Earlier this year my 6 year-old came home from school with some pretty AMAZING cat pictures. She showed them off, and we all oohed and aahed over her talent.
The next day, however, I found another picture from a few days earlier, her first attempt at a cat. It was languishing crumpled at the bottom of her bag, but this picture made me even happier: it was a CRAPPY cat picture.
It sounds like an oxymoron, right? “Disciplined creativity”. When you think of “discipline” you imagine other words like “effort,” “sweat,” “rules,” “constraint”; but “creativity” brings up ideas of “freedom,” “flow,” “art,” and “expression”. But believe it or not, consistent creativity requires some measure of discipline.
Now, I’m no artist. My biggest form of creative expression is writing, and apart from this blog, that writing is heady academic stuff. But still it is an act of creation. And as I discipline myself to do it I often remember something a friend who was an actual artist said about how she had to discipline herself to sit down at the easel like a regular job if she wanted the creativity to flow.
I am not a dog person, never have been and probably never will be. But still, I think that at some point in the future I’m going to get a dog. Not soon, mind you – so don’t anyone dare tell this to the kids. They would love one, but right now, I suspect that the responsibility of a dog added to everything else would tip me over the edge. Whenever the kids ask for a dog, I tell them we had a baby instead.
Why no dog? They’re so darn high maintenance! Now cats, you can leave town for a couple of weeks and they’ll just eat their biscuits, or whatever they catch in the field, ours at least will.
But dogs, you have to do so much work, and for all that work they’re so UNPRODUCTIVE.
Totally not a dog a person.
But down the track I think for me getting a dog could be a spiritual practice; a small act of rebellion to push back against my personal brand of neurosis that idolises productivity, control, and neatness.
Last night in a moment of self-awareness I decided to scroll through my Instagram. Now normally I turn to Instagram to dull any flashes of self-awareness–I find it to be a pleasant and effective distraction from any nudges towards personal growth. But in this case, instead of flicking through my feed, I looked through my own posts, the beautiful highlights of my life, to remind myself how much I love it.
I did it because I’d realised that I’d gotten stuck briefly into a mindset that just focussed on the things I didn’t like about the stage of life I’m in – I was viewing everything through a narrative of constraint: the things I can’t do because of the little children I have, the freedom I don’t have to determine my own schedule etc etc. If you’ve been there, I bet it’s familiar.
Some White Space 