Illness = Creativity ?

One day I went into the art studio sick, and thus worked in an altered state throughout the day. A few days later I saw the art I had made and thought --hey that is really cool! I've since wondered if being sick had something to do with being creative.

10 minutes browsing only found two other people who think the same thing, here and here. But then I finally found some research on the subject.

In his journal article When Walls Become Doorways: Creativity, Chaos Theory, and Physical Illness, Tobi Zausner addresses the idea of the connection between illness and creativity by researching the lives of 21 visual artists. The artists fell into four categories:
"The artists studied clustered into four patterns. First, a
period of illness preceded choice of a career in art.
Second, illness transformed the creative process and
the art produced. Third, for some artists, illness became
life's focus, with negative consequences to the artists
and their art. Fourth, artists who remained creative
during an incapacitating or terminal illness produced
work in an entirely new medium."
Because the sample size in this study is only 21 people, Zausner concludes that the study is preliminary to actual research about creativity and illness.

Although the idea of creativity when you're sick is counter-intuitive, I thought of a mechanism for the correspondence: being sick activates your immune system, a great heaving part of which is your brain...so you use more of the entirety of your noggin when you're sick. Plus, if you're resting to get well, that's a lot of unused energy looking for ways to get out.

So, if you're sick today, rest up, drink lots of fluids, and play around with a new art medium. You never know what good may come of it.

Style Track

Each year a photo is taken of the high-school graduating class, and you can see the current trends in hairstyle and clothing. Ten years pass, and there is usually a reunion photo, showing the updated styles.

What gets me is when the classmates with similar hairstyles, although separated by distance, will often end up with the same hairstyle.

I suppose this could be just the overwhelming pressure of mass media, targeting a frequency I don't perceive, that affects graduates of the same age.

Pop Culture pushes our perceptions here and there, but we are the ones that make the ultimate choice as to our appearance. Or are we? Is there something even more sinister, an unknown force that already has us in its grip? ...A demonic waste-product of Popular Culture that has infiltrated our decision making processes. I call this the "style track".

If you meet up with someone from your generation, and you see the similarity, run! Fight! Flee! Change! Dig deep!

Values

This concept has been bothering me for a while--I'd like to know what you who read this think.

A lot of value has been placed on material goods--things we're used to having to pay for [like cheese, furniture, and marble countertops]--
while many services have a fee associated with them [electricity, massage, dentistry, and taxi rides]--
In practice, once someone decides to start charging for something, it's value is determined by the invisible hand of economics--supply and demand.

However, there are a lot of things we haven't placed a monetary value on that are very worthwhile [like the air we breathe, social cohesiveness, the value of free speech, etc.]
and I'm wondering if we should assign a value # to them, in order to give these topics fair measure against economically valued items. I mean, if someone intends to extinguish a species, I want to know what it's worth to them.

I have yet to see some other discussion about this, so let's have it out here...

Off-limits topic	Economic vested interest
Breath of fresh air	$1.00
Peace and quiet	$5.00
First amendment right to free speech	$25
Snake River salmon migration route	$100
Free internet	$1000
A kiss from my sweetie	$10,000 (if they brushed their teeth)

Of course these are made up numbers. To get a real idea of the values to assign things, a token economy would need to be set up and lots of trading done.

But that's the basic notion. What do you think?

Tough Shit

Tough Shit

would be a pretty cool name for a line of durable---

outerwear,

underwear,

camping gear,

etc.

Pretty much anything durable could be sold under the label "Tough Shit" and it would catch on quickly.

Amid the Noise and Haste

Got to a box while cleaning, and inside was my high school yearbook.  

I know my high school experience wasn't the greatest of my life.  I was in a state of angst up to transferring to a new school in 11th grade, and had no friends for the first 3 months there.  But since then, time has passed.  I sat looking back at the experience with a sense of...not nostalgia.

Nostalgia is a feeling on the surface.  What I got was something so much deeper.  Reading the comments people had written, I began to embody the self I was in the 1990's.   This dusty part of my memory was like one of the boxes, just waiting there for me to delve into.  I've gotten this kind of memory before.  Every memory has its own distinct flavor, and I could taste what it felt like to be that kid.  It was refreshing.  I began at once to want to go running, and to do ridiculous amounts of math.  

So I can see why people sigh longingly over their high school years.  I think some part of my brain has transferred all these memories into a 'good' folder.  Egocentrically, I can say 'this is part of what made ME, so of course it's good.'  However, even stuff I went through 2 years ago, or 6 months ago, have their own memory-taste.  Call it place-ness or once-ness...whatever.  I am not in the best place I've ever been in my life (I mean it's okay...), yet I expect the overall sensations of this moment will seem good when I look back on them 10 years from now.

What you eat.

During the week sometime I began running on low energy.  During this time I felt like buying a big screen television and voting for Ron Paul.  What the...?!  It appears I'm highly susceptible to advertising when I'm exhausted.

When I woke up this morning, however, I was alert.  My senses were heightened, and even the slightest movements caught my attention.  Usually I wake up pretty alert, but this was different.  My vision and hearing were acute.  I felt more...like I was prey.  

Then I remembered what we ate for dinner last night: Steak.  It was as if all the body chemicals from the meat had entered my system, and I was feeling things the meat felt before becoming food.  Alert to predators, and looking for my herd.

Something I heard about Druidic folklore said that when you eat of an animal, you take on its traits in some way.  What a  trip! 

Is there any research about this?  And is there a practical use for it?  I smell a great conspiracy theory creeping up!  If we could be kept exhausted and eating lots of bovine meat, we would all be susceptible to advertising and act like herd animals.  

Oh, wait...

Shrink to Fit

The art of rearranging things to fit into a space.

If there was a word to match that definition, I would have entitled my blog that.

I've been, more or less, cleaning my way through the house.  Currently I'm finding clever ways to stack boxes in the basement and bedroom, since it's easier than thinking about what to throw away.  Generally this process will result in a few extra square-feet of space to stack something else.

Would it be called "puzzle-boxing?"

One might suggest getting rid of the things would be more practical, since this would result in more space, and (more importantly) more time to do things other than puzzle-boxing the junk in the basement.  Yes, dear reader, but what would I do then?  At least with this mind-taxing task, I will be sure to have something engaging to do. . . forever.

Got to run now, stuff's a-waiting.