What We Did Not Know Was Coming Series: Creativity — The Final Quality of Light — Thank you, Julia Cameron

PREFACE: To say the last seven years have been a journey of growth for me and this country is an understatement. To help me process and cope with the roller-coaster of emotions I have felt these years, I started writing on Medium right after the 2016 election. My last series ended December 31, 2020, after Biden won the presidential election.

Recently I realized I missed writing “in my journal” and decided to go back to the very beginning and re-read my essays. I wanted to see where I started out on November 9, 2016, and where I am now. I decided to repost my favorite blogs with a short present-day commentary and continue onto current times.

I hope a few of you will join me on this journey of recollection, reflection, and learning. Little did we know what we were headed into.

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Creativity — The Final Quality of Light — Thank you, Julia Cameron: Dec 14, 2016

I love Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way. Apparently I am not the only one for she has sold over five million copies of the book since it was written in 1992. The premise of her work is that every human being is creative — that creativity is in our cells, in our blood, that it is woven into our very being. She wrote the book to help unblock “traditional” artists — painters, writers, sculptors, musicians etc. In reality, The Artist’s Way is a guide to creative living even if we do not practice a traditional art form.

I am grateful for that because I am not a traditional artist and her book was a life line for me during a dark period in my life. I was so moved by her work, I went on to teach Artist’s Way classes (each is 12 weeks long) every spring and winter for fifteen years. The miracles I saw. The joy that came back into people’s lives. The connections and friendships that came out of those classes were amazing. Literally in those twelve weeks people woke up and began walking in the light of creativity.

That said, it was not an easy walk at first. Many people came to the group during a time of transition: they did not know what to do in retirement; their spouse had died and they felt lost; their children were all in college and they no longer had a purpose; they were bored; they were getting old; they were drifting and drying up inside. These folks also liked to complain a lot when they first started the class.

Complaining felt good to them for it gave them something to do but complaining is dangerous because it literally rewires the brain for negativity. There is much scientific research to back that up. I found a great article that explains what happens in layman terms:

How Complaining Rewires Your Brain for Negativity by Travis Bradberry/Nov 24, 2016: https://flipboard.com/@flipboard/flip.it%2F6pTHcR-how-complaining-rewires-your-brain-for-/f-2f54e6f22c%2Ftheglobeandmail.co : The author states, “Research shows that most people complain once a minute during a typical conversation.”

I invite you to listen to the self-talk in your head to confirm how many times you complain. I also invite you to set up your own experiment and count the number of times the people closest to you complain in a typical conversation. I think the results would be sobering — especially since the elections.

Here is the danger to that. When you repeat a behavior, such as complaining, your neurons branch out to each other to ease the flow of information. This makes it much easier to repeat that behavior in the future — so easy, in fact, that you might not even realize you’re doing it. So, your neurons grow closer together, and the connections between them become more permanent. Scientists like to describe this process as, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”

Research from Stanford University has shown that complaining also shrinks the hippocampus — an area of the brain that’s critical to problem solving and intelligent thought. I think that is what I observed in folks that started the Artist’s Way classes. They were stuck, overwhelmed and in that moment did not know how to problem solve their way out of their dilemma.

The good news is that this process of “neurons that fire together, wire together” works also when the individual engages in creative thought, loving thought, in positive solution-oriented thought. That is the miracle of our brains — its plasticity; it can change. What that requires though is self-awareness, mindfulness, paying attention to what we are thinking about, paying attention to what we are focusing on; paying attention period.

This is so critically important in the days since November 7th with the controversy regarding Russian hacking, highly evocative cabinet picks, calls being made to leaders of hotspot nations outside of normal diplomatic channels, Trump tweeting gone wild and all other manner of problematic behavior. We could complain every minute of every day about the state of affairs, but if the only thing we do is complain, we are reinforcing negative neural pathways and damaging our brain’s creative problem-solving ability.

So what does creative problem solving look like? I am going back to two creative projects mentioned in previous essays and naming a few more for the fun of it because creativity can be fun and very powerful. The examples below align with this definition of creativity which is the use of the imagination or original ideas, inventiveness, innovation, vision, inspiration, resourcefulness, originality, and artistry.

· In 1999, Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said founded the West-Eastern Divan as a workshop for young Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab musicians. They materialized a hope to replace ignorance with education, knowledge and understanding; to humanize the other; to imagine a better future. Though this experiment in coexistence was intended as a one-time event, it quickly evolved into a legendary orchestra that flourishes today.

· On November 12, 2015, twenty one youth, ages nine through twenty, filed a constitutional climate lawsuit against the federal government in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. Their complaint asserted that, through the government’s affirmative actions in causing climate change, it violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources. On April 8, 2016, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin first denied the government and fossil fuel industry’s motions to dismiss. While reviewing his decision, Judge Aiken heard oral arguments on September 13, 2016, and issued her historic ruling on November 10, 2016 finding in favor of the children.

