Creativity and Freedom - Freedom creates
Creativity and Freedom Freedom creates
Infusing the process of creativity - and creativity is surely a process, not a goal or a given talent - with the message of Liberty.
Creativity being a process, let us consider first neither the ultimate message, nor the method as in which technique, what kind of canvas, which sort of pigments, or camera equipment to use.
Let us first examine how Freedom may affect the process of creating.
After all, human beings, originally born free unto this planet, must express creativity in order to survive. One needs to have ideas and not only ideas, but also ideas about how to implement, realize, manifest ideas.
At some age in early life, we will need to figure out things for the first time, be it finding drink and food and how to make it edible, creating shelter, making tools, advancing technologies, resolving conflict without ending up killing or getting killed, understanding the mind, unraveling the depth of psychology, all are processes of creativity we had to and will have to face at some time or other.
Eventually we may even have been creative and inventive enough to allow productivity to become sufficiently abundant and enable us to save some for the next day or two and begin freeing up time for pursuits not of immediate survival, but such as philosophy, art, imagination.
Human beings, inherently, are creative beings. It is what our minds and hands do, we create;
Enso - it is the end-less emptiness that contains the all-encompassing potential
We all have inborn potential. It matters not that there are variances in degree, interest, talents and skills, and accomplishments.
The fundamental drive in human nature is to act, and act creatively.
Creative not only in the context of art, of course, as every action can be seen in a creative context.
Getting out of bed in the morning, brushing one’s teeth, making tea, going shopping, picking and choosing and making selective decisions all day long, are acts of putting ideas into reality, creating in thinking and doing.
Creating, importantly, is not only about building things of material substance, but is also about the building of understanding and the learning of right and wrong, of philosophy, morals, and ethics.
Civil society depends on the whole range of such creative pursuits by members of the human community.
Creativity, of course, also means productivity. Not always and not necessarily productive as in producing wealth or even producing something beneficial; humans can be frivolous, wasteful, and even err.
Yet, without creativity, including the experiences of waste and frivolity and errors there would be no advancement in human evolution; neither biologically nor in regards of civilization, and not in evolution of humane-ness, either.
For human creativity and its potential to fruition, the freedom to have ideas, to think freely, to choose, to act upon thoughts spontaneously and without interference in the continuum of Yin and Yang is essential.
( I will leave aside, for now, the consideration for the need for humans, also, to act in accordance with universal principles of non-aggression and interference in the freedom of fellow human beings, which neither negates nor changes the requirement of freedom itself)
Yin Yang
Should this freedom of natural human creativity be hindered, stifled, dis-allowed, restrained, even punished... imagine the loss, the slowing of evolution of society, the stagnation of advancements in technologies, the depression and psychological harm from unfulfilled dreams, ideas, and human potential...
Once we begin looking, the hindrances and the undermining of creative freedom can, unfortunately, be seen all around us in current societies - (I will write on some examples soon...)
Besides being creative ourselves, let us always be vigilant to never allow for the stifling of the human potential.
I recommend ingesting the brief video clips of Zen-Calligraphy artist
Alok Hsu Kwan-Han
http://zencalligraphy.com/Zen-Calligraphy.htm
http://zencalligraphy.com/Zen-Video.htm
good wishes
peter
