On the initial “Riding the Waves” questionnaire I said I can offer these things to the group:
A positive attitude. Open mind. Encouragement for (perhaps even instruction on) the power of inquiry, tips on visual analysis as a mode of critical thinking, and an interest in building community around culture.
What I said I wanted to get out of the experience: inspiration.
From our group’s first conversation, I already feel inspired. That often happens when Maia is around. I suspect Maia offers inspiration to many of you as well. I am excited about the ways that inspiration will generate from (and to) the group and the individuals within the group. Yesterday, the idea of collective wisdom resonated for many of us. The idea of collective action is even more compelling to me.
I wanted to share a couple of observations from our conversation yesterday. When I looked at all the rectangles on the screen, I kept thinking of the Brady Bunch title sequence. Dated reference, I know–apologies. And now I’m thinking “that this group must somehow form a family.” The tiny little environmental portraits were also quite lovely. I am not sure what was happening on the wall behind Kat , but it looked remarkably like a Minor White photo experiment. Did anyone else see it?
All day I have been trying to respond to Maia’s prompt about what only I am equipped to do. There were many other questions asked–most of which were much more approachable for me, so this is the one I want to take this opportunity to work through. I don’t believe that there is anything that I have to offer that no one else has. I don’t know what my purpose is or might be. I am drawn to the metacognitive nature of the question, but an answer seems simultaneously too remote and too finite. I prefer editing to writing sometimes, even though I am a writer. I prefer to collaborate rather than working alone, but I can and do often work alone. The blank page is full of promise, but also petrifying. So. Where to begin?
I decided to adjust the Photo/Sketch Walk prompt and, instead of taking new photos, I reflected on my photos from 9 days in Costa Rica. As an art historian my creative process often starts with images. I put them together, arrange them, and the story reveals itself. There were so many photos. So much beauty. So many stories. I decided to pick the four photos above because they reveal something about my abilities and my process, about what I do and what I contribute. I look at things for a living. The steps “Pause, Notice, Create, Repeat” are familiar and comfortable to me. I notice things and connections seem obvious. All the time.
These pictures are a little abstract and remote, which seemed appropriate for this prompt. The snapshots, the sunsets, and the landmarks from our trip tell a more representational story, one that might even tell itself without me being involved. This little series of objects collected only digitally (though I would love to have filled a suitcase and brought them home), reveals a little more about me. Sometimes I struggle to recognize creativity in myself, but noticing, connecting, and responding I do recognize.
Masking and beauty, two topics near and dear to my heart, contribute to the story of this little photo collection. The mask partakes in an act of revelation and also one of concealment. Beauty is not a surface trait, but a concept full of complexity, difficulty, even pain. There are static and dynamic elements of masks, beauty, and photos–the frozen captured moment points to or emerges from the ongoing diachronic narrative of lived moments.
I am in a place conditioned by my past, though for a while I have worked to concentrate on the present. My current job keeps me so busy that the present is all I can manage most days. Many people in the “Riding the Waves” group have been very generous about the past (and present) experiences informing who they are in this moment. I’m sure some details of my experiences will emerge over time. For now, a collection of circumstances has led me to be motivated toward action and sometimes to be drawn to what is hard. I recently started a non-profit dedicated to creating community around culture. Initially, I wanted to get people (read my children) off of screens and communing in person, but I’m fine with using technology to help foster relationships and productivity as we navigate the COVID-19 crisis. We will start small, by taking the cultural products we are interested in, the ones we already consume on a regular basis as our prompt (music, art, video games, movies, etc). We will experience those products together with people we invite to join us, analyze them, and use them to inspire a product or an action. Together our small groups will determine what we produce from our cultural examinations. My aims are very similar to those informing “Riding the Waves.” I am grateful for this opportunity to tap into my creativity and to be generative in the context of this group. I will be applying my learning from our experience together to this new venture and, no doubt, benefitting from all of your insights.
March 25
Notes/Highlights:
- Meaning related to the day to day is necessary and inspires understanding and connectedness. Meaning related to play may actually be contradictory.
- Psychotherapy vs. Logotherapy
Logotherapy is more about meaning and choice
Psychoanalysis is very sexist/paternalistic: passive recipient of harm
Impactful comments from the group (not attributed):
“Busy-ness…people are ready to pivot to online…chaos of creativity.”
“Space, slowing down, facing it and the grief” that becomes apparent
“Lack of control is hard”
“Virtual meeting for worship–connecting”
“Perspective via participation…can’t be together physically…film project @ loss, grief, healing”
“After grief, a stronger personal space”
“Exhausted from googlehangout meetings…communal outbreath today”
“Focus on what we can manage”
A clarifying moment in the crisis? I know I need to…
Interconnectedness…no healing if we don’t all heal
BE ALL OF IT
Fragility + stillness (suffering) of the unknown
Seeds as a metaphor for sharing
- “The times when play seems most irrelevant/inappropriate are when it is most needed.” It helps us be resilient, it helps us build survival skills.
- We have no control over anything but our own attitude. Choice is our power/reactiveness
For next week: act on 1 healthy impulse, so something unplanned, unprompted
offering for the group
March 28, 2020
I’ve been reading and writing and glad to have this “assignment” as a distraction from all the turmoil of the present moment. More turmoil than I would have imagined, in fact. The readings and our discussions are helping me to better understand my own process–why and how resilience is such an integral part of my experience and my outlook. I thought my impulsive thing might be to NOT do the assignment, but it wasn’t. There were a few small moments of surprise (candy to the kids late at night or unprompted, bike ride to commune on Wess Daniel’s porch after the “lockdown” time), but I wanted something better for my acting on a healthy impulse (and my offering). Will keep trying.
Offering 1: TrackYourHappiness + The Four Tendencies
Offering 2: A More Beautiful Question
Impactful quotes from Frankl:
Interview: despair=suffering- meaning
- 98 Logotherapy: patient is confronted with and reoriented toward the meaning of his or her life
101 specifically human dimension
Stuart Brown and “Play”
A survival strategy (rats that weren’t allowed to play never left their safe place in the presence of a potential predator and died)
The opposite of “play” is not work, it is depression.
Jane McGonigal: How Video Games Improve our Real Lives.
Hospice workers report people wish they had let themselves be happier
What is positive about video games:
Social support
Creativity
Treat depression/boost mood, increase happiness
Parents who spend more time with their kids playing video games have strong overall relationships
Super Better
Take a gaming approach to challenges
Being overwhelmed is not a part of most games (try again)
[Makes me think of all the time I give my kids grief about technology, which I have been trying to make a conscious choice not to do as much. Health impacts are real, but the social and happiness benefits are also significant. I am also now thinking about reducing the stigma around “play.” Knowing the benefits aI want to promote (and those that I do not) will likely help me create more reasonable parameters for them and for myself.]
Discussion:
“Aggressively floral”
Genius Loci
Considering the new ways we are inhabiting our home (now also office, school, and all things). Alden asked me to play legos and, sadly, I wasn’t too thrilled because I don’t typically enjoy building with legos. I know. What is wrong with me? I decided to take a page from my personal play history and make a house plan with legos. On the left is our upstairs, with a block for each bedroom and the bathroom. The flowers and plants represent moments of creativity. The middle section is the downstairs of our house. It has the most plant forms because we all utilize that space and we move through it more than other places. Barry and Alden do school in this section. The tree represents all the things we do outdoors now and where we potentially have the most freedom. The right side is the building out back. This is where Gillian and I do school and work. There are flowers on the patio outside of the building also because we have eaten outside every dinner that the weather has been pleasant.
M. Kathryn Shields, Ph.D. 
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