Tag: a genius

Episode 5 – The god of Wine and re-thinking the nature of creative process

Two prizes for the Spark My Muse May Giveaway!

(Use the grey arrows in the box below to see them and enter!)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Shownotes

Episode 5 – The god of Wine and re-thinking the nature of creative process

dionysus

Today’s episode is about the Greek god of Wine and rethinking our ideas about the process of creation, and a better understanding the notion of “creative genius”:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:41 — 13.3MB) | Embed

Subscribe to Spark My Muse Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Email | TuneIn | RSS | Subscribe to Spark My Muse

The is show is brought to you by a resource called

Sparky’s Marketing Jump-Starter Kit.

• Click here to get it free when you use the promo code “spark“.

This kit is a quick way to understand the best free tools for digital marketing and make them work for you when you’re trying to promote your projects and creations.

(There’s only 100 available for this offer. So hurry to get yours.)

wine segment

What the Greeks thought about wine is reflected in the god of wine that they worshiped. (I don’t recommend worshiping the god of wine, or any god except the benevolent Creator.)

• Dionysus was the Greek god of wine and grape harvest

• The only god to have a mortal parent. Born from Zues’ thigh. That’s because his mother burnt to a crisp when Zues showed himself to her in his glory. Whoops.

Symposium means “drinking together”.

Additional note: These originally-small gatherings were for upper class men and with carefully imposed rules about consumption. They occured for leisure and thoughtful discussion.

• I will be offering a symposium-stlyle web-event where we will all have a glass of wine at the same time and discus a topic–possibly in July. Only patrons will get to come. This is your invitation. :)

If you want in, or you are curious about the rewards for being a sponsor of the show, go to Patreon.com/sparkmymuse

patreon

• Most of the great Greek plays were initially written to be performed at the Spring feast of Dionysus. . . .when the buds of grape leaves start to open. It was a most sacred festival.

• Dionysus was a patron of the arts!

For Greeks, Dionysus was credited with creating wine and spreading the art of viticulture (the horticulture of grapes).

• He had a dual nature; on one hand, he brought joy and divine ecstasy; or he would bring madness, brutal and blinding rage–a good depiction of the dual nature of wine.

• He was brought back to life…like grape vines that undergo brutal pruning and look dead, but then burst back to life.

• Blood and red wine are often linked for the ancients.

(Blood gives the body life, wine has powerful bodily effects.)

And now to spark your muse!

——

• Nikolai Berdyeav

“All the products of a man’s genius may be temporal and corruptible, but the creative fire itself is eternal, and everything temporal ought to be consumed in it. It is the tragedy of creativeness that it was eternity and the eternal, but produces the temporal, and builds up the culture which is in time and a part of history. The creative act is an escape from the power of time and ascent to the divine…”

Today we’re thinking of the creative process as re-imagined and being “divinely co-operative”.

We (commonly) think of genius as applied to us in a personal way like a characteristic. A natural capacity, but the Greeks seem to have a much healthier view of what the process of creation is truly like…

• For the Greeks …divinity is always present.

• A genius = an unseen guardian, or custodial and protecting spirit…who gives a human inspiration: For the Greek, we each have one. (It’s not us; but it will help us.)

Three reasons why depersonalizing our part in the creative process is helpful:

1. Failure is not personal

2. Success shouldn’t cause arrogance

3. Patience and giving up control (not forcing it) will reinvorgate your creativity

What do you think?

Is the creative process a “divine cooperation”?

 

In the next episode we will cover “the proper rites of friendship”  and skinny on “wine spritzers”. 

[powerpress_playlist]

SHOCK & BAWL: A Tale of Jeep Rage

Boston I-93 Tunnel

Creative Commons License Rene Schwietzke via Compfight

Somedays you need to read uplifting or humorous posts to soothe yourself. I GET THAT. Friday seems two weeks away. You and I both know that sometimes we must find a way to laugh so we don’t freak out on someone, or weep uncontrollably into our Dunkin’ Donuts napkin.

This is probably not going to do that for you. But, you can read it, and shoot up a quick prayer thanking God that you aren’t my spouse. So, that’s a pick-me-up. You’re welcome.

