At lunch with a writer friend
yesterday. The day was already clouded with news coming through about
the air crash. That and the results of the Amanda Knox retrial,
events which for a day at least pushed aside the horror stories from
the Middle East. And all this in a week where I'd watched the first
episode of Louis Theroux's series 'By reason of Insanity
(BBC 2)
I told my friend about when I used to
teach art at a Maximum Security Prison and how feelings from that
time, questions if you will, about normality and what it is, and
isn't, were coming to the surface on watching the programme. In my class were murderers and
violent criminals but apart from a few odd events, these guys were
like lambs with me. And I soon came to realise how fundamental these classes were to their grip on sanity; their holding on to some vestige of normality in a very abnormal environment
And I read in a Guardian article yesterday
morning that a huge percentage of professional people suffer acutely
from stress and depression, but that with pills and psychological support,
how they manage to get by on a working day.
We talked about his writing and my
painting and how lucky we were to have this poetic world to sink
into, one which in turn colours our lives and makes them richer. And
he asked 'What about the rest of humanity?' Big Question.
I replied that this is the reason why I
teach, to get the word out there. And then the conversation drifted
in another direction but it has hung in my mind ever since, because
there is a better, fuller, answer.
It is that I believe that we are all
creative beings but that the precious gift of creativity has been
taken from us (most of us) during childhood and that we yearn for it for the rest
of our lives. It is like a hole in our soul. And the wound from this deprivation is harsh and deep.
And that now we have to remember; yes simply remember, what it was to be
a child, to play and float in a world of fantasy and creativity
without judgement or restraint.
Yes I know I'm banging an old drum here
but maybe not loud enough. Because we live in perilous times and we
are suffering the pitfalls of passivity, psychologists and pills. We
are looking for easy fixes and they abound. But these fixes are ephemeral
and do nothing to satisfy our (sometimes unconcious) yearning to be creative.
Now, I am not going to pretend that
creativity is the only answer to the world's problems but I am truly
wary of quick fix tricks and this obsession with change that currently abounds.
That if you keep on searching, that you'll eventually hit on the
right one, the right trick.
You see, my experience tells me that
all the finer aspects of humanity, courage, compassion, adventure,
love for our fellow man, and of course creativity, that all these
values are still within us. They have not disappeared. Suppressed in
childhood yes, and ignored, of course, in the adult world of stress
and striving. But that these values are still there waiting for us to
return to them whatever age we are and in whatever sort of life we
lead. We just need to wake up, to return once more to our innate
God-given creativity
Michael runs Retreats in Creativity in Assisi, Italy, throughout the summer
Please click HERE for details
Please click HERE for details
