Creativity Muscle
Disclaimer at the end, its your own purgative which one you read first.
The creativity muscle needs to be trained and taught. Just as you learn the ability to walk, run, play the piano- it functions as muscle memory. It takes active effort to nurture and train these abilities in yourself
In Dr. Suzuki’s book- “Nurtured by Love” he dissects the reoccurring question of being a prodigy. Whether or not talent is natural gift or learned. He believes, that talent is not naturally occurring but instead a learned and developed skill. At birth and in our early stages of consciousness, we are neuro-plastic. This malleability is the base and beginning of idenetity.
An inhuman example of this plasticity can be seen in fighting dogs-
You are in an animal shelter. There are rows of dogs in small kennels and each one has their own ID tag. Some say “young and playful, good with kids”. At the end of this long string of caged and depressed dogs, there is a pit-bull. Its tag may say something similar to “aggressive, interact with caution”
When that dog was born, it was not violent, angry, unpredictable. It was forced into an environment in which its genetic features (such as a lockable jaw) were utilized for its own survival.
Although that dog is no longer in such environment- its brain has rewired itself for the violent behavior that it relies on for survival in a fighting ring. The dogs fight or flight muscle memory has been trained to react violently- trauma response as fuck.
In the case of creativity and talent it works the same. Replace a traumatic experience leading to a trauma response- with training and energy leading to fluency in a skill.
While training toward a skill a teacher may say it takes a random number of hours to master xyz. While this is a way to incentivize students to put in time and effort toward their craft, it is an unattainable standard. To look at skill development as finite leads the trainee obliviously toward self-restriction.
There is no such thing as mastery. You can be really great at something, and the world can give you a title of the best, but there is infinitely more room to develop your skill.
This is where creativity comes to play. YoYo Ma can memorize every written piece of music for the cello from all of time if he so pleases. But that memorization is only a fraction of what “mastery” could look like. To view your skill as something that can be conquered closes you off to the possibility of what your own brain can offer. With this mindset you are merely turning yourself into a vessel for something or someone else creation.
If you have trained your own creativity, you are an endless creator. There will never come a time in your living existence where you stop thinking. So to manipulate that power and to feed and nurture your ability to create and think beyond the currently existing is the ultimate power.
Dr Suzukis theory of learned talent is the basis for training creative thought. Just as you could use this theory to train in classical violin, you can train yourself to use your brain to benefit your own creative ability. Training creativity means allowing humiliation, critique, and failure.
While classically training as a cellist I found theories such as Dr. Suzuki's to be insanely rewarding. In a competitive, hyper accelerated environment where comparison to your peers was the only inspiring factor. Embarrassment through public analogy as a stimulant to be a better musician, tragically works well. I found comfort in Suzuki's book. The irony of this situation can be found in the fact of this school- that survives off of a tough love way of teaching- was practicing Suzuki's method of violin mastery. This would be sorrily mistaken for a criticism of the Suzuki Method. It is the basis in which he proved his theories of learned talent. To negatively critique the method that destroyed my fears of public performance and independent study, would simply be a crime. If anything, this would be a critique of the wonderfully typical old religious white women whom we looked up to as our teachers.
DISCLAIMER__
Though this may seem like a work hard, play hard pseudo inspirational drawl… It is not. Its simply a personal manifesto type ‘how I think about the things I want to work toward”. With this mindset I’m open and allowed to do whatever the fuck I please. Im allowed to fuck up and pick & choose where my priority and efforts land. So maybe Im just a self obsessed cunt who thinks my 19 year old brain is ‘oh so enlightened’ to think that sharing shit like this has any sort of value. That’s okay too. Maybe I’ll read this in a year and rip it off of the internet and leave it to die. Or maybe it will be a reminder to get my shit done and get on track with my goals. Who knows.. not me.
with LOVE
SHAKE ASS
FAME💋