True Story:

Once I made a horrible driving error. I’m pretty sure it was the one and only time, but I completely cut someone off on the Interstate.

So, I swing into the passing lane and make a guy in a jeep brake and swerve. Panicked, and intolerably stupid, I flee the scene…by intricately weaving through traffic, no less. Maybe if I’m out of sight I can be out of mind too, I think. No, it’s actually more of a pure flight-or-fight response. I was about 7 year old at the time, and my frontal lobe was under-developed. 

Indeed, it’s all a crescendoing avalanche of foolishness. Incited, a second motorist blows his horn and starts to tail me in a move of solidarity against vehicular injustice. Things are getting totally nuts. No doubt he’s readying a tall finger for my witness. My NASCAR lane changing moves soon best him, or maybe he realizes a highway fatality is too high a price just to send a hackneyed message.

As I flee I see the victim in my mirror. He’s frothing and out of his mind with rage. He’s waving limbs around in wild fury, gassing it. He’s in hot pursuit. It’s a Jeep thing, maybe.

Now, I’m terrified. I taste the bile in my mouth.

My heart pounding, I realize this all could end very poorly. And soon.

That blaze of glory stuff is an awesome idea until you start thinking about the minutia of funeral arrangements, or wreckage in general. Yes. The poor man swerved to avoid a smash style killing of both of us. It could have been a horrid pileup too. We truly had eluded death by narrow margins. 14 guardian angels later file grievances. 3 others walk off the job immediately in complete frustration.

Jeep guy was quite good at swerving, actually, and keeps up the swerving through interstate congestion to reach me. Maybe for seconds. Maybe for kilometers. Things are getting weird. A few truckers start honking, to support me, I assume. (They probably notice my professional driving acumen. What 7 year old can draft and weave with such precision? I’m a prodigy. Surely they recognize that. It’s a rush to have their approval. They’re pros after all and they know motoring prowess when they see it.)

At this point I realize Mr Jeep guy is going to try to pull some kind of payback stunt. He’s all in.

Battle of the Stupid Driving Stunts is the theme of the afternoon, but who can blame him? At this point, he’s jacked up pretty good. I’m in a subcompact. How bad will this get? Does he have a gun? Or, will he keep it simple and just run me off the road with a triumphant fist pump? Will I be late for Girl Scouts?

How is this going to end?

I do some quick thinking. Finally. Thoughts not just reactions. I mentally pat myself on the back as my synapses fire two or maybe three times…in a row with no problems!

Actually, I stopped breathing for 8 minutes.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, right? Well, it is. I am inventing a solution with  an unfettered brain buzz that comes just before you die or you nearly die. I’ve scene this in the movies: It’s always in slow motion.

I do the only thing I think will hit the reset button. (Yes. I know there’s no real reset button. Curse you, Staples! Or Vanilla Sky…)

I decide on the element of SURPRISE!

Of course, I had just surprised him quite a bit a moment earlier by nearly snuffing out his life. “Surprise, dude!”

Yet, this is precisely why he will never see a second surprise coming. Really, I had him right were I wanted him.

(If only the roaring terror in my brain had let me enjoy that precious moment. Alas, no. Not at all.)

I enact my own creative SEAL 6 black ops tactic I now call:

Operation Boo-hoo.

It’s go time!

I burst into tears.

I cry.

Sob, really.
Or, I pretend to.

Who has the time to form actual tears at such a high rate of speed and in heavy traffic–before they’re about to be murdered in an act of heedless revenge? Me neither.

Armed with a fistful of tissues I wipe my eyes and feign bawling. A lot. He approaches in haste (of course, because he’s ready to kill me).

From me: Zero eye contact. (Like he’s not even there. A genius move. Remember that for later in your own travels.)

Peripherally, I see him. He edges up to my blind spot. Hovering. Ready to pounce.

He’s poised. He peers. He notices me. He witnesses total hysteria. …and then…mercifully… eases off. (Perhaps I turned out to be a 3 gallon bucket of mess and he only has a 2 gallon bucket that day.)

Yes, I counted on his attitude changing once he thought something else was going on with me. Something mental. Something suicidal or wickedly moronic–barely thwarted by his quick reflexes.

