Question Time

A while ago, I was asked some questions that I said I would answer. It was part of a pay-it-forward blog nomination thing, but I don't read blogs (or read any consistently) so I don't really have any to suggest to you all. I know. Bad magpie, blogging and not reading others. I have a short attention span. 

1.  What is the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?

At the moment, peanut butter and nutella on a spoon. 

2.  Do you need contact with people in order for you to create?

Tentatively yes. I think it's necessary to have a wide variety of stimuli to create. Talking to other people, particularly other creative people, always seems to have a positive effect on the creative process. That said, I don't think I need direct contact with other people; mostly I just need them somewhere in the vicinity. I get as much from walking around watching people on the street as having a conversation, but I suppose voyeurism is a type of contact in itself. 

There is a part of the creating process where other people just get in the way, though. So maybe it's more, other people are necessary for the pre-creating process, but need to go away during the actual creation. Then they can come back afterwards and look at it. There are those who create in a vacuum, and never show their work, or discuss it, or share it in anyway, and I don't think that's a particularly effective way. Eventually, your output will just end up stagnating if you're only drawing on yourself for material. You also won't get a very good idea of what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. Granted, no single person's opinion should be taken as gospel, but if enough people don't understand a certain aspect, or continuously misinterpret the same aspect, it's a good bet something needs to be changed. 

3.  Does (your) despair have its place in (your) happiness? 

I'm one of those people who believes you can't have one without the other. At least, you can't put one in context without the other. Would happiness (or despair) have any significance without the opposing force? I don't know. I can't answer that question because, obviously, we have both, and all the variations in between. But I imagine without those variations happiness (or despair) would just become a neutral state of existence. 

4.  Give me a link to a recording of your favourite piece of music.

5.  Talk about the relation between mental health (good or bad) and the creative act.

At least a little bit of crazy is expected with any sort of creativity. Most creative acts require the person doing them to become something other than themselves for a moment, which isn't the easiest thing to do. You also have to be able to look at the world in a different way. See the details and potentialities that the every day world passes by. I think, for most creative people, there is a constant struggle between the reality they live in, the reality everyone else is in, and the need, from time to time, to adopt everyone else's reality to survive. For school, for work, sometimes just for basic social interactions. 

There are some people who use their creativity as a therapeutic catharsis. There are the urban myths that you can only create when you're depressed, or that creative output should be some sort of emotional purging. Maybe it is for some people, but I tend to find those views restrictive and a little insulting. It undermines the level of work and effort that goes into creating something, which is not to say that there aren't therapeutic benefits to creativity. That's just not all it is. 

For me, personally, I don't create during a depressive episode. I don't really do much of anything during a depressive episode. I tend to be more "inspired" (I don't like that word) during happy times, but most of my creations centre around trying to capture moments, capture living, and people are most active, most living, when they're happy. I do think, though, that going through the depressive episodes, the manic episodes, the various quirks and nuances of my chemical imbalances, does allow me to express things, or pay attention to things, that I wouldn't necessarily focus on if I didn't have those experiences. 

6.  Recommend something for me to read that you haven’t written.

The Nostalgist's Map of America, Agha Shahid Ali. Or any of his books, really. 

7.  Give me a link to something that you have written.

I don't have many links to written things anymore, but here's a part of something I wrote: "The Magpie".

8.  Is there a moment you can remember when something happened or you had some thought that changed things for you?  If so, tell that story.  If not, what could have changed everything?

That's a tricky question. It's like dominoes. Every thing changes everything.

9.  What is THE most amazing thing about human beings?

The fact that they are totally predictable and completely surprising.

10.  Write a summary of how you see yourself.
One of those little curio boxes. Or maybe a big curio box. With all sorts of things found on the street, and in second-hand shops and old drawers.