I love what you have written. Around my 28-30s, I had emotions, which I now know have been destructive. So I started reading novels about envy or jealousy, to see if I could find some answers there and understand what I was feeling. I got distracted by novels at that time, my answers were very fuzzy, time passed, I grew up, I forgot, some ideas broke, I have been building my world and now I am 34.
So I understand when you show a spectrum of those kinds of emotions and the ways in which we express them. Surely I was not envious, but frustrated that my human creative needs were not being met. Maybe now I should start writing about what I felt.
¡Gracias por su comentario! Me gustaría saber cuales libros ha leído, y si algunos eran particularmente perspicaces. Yo pienso siempre a La jalousie, de Alain Robbe-Grillet...
El amor molesto de Elena Ferrante (y la trilogía de las dos amigas); Ataduras de Domenico Storni; Mac y su contratiempo de Enrique Vila Matas; Sobre la belleza de Zadie Smith; Sed de amor de Yukio Mishima. Tengo otros en lista, que no he leído. Leeré el que me recomiendas :)
Thank you for writing this, Irina. I have sent it to my Romanian engineer (brilliant non-writing writer) brother, which, I suppose is a similar impulse (obsession with others' blocked creativity). What resonated painfully at the very beginning of your reflection was the phrase "over the years writing had become traumatic." Because this blocking can be a thing where, suddenly, you can't, or you convince yourself you no longer want/ need to paint/ make/ write (as it was for my mother at the moment she felt I'd surpassed her in skill), or it can be a slow, cumulative process (as it was for me), where an unexamined inner conflict between attachment/ expressive freedom needs grows unwieldy and thorny, and, well, traumatic. And I do now interpret feelings of envy as the small, insistent voice of a creative need I am not attending to.
I wonder if the insistence that one does not *want* to do a certain art is also a sign in this respect, a kind of protesting too much. I don't tend to go around telling people that I don't want to do pottery, or sing, or act. I'm not opposed to those crafts, I just don't really care about them all that much. But when it becomes important enough to say out loud...
In my case, I have also come to see it as a kind of self-harm, which I think goes back to the Schiller thing. I need to do this (in some form). I deny myself this. Until, well, it becomes painful enough to say out loud, as you say.
I hadn’t thought about it in these terms. I think now I’m more likely to be the first type, and at least some of the time I recognize it. I used to be really judgmental - I hadn’t connected it to blocked creativity but I think it was. Now when I find myself feeling judgmental I do ask “what am I judging in myself”? I do it far less, but I still catch myself sometimes.
Thank you for this. Yes, I think excessive judgementalism is a sign of something missing inside. You've inspired me to write a post one day on the difference between judgement and judgementalism though -- I think in trying to avoid the second we've sometimes (unfortunately) thrown out the first.
Brilliant. I have seen the type of people who turn their frustration towards others at work very often. I have also been that type at times, though most of my frustration has been turned towards myself. I think it important to remember what you are showing here, that we need to recognize these destructive tendencies for what they are...and perhaps have a bit more compassion for the person acting out. Not in a condescending way, but recognizing that their energies need to be redirected or absorbed, like someone practicing Aikido. The fear of one's own creativity is haunting, to be sure.
In ON THE AESTHETIC EDUCATION OF MAN, Frederick Schiller suggests that aesthetic activity, fulfilling the creative impulse is as necessary to life as food, shelter and reproduction. He makes a powerful argument. Without aesthetic interaction with the environment, we are left in a state that is less human, unfulfilled. Your thoughts about those whose creative needs have been denied put many of the results Schiller worried about into focus. I think his observations are as correct today as they were in the 18th century. And I am grateful for your restating of them.
Thank you for this. I think, also, of David Graeber's point in Bullshit Jobs that people have a deep need to feel that they can shape the world around them, that they can make things happen. That's why "bullshit jobs" are so soul-destroying, they take that away. Now it's worth reflecting, as I seem to recall Graeber does, on what it means to build a society where doing something effective (cleaning a building, teaching a child, picking an apple, writing a poem, caring for the ill) is seen as less valuable than pushing paper around or putting endless bandaids on problems that could easily be solved.
Bullshit jobs are foundational to the repression of the aesthetic need. I wish I had more space to explain my sense of all this. In a world of false choices (think of a supermarket and the hundreds of soaps for example0, the ability to choose is short-curcuited. We learn to satisfy the need to choose without evr making real choices. We push the same paper over again as we are taught to believe it changes each time.
This resonated so much with my work and with my writing coaching clients’ experiences. I’m sharing it with them, to help them put their/their loved ones’ behavior in context. And to remember to put boundaries around those folks trying to kill those creative urges!
Thank you, Julia! I assume you know Pressfield's War of Art already -- I've found that so useful for understanding this, as is his Turning Pro. But I'm sure there are good psychological resources too, specifically on the ways bad family systems try to maintain themselves.
I do! It’s so helpful, and thinking about resistance as you mentioned helps me frame the need for boundaries around our own habits. I haven’t read Turning Pro yet, but adding it to the list! Thank you!
Great article! It’s so true that we spend time “avoiding” the real feelings that come from not fulfilling our creative callings!
One might ask: how much of our life do we spend numbing ourselves? In fact, I think you might have given me the theme of the next letter...
This is quite good. Thank you for your essay.
Thank you, Tony!
