with your inspiration. Without practice no one can play a musical instrument, but practice at best creates the conditions in which inspiration can happen; no amount of practice creates or guarantees the inspiration.”

In this world where everyone is sooooo busy all the time, it is questionable whether or not we even have an inclining of what Phillips means by “making time and creating the best conditions” for ourselves.

Does your day-to-day life consist, for the most part, of coordinating, compiling, and controlling the outside parameters of doing your job and nurturing your family, as mine so often does? Then perhaps we are all sabotaging something even more fundamental than the chance to experience inspirational creative work. Reading the article made me ponder on how much living a balanced life, in general, is dependent on “making” time for simple and creative occupations. And not, as I tend to do, just frantically try to “find” the time to do all of those things (e.g. yoga, mediation, walking, making collages, etc.) I yearn to do. For finding time has something to do with having lost it in the first place, or perhaps, having found it, not being able to use it to its full advantage.

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