Chaos and Creativity

Nietzsche writes, “Man believes that the world itself is filled with beauty – he forgets that he created it.”

This is the essence of creativity. Nothing is until we make it so. In truth, the world is pure chaos. Without our viewpoint, it just is, no connection, no names and no meaning. We put meaning into the world. But how do we do this? Thoughts are helpful, but really they have more relationship to chaos than to understanding. in order to gain understanding, we say it is so, literally. Language helped with understanding, the agreement of a shared image is a pivotal point in creating relationship. Art too helps to share experience. But what I am keenest on is writing. Not necessarily the aftermath but the initial point of contact between the idea and the chaos that it arrives from.

Chaos is a gaping void, of course it is. Anything else is not chaos. It is the gaping void that births our world.

Inside each of us, at the core, there is the initial moment, first point exit/entry. We have stepped out of our chaos (most of us) and we have created a haven within the void in order to experience. In order to pass this mantle to each other we share experience, and we continually re-interpret what has occurred. Of course we are individuals, our heads are filled with our unique experience of the world, so we colour experience with our lens. It is an important point in writing to establish our lens, to actively tweak and manipulate our ability to see. So, first step, get to the lens, but more importantly, establish whether you are an observational writer or a confessional one. One will look straight through the lens, the other will look at who is looking through the lens. Sounds easy, but we live in such a conditioning world, it is hard to establish who owns the lens. Where is our viewpoint of the world formed? How do we establish reality? Family, schools, culture, they all put a lens on our reality, and if we step outside the accepted viewing we are generally said to be ill... In a way this should be called Chaos and Bravery...

As Rimbaud the poet says "The poet becomes a seer through a long, immense, and reasoned derangement of all the senses. All shapes of love suffering, madness. He searches himself, he exhausts all poisons in himself, to keep only the quintessences. Ineffable torture where he needs all his faith, all his superhuman strength, where he becomes among all men the great patient, the great criminal, the great accursed one--and the supreme Scholar! For he reaches the unknown!"

The unknown - where else would we want to head.