I love what you have written. Around my 28-30s, I had emotions, which I now know have been destructive. So I started reading novels about envy or jealousy, to see if I could find some answers there and understand what I was feeling. I got distracted by novels at that time, my answers were very fuzzy, time passed, I grew up, I forgot, some ideas broke, I have been building my world and now I am 34.
So I understand when you show a spectrum of those kinds of emotions and the ways in which we express them. Surely I was not envious, but frustrated that my human creative needs were not being met. Maybe now I should start writing about what I felt.
¡Gracias por su comentario! Me gustaría saber cuales libros ha leído, y si algunos eran particularmente perspicaces. Yo pienso siempre a La jalousie, de Alain Robbe-Grillet...
El amor molesto de Elena Ferrante (y la trilogía de las dos amigas); Ataduras de Domenico Storni; Mac y su contratiempo de Enrique Vila Matas; Sobre la belleza de Zadie Smith; Sed de amor de Yukio Mishima. Tengo otros en lista, que no he leído. Leeré el que me recomiendas :)
Ya quería leer Vila-Matas! Tengo "El mal de Montano" aqui en mi biblioteca, Usted me ha dado la ocasión de tomar e empiezarlo.... y después Mac...
Swing Time de Zadie Smith e también una novela sobre la envidia entre amigas.
Thaks! What great recommendations!
Thank you for writing this, Irina. I have sent it to my Romanian engineer (brilliant non-writing writer) brother, which, I suppose is a similar impulse (obsession with others' blocked creativity). What resonated painfully at the very beginning of your reflection was the phrase "over the years writing had become traumatic." Because this blocking can be a thing where, suddenly, you can't, or you convince yourself you no longer want/ need to paint/ make/ write (as it was for my mother at the moment she felt I'd surpassed her in skill), or it can be a slow, cumulative process (as it was for me), where an unexamined inner conflict between attachment/ expressive freedom needs grows unwieldy and thorny, and, well, traumatic. And I do now interpret feelings of envy as the small, insistent voice of a creative need I am not attending to.
I wonder if the insistence that one does not *want* to do a certain art is also a sign in this respect, a kind of protesting too much. I don't tend to go around telling people that I don't want to do pottery, or sing, or act. I'm not opposed to those crafts, I just don't really care about them all that much. But when it becomes important enough to say out loud...
In my case, I have also come to see it as a kind of self-harm, which I think goes back to the Schiller thing. I need to do this (in some form). I deny myself this. Until, well, it becomes painful enough to say out loud, as you say.
I hadn’t thought about it in these terms. I think now I’m more likely to be the first type, and at least some of the time I recognize it. I used to be really judgmental - I hadn’t connected it to blocked creativity but I think it was. Now when I find myself feeling judgmental I do ask “what am I judging in myself”? I do it far less, but I still catch myself sometimes.
Thank you for this. Yes, I think excessive judgementalism is a sign of something missing inside. You've inspired me to write a post one day on the difference between judgement and judgementalism though -- I think in trying to avoid the second we've sometimes (unfortunately) thrown out the first.
Brilliant. I have seen the type of people who turn their frustration towards others at work very often. I have also been that type at times, though most of my frustration has been turned towards myself. I think it important to remember what you are showing here, that we need to recognize these destructive tendencies for what they are...and perhaps have a bit more compassion for the person acting out. Not in a condescending way, but recognizing that their energies need to be redirected or absorbed, like someone practicing Aikido. The fear of one's own creativity is haunting, to be sure.
In ON THE AESTHETIC EDUCATION OF MAN, Frederick Schiller suggests that aesthetic activity, fulfilling the creative impulse is as necessary to life as food, shelter and reproduction. He makes a powerful argument. Without aesthetic interaction with the environment, we are left in a state that is less human, unfulfilled. Your thoughts about those whose creative needs have been denied put many of the results Schiller worried about into focus. I think his observations are as correct today as they were in the 18th century. And I am grateful for your restating of them.
Thank you for this. I think, also, of David Graeber's point in Bullshit Jobs that people have a deep need to feel that they can shape the world around them, that they can make things happen. That's why "bullshit jobs" are so soul-destroying, they take that away. Now it's worth reflecting, as I seem to recall Graeber does, on what it means to build a society where doing something effective (cleaning a building, teaching a child, picking an apple, writing a poem, caring for the ill) is seen as less valuable than pushing paper around or putting endless bandaids on problems that could easily be solved.
Bullshit jobs are foundational to the repression of the aesthetic need. I wish I had more space to explain my sense of all this. In a world of false choices (think of a supermarket and the hundreds of soaps for example0, the ability to choose is short-curcuited. We learn to satisfy the need to choose without evr making real choices. We push the same paper over again as we are taught to believe it changes each time.
This resonated so much with my work and with my writing coaching clients’ experiences. I’m sharing it with them, to help them put their/their loved ones’ behavior in context. And to remember to put boundaries around those folks trying to kill those creative urges!
Thank you, Julia! I assume you know Pressfield's War of Art already -- I've found that so useful for understanding this, as is his Turning Pro. But I'm sure there are good psychological resources too, specifically on the ways bad family systems try to maintain themselves.
I do! It’s so helpful, and thinking about resistance as you mentioned helps me frame the need for boundaries around our own habits. I haven’t read Turning Pro yet, but adding it to the list! Thank you!