[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Td8NUbLiU]
Welcome to Week Three of Jamie Ridler’s The Next Chapter: Wreck This Journal! Please enjoy this week’s stories of random wreckage:
1. Control. Controlled creativity. Controlling other people’s creativity. Thanks to my roommate and fellow Wrecker Katherine Kunz, I’ve been thinking about the relationship between control and creativity. I don’t have any profound thoughts about it yet, but the question of the day for me is, “What is the relationhip between control (or lack thereof) and creativity? Watch the video (above) and you’ll notice Katherine talking questioning her impulse to “control.”
2. Closing time at the local meat market. I have a fun crush on one of the butchers. This particular day I realized with glee that the store had just closed. If I waited outside, my crush was likely to emerge soon. Sitting on a nearby bench, I opened up Wreck My Journal (I bring it everywhere, after all!) to a random page. “Dedicated to internal monologue,” it said. Perfect! I started writing some affirmations, but quickly transitioned into writing about how silly and nervous I felt:
3. Camping. On a 24-hour excursion last weekend, I woke up early and decided to take my journal for a walk. With the book bouncing behind me on the end of a string, I hiked the 400 foot drop to Lake Chabot. Through dust. Over dead leaves. Across fallen eucalyptus bark. Soon I discovered (to my delight and surprise!) that my book had a 2-foot long tail made out of eucalyptus bark (wish I’d snapped a picture!). Runners-by look at me like I’m crazy, and I was certainly embarrassed. But I walked on! Here’s a picture of the damage I did:
4. Last week’s Tuesday night InterPlay class ended. As we chatted near the shoe shelf, I showed Marcus my wrecked journal. The first page I opened invited me to “ask a friend to do something destructive to this page. Don’t look.” How serendipitous! Marcus left for 2 minutes and returned grinning, dripping book in hand. Today I turned to the page and discovered a dried and soapy mess:
P.S. In case you’re curious, my crush did come out five minutes later. I promptly discovered that I’m less enthralled when we’re not discussing what meat I’ll buy. Now that is fascinating…
Hey Gretchen! I miss you and your creative energies. I heard a piece on NPR about The Op-Ed Project, and I wanted to challenge you to participate. Go here (http://www.theopedproject.org/cms/) to learn more about it, but basically there is a ridiculous disparity between how many op-ed pieces men write vs how many women write. Our thought leader body needs *you* to shake, wriggle, and whoop it up!
Hugs,
-Jake
I truly do NOT understand the concept of deliberately ruining something precious- especially that housing one’s thoughts. To me that is not letting go of control, it is wanton abuse?!?
It never fails! When watching a WTJ video, there is always uncontrollable, infectious laughter! Great wreckage! Sorry about the meatless crush 🙂
Patricia, I think part of the point is that it’s a release and a relief to play, wreck, and destroy while creating. When everything is precious to us, we may hold back or not play full out, we may not experiment, we may not try something new out of fear of ruining our precious book. By playfully destroying this journal, we get to practice stretching our boundaries in this small way, which may in turn encourage us to stretch ourselves in other areas of our lives. That’s part of it anyways! 🙂
Great job with the wrecking, Gretchen!!
Letting Go…
Let loose and allow the magic of creativity to flow. Happy wrecking! You’re doing great. Looking forward to your next wreck work! 🙂
Wonderful wreckage! And I’m sooooo liking the videos that you and others are doing–so much fun and laughter!
What wonderful giggles in your video! I loved watching the experiment and how these moments of wreckage throughout your week bring us a little peek into your life 🙂
Patricia, I think with this book what makes it precious is our interaction with it – without that it’s like a blank canvas waiting for a painting to bring it to life.
Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts.
Dear Aunt Patricia, for me the experience is about what Leah & Jamie have said…the fun of the interaction! I’ve had such silliness with friends lately as we interact with the book. And I’m noticing I get even more wild, creative ideas when I’m letting myself be destructive. In the book The Artist’s Way, the author talks about writing morning pages (30 minutes a day) and then destroying them. Like organicseyes says, it’s an exercise in letting go. Believe me, I need a lot of practice in letting go — as I work with teenagers who don’t necessarily want my agenda, as I date, as I find out that my house is about to be put on the market! The more I can practice letting go in this fun, creative, supportive way, perhaps the more I can have ease around it in my daily life.
Them be my 2 cents.
I love you!
Gretchen
I watched the video – How fun! I thought it was funny when your wrecking partner said she wanted to flip the page but wasn’t sure if you’d be happy with that. Your walk sounded fun, too. I love that your book grew a tail! even if it was just temporary.
What wonderful ponderings! It sounds like the book is giving many of us new things to think about. It looks like your walk did some serious damage- nice!
Fantastic video! Hands-on simultaneous collaborative wrecking! Such team work!
On the control issue, one aspect might be that we need a certain level of passion and a certain level of energy to create freely. At the same time, we need to recognize the point where some control must be restored and find a balance. Without balance, we could run ourselves off the rails… the question of course is how far to let things ride before we pull back.
Love this, Barbara! (I’m so glad that we’re revolving around each other…).
Yes…there does need to be a balance, and starting with passion and energy (which feels like “lack of control”) seems to be the best way to create.
I perform in Wing It, which is the improvisational performance group for InterPlay. We spend time practicing telling stories, doing dances, and singing songs — all improvisationaly. Interestingly, when we teach the improvisational forms to non-performers, we encourage people not to edit and to say whatever they feel comfortable saying in the improvisational space. This is important practice, because we have such dominant inner-editors!! And so folks who attend InterPlay classes learn a lot about themselves by letting themselves have the unedited passion/energy, and then taking time to notice what came up for them.
However, on the performance end, we learn NOT to say the first thing on our mind. In fact, we discover that the second or third idea that comes to us is often infinitely better than the first. And so we wait, and listen, and choose accordingly… This points to the need for control, and awareness…and balance! I’m starting to teach an InterPlay performance class on Tuesday nights in Oakland. It will be fun to play with this idea…
Nope, still don’t get it, too contrived. live in joy and abandon, but not proving by destruction that one is free.