· After an extreme abortion restriction measure cleared the Ohio legislature last week protesters descended on the Statehouse in Columbus over the weekend. Many came armed with wire coat hangers, which they hung on the Statehouse fence in order to send a message to Ohio Gov. John Kasich asking him to veto the bill. “Clean out your closet of those wire hangers and maybe add a little ribbon or a note stapled on or both,” reads the event description. “Let’s remind Gov. Kasich of what abortion ‘services’ look like when we make abortion illegal reminding the governor that banning abortion doesn’t mean women stop getting the procedure, it just means they resort to risky measures, one notorious example being self-inducing an abortion with a coat hanger.” Please go see the pictures — this is a very creative idea. http://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/12/12/ohioans-decorate-state-house-wire-hangers-protest-abortion-restrictions/21626312/

· After the election a group of concerned people in Seattle started Civic Saturday. A notice was posted on Facebook which invited friends and strangers to a bookstore basement to talk about the creed of liberty, equality, and self-government in the post-election era. Two hundred and twenty people showed up looking for discussion and quiet reflection. The second gathering was moved to a church and that meeting was packed. December 17th is their next meeting.

· The Benjamin Franklin Circles is a project catalyzed by the 92nd Street Y in partnership with the Hoover Institution at Stanford and Citizen University. These are clubs of eight or ten people who agree to meet for dinner once a month for thirteen months. And at every meeting, they agree to discuss how they’ve tried to live out one of the thirteen virtues young Benjamin Franklin held himself to during his period of moral formation. This month the topic might be temperance or tolerance or justice. But every month, what happens is that bonds form that transcend the topic: bonds of friendship and reciprocity that make people feel they can indeed change this country, together.

I do not know about you but my brain feels so much better reading and reflecting on the creativity and power of these projects. I know there are probably many more out there. I am now on the hunt in my area for something that embodies this quality of the light. Go, Julia!

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Commentary: November 9, 2023

I have been sitting with the essay above for a day or so uncertain what to write. I wanted to find and share all the great creative ways people are fighting back against trump, his supporters and the hate filled policies they put forth. I have no doubt there are many examples out there. We certainly have Tuesday’s Democratic victories to celebrate and the hope it bodes for 2024, but my heart is heavy. I recognize that despite any good news regarding the state of our democracy and human decency that comes forward, a stream of melancholy is always present in my brain and heart and has been since Hilary lost.

That scares me because as I cited in the essay above, I understand that “brain neurons that fire together, wire together” and actually grow branches quickly whether those branches are negative in nature or positive. I know how to dismantle the negative branches and replace them with healthy ones; I know how to name my feelings; I know to have compassion for my feelings be they of the light or darkness; I know to move into action when I am scared to reassure the frightened parts of myself that we are not powerless; I know to look for success and goodness and help yet, the negative self-talk and internal complaining and worrying and fearing about this country continues. Why? I want to say I am curious about that, but honestly I am confused by why I suffer.

I realized years ago trump, maga politicians and maga supporters violate my deepest core values as a human being. Each day in thought, word, deed, and action they violate my values of kindness, equality and honesty. I try hard to live and embody those values every day of my life. I was stunned daily in the early years by the utter disdain these folks had of those core values of human decency. A part of me continues to be stunned but I am also horrified. I no longer question how we got here. I am just crushed we are here.

Some part of me just cannot believe that people in this country — many many many people in this country are flat out cruel, liars, greedy, racist, violent, selfish, dishonest, and stupid. It hurts me to write that — really, it hurts me deeply to write those words but it is what I have come to believe. I have always looked for the good in people. I have always believed that burdened people can heal and grow into their best selves.

I still believe people can change and grow. I now recognize many have no interest in that. That is frightening because trump and his supporters will continue to be cruel, liars, greedy, racist, violent, selfish, dishonest and stupid. That means I must accept I live and walk amongst people who are cruel, liars, greedy, racist, violent, selfish, dishonest and stupid. I have resisted that for seven years; actually I have resisted that my entire life.

I have worked with clients to help them see and understand that fear of fear is worse than actually facing the person, situation, thought or feeling they are running from. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

I guess I must allow this part of myself to fully express and turn into her heartbreak and truth that millions of people in this country are bad — they are cruel, liars, greedy, racist, violent, selfish, dishonest and stupid. I just have to let her name that what she fears most is true — that millions and millions and millions and millions of people in this country are bad.

Eleanor, dear wise Eleanor, I hope you are right that this will ease my suffering.