Friday, 22 February 2019

The Worst Enemy of Creativity is Self-Doubt


The Worst Enemy of Creativity is Self-Doubt...

Do you ever have the idea that you are alone in the world?

Now you can have partners and children and parents and friends, but in essence, that living thing inside your head that speaks exclusively to you is yours alone; it is not connected to anyone else, it is not heard by anyone else.

It only comes from you.

All those ideas and opinions and statements and desires are entirely built by you to shape your world and you are the only one who can view your world exactly as you see it.

You can share an opinion with others, but theirs won’t fit yours, it is like placing a round object into a square hole.

This individuality is what makes us the beings that we are; it is also the one thing which separates us, tears us apart, divides us and creates conflict. It would seem to me, and this is purely speaking from my world here, that rather than celebrate individual thought, we fear it. Rather than accept that we all think and react differently, we question it and cause resentment.

I recently watched IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE!
A wonderful invasion movie from 1953, and in it, the main character is questioned and lampooned as an oddball because he has seen a UFO crash into the desert and no-one believes him. He is pictured as crazy and shunned by town’s authorities and locals. Now we know that he has seen a UFO, because we watched him come across it, so we know he is not crazy, but isn’t this  a lesson in life?



For all the oddballs and weirdos and crazies who see the world in an exciting or dangerous way, you are that amateur astronomer and writer who comes across the UFO. You’re not lying, it is society and majority who fear the truth so choose not to acknowledge it.

Here’s a piece of dialogue from the movie:

Odd, wouldn't you say,
for something coming in
from outer space?

I don't know what's odd
and what isn't anymore.

But I do know I expected you
to be more open to the idea
than the others.

You're a man of science!

Therefore, less inclined
to witchcraft, John.

Not witchcraft, Dr Snell.
Imagination!

Willingness to believe
there are lots of things that
we don't know anything about.

Look, there was a time when
people thought the earth
was a level plane...
between two mountains
that were set there
to hold up the sky...
and that the stars
were lamps hung from that sky.
Then a better idea
came along and people
were willing to listen.

Be realistic, John. We've
worked together before.
In the meantime, you can
do an article for us.

Reading that, and seeing it in the movie, tells us that this single guy is the odd one out and believes in aliens and universes and wonder and imagination instead of facts and figures and what everybody else thinks. But you can do both can’t you? Add to that the FACT that he has seen a ship buried within a crater would make everybody else the crackpots.

You’re not weird; everyone who thinks you are, is.

Leading on to the quote at the beginning by Sylvia Plath. If you are going through your life struggling with your place and position, perhaps your job is underwhelming or you do not feel you are leading the life that you should be, you can change that. That means using your imagination and listening to that voice in your head. Yet, the naysayers are there. The town population riddled with fear and change don’t want you to change.

The town, locals, authorities are your self-doubt.

Listen to them and nothing changes, nothing gets prepared, everything stays exactly how it is.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results” Einstein.

Self-doubt will keep you in the same place and is fuelled by the fear. This is all inside your head and only you have the power to change that because only you have access to the ideas within your head. If you allow yourself a moment to listen to your imagination, feel it, trust it and let it lead, you may unearth a wonder of the universe:

YOU.




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