Planet Be

I'm celebrating a change in operations, from “idea capture” to creative freedom. My prior SOP (standard operating procedure) was to frantically transcribe ideas into verbal form for fear of losing them. I felt kinship with Coleridge, as explained in his preface to Kubla Khan: A Vision in a Dream, a Fragment. [1] I now believe that view of creativity reflects a bizarrely miscalibrated ego, self important yet self limiting. I prefer my current outlook of creative confidence. My ideas come from myself — with many inspirations of course — and I may develop them as I wish when I choose. Memory recall is a function in my own brain — where else? — that is an act of choosing thoughts. Not all memories are attended to immediately; neither must all new thoughts be transcribed. I enjoy allowing ideas to come and go. I do not currently fear that my ideas are not my own. I do not worry that good ideas will be inaccessible to me in future. This confidence is empowering. And most importantly peaceful.

R-)

[1] The importance of this poem in my life consisted of the author's explanatory note that he had dreamed up a magnificent creation that he attempted to describe upon waking, only to be interrupted by a visitor. I found romance in this view of creativity as something grand that I may only hope to capture. I aspired to be an artist in this way. I believed in geniuses as a mysterious and elevated human cohort that I dreamed of joining. Nowadays I see genius as a useless, othering concept.