Status Updates From Witness to the Fire: Creati...

‘The patriarchal Judge emphasizes comparing and competing, as well as results (fame and fortune) rather than process. This impedes creativity. All of these proclamations from The Judge, who wants to be “highest”, are toxic to the creative process. In contrast, creativity requires judgements that have unconditional respect for the unique voice and style of each person and that celebrate the creative process.’

You must be able to stand in the tension between potentiality of the vision and the finite limits of the embodiment, just as a genuine work of art always contains creative tension and offers it to the recipient. This conflict—essential to the creative proces—keeps many people from daring to create or to risk putting their creation out into the world. The same issue arises in the recreating of one’s life.’

A work, wether of one’s life or one’s art, can’t be perfect. The vision of what we can create is always far greater than what can be expressed concretely in any given work of art or in any life. Thus there is a “guilt” inherent in the process of creation, for the creator always knows that he has been unable to give complete and perfect expression to his vision.’

‘I, like many others, was susceptible to “bad faith” by wanting to be “above” it all. The fatal flaw of The Judge is wanting to be above the disease of addiction, and at the deepest level, above the finite human condition, to want to be so special that one does not deserve the “unjust” treatment of having a disease.’

‘When you’re playing, you are being your soul over and over. Playing music is the soul’s struggle to be in the fullest way, to keep learning new things and to have that show in the musical expression. When you play you have to face yourself over and over again in your limitations. You’re on the line from minute to minute.’

‘Perhaps our addictions are similar to Rilke’s dragons which can turn into princesses: if we turn and face them, there lies the surprise of the divine.’

‘It is a mistake to reduce the life and work or the creative person to his disease. But it is also a mistake to ignore a disease such as addiction and romanticize its relation to creativity.’

‘Intenseness and duration are as ancient enemies as fire and water. They are mutually destructive. They cannot co-exist.’