Or, just something too crazy to understand.

Shock and bawl.

I was going for, “Wha….?” 
Is it Grief? remorse? madness? sorrow? a lost puppy? What. is. the. deal?
Whatever…let me just say it worked. Perfectly.

Later, I rewarded myself with a new box of Kleenex…with aloe.
I’m not sure why I wasn’t armed with aloe tissues in the first place. But, never again.
Because that would be crazy.

If that was you in the Jeep, thanks.

I wasn’t paying attention and I didn’t see you. We both avoided certain doom.

P.S. (I might have not been 7 years old at the time.)

Banqueting Table, Part 2: Thoughts on Genius

I have developed a bit of an old fashion view of “genius”. Roman empire times “old fashion”. “Genius” was a term given to an outside entity of sorts that basically lived in the walls, and helped out with problems and other matters with a “spark of genius,” a kind of superior energy and creativity that had to come through a human vehicle, and come to fruition cooperatively. A person who “had a genius” had to listen to that genius. His brilliant triumphs would not be completely his doing, nor would his failures of genius. Some of the blame or credit was due to the genius. It had a way of keeping people more human I do believe, not puffed up with vanity and hubris, or unduly in despair for a bit of a lazy genius.

Somewhere along the line (I’m guess during the human-centered “reason” and experimentation of the Enlightenment Age) the term genius came to mean “a person who has brilliance”. A deep shift happened, if you noticed. Genius sourced in the person alone. “How advanced and sophisticated,” some might say. But wait. No one could imagine the stress that would put on people, especially highly creative people (think: writers, poets, artists, inventors, innovators, thinkers, etc.) who would now have to be solely responsible for producing genius worthy outcomes, and items, repeatedly.

Ever wonder why genius and madness are so closely tied? I think, that’s part of it. It’s hard to separate the creative aspect from the non creative aspect in a person. It’s hard to not take failure (or success) personally. I do believe it (“genius” or the process of the initiation of the truly great) has something to do with an intertwining, interaction, or crossover point with us and the Divine (our Creator).

A better, and less destructive way to define “genius” is to realize our success and failure is partly our doing, but partly something that comes to us and overshadows us. It’s better to realize the “gift of genius,” which would be not at all personal brilliance that start or ends in an individual, but instead an ability to be aware, receptive, and collaborative with others, and most importantly what must be higher and beyond our ourselves. A “touch of genius” could be said to be when everything involved hits just the right harmonic cord, and something revolutionary is borne, something is unearthed, or a creative act generates new life.

If you were to say, “Lisa, you’re a GENIUS!” I’d smile, and feel flattered for about 2 seconds. Then I’d realized the bigger truth going on. Very little has much to do with me. I’m not a genius, but sometimes I listen and detect better than at other times. To people who’ve heard my thoughts, ideas, or read my papers, they might hear some original thinking, or novel theories, but I really doubt I was the first source for them. At best it was a strange cooperation of experiences, education, preparation, creative exchange and communication, and a touch of something I can’t put my fingers around, and will not attempt to take credit for.

This “invention” pictured here below is a simple example of just a bit of a “touch of genius”. Check it out.

Why is it? It uses resources, readily available, to move beyond their supposed potential for a well-needed purpose. Is it every paper clips destiny? Probably not, but with a “touch of genius” perhaps, a they serve a purpose that is quite helpful and transcends the assumed norm, the typical, or the mundane.

witness a "touch of genius"
photo source

The people of our interactions deserve the same kinds of treatments and communications as these seemingly simple paper clips–At work, play, ministry, home life, social life, and all the rest. It’s the spark of genius, in cooperation with what is above and beyond us, that is needed to produce not what is hoped for or expected, but what is just out of reach, and just beyond our human imaginations. Groups and Communities can link up with “genius” too.

We can only see what’s been done, or what’s right in front of us. “Genius” doesn’t work that way. It’s a way of collaboration, even relinquishment to do the unexpected, even with simple “instruments” to create the extraordinary.

What thoughts do you have about genius?

If this is new to you, or fascinating in some way (positive or negative), please link to this article.

thanks for reading.