Most people I've talked with about it admit they go through times when they know what they want to do (or need to do, or "should" do) but just... don't do it. Sometimes this happens as a full-blown procrastination incident, complete with agonizing. Other times, focus just shifts to something else, and we only later notice "hmm, I didn't do X yet!" Could be good or bad, depending on how urgent/important the "something else" was.
Lately, though, I've been thinking about a related but more-intense phenomenon: the kind of stuck feeling where we know a situation isn't as it should be, but have trouble even coming up with an idea about what we want to do, or need to do, or "should" do about that situation. Sometimes the stuckness even extends to an inability to imagine how the situation could be better! If it's easy to mull over hypothetical options in an abstract intellectual way, but impossible to choose one that seems best, that still counts.
The mental image I'm getting is of a student who can't solve the problem on the board, standing at the front of the class. Nobody sitting behind our student can tell if the problem is lack of comprehension, poor eyesight, fear of public performance, or a deep-seated horror of chalk (OK, OK, dry-erase markers). Maybe our stuck student just doesn't want to show off, or doesn't want to show someone else up, or hasn't had a meal in a while. It's unclear, but everyone involved is painfully aware there's a problem somewhere. The scene has burst out of its script, and nothing is flowing. Until something shifts, only an increasingly uncomfortable pause will be possible...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Would writer's block be an example of this, perhaps?
Writer's block is a grand example of this. And the cure might be similar to the way writer's approach block, which is to write anything for a stated amount of time each day until writing as a kinetic activity provides a path out of the problem.
A resource for guidance on freeing artists from blocks or sources of procrastination and silencing our inner critics is The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. The artist date is one of many method's for trying out a concept while taking out some risk.
More to Jonathan's points raised:
There are multiple approaches to analysing what is causing a situation. The difficulty with hitching up the anlyse toolset is that we engage the critic. Review the problem (critique it, literally) and any creative voice feels the pressure of the critic.
Finding creative paths and allowing for dangerous and 'crazy' approaches to problem solving involves taking risk not generally encouraged by the linear world.
That math student with pen poised is unlikely to draw a picture or comic, right in another language or start answering a different question instead to fend off the don't-know-answer difficulty at hand (or whatever is at the root cause of the problem).
Remove that classroom of onlookers. Grade the student for creativity, poise and level-headedness and you'll have a different group getting to 'A' in terms of final results.
And talk about Freudian - right for write. Is this the critic back in the ring pointing out the importance of being right (and proof-reading)?
Is the creative voice and the critical voice always antithetical? Sounds like a polar freeze. Bit chilly out there on the ice cap.
I didn't see anything above suggesting that "creative" and "critical" were polar opposites...corn starch isn't a polar opposite of chicken broth, but if the symptom is "my stir-fry is too clumpy" ou have to know which one to lay off of.
Post a Comment