Perception and Creativity

It’s been said that creativity is not about seeing the world; it’s about seeing the world in a way no one else does. I first heard that saying a long time ago but it had been years since I’d given it much thought. Then it came back to me while I was reading The Lost Notebooks of Loren Eiseley.

Eiseley made his writing career out of just such unique perceptions. Listen: “I would never again make a profession of time.” Or, “…every bone that one holds in one’s hands is a fallen kingdom, a veritable ruined world…” Or: “…man has dragged out of the Ice Age with him and older and lower brain that reemerges in the mists of alcohol or which I have seen snarling on the bed of madness. There are claws in it by now fantastically extended.”

I realized that this issue was what I was tiptoeing around in my posts about needing to “shake-up” my own perceptions. Lately I’ve been seeing the world too much like everyone else. And I’m beginning to realize that it has nothing to do with the material I’m putting “into” my head. I’ve got to alter the way I “combine” the elements that go in.

Too that end I’m going to go back to doing something I used to do when I first started writing. That is, just playing more with language, experimenting more with perceptions as I strive to tear my normal thoughts down and rebuild them askew.

In the next few weeks I’ll be sharing some of these with you folks. Aren’t you lucky? ;)

----
----