Creativity

I had an interesting day.

I guess the story starts back a few days.

I pulled an all nighter on Thursday night in order to get my essays in. It was kind of fun. Free of the interestingly self-imposed stress that a few of my classmates spew over school work really helped me to open up and realize how affected I was by that scene and it's reflection in my attitudes towards the work last term. I had a really good time writing my essays. I found myself awake at 4 in the morning laughing at myself, hard. You could chalk it up to delirium, but I am pretty sure it was something more than that. I was laughing at my own self-imposed intensity. 90% of the time the intensity is real (OK, we are going to break here for a quick digression. Where the hell do I get these percentages? I use them all the time, but where the hell do they come from, sometimes I just talk to hear my own voice, I can be as big a tool as anybody I guess. "That's the Breaks, Break it up, Break down"), but there are certainly times when I just don't know what else to be and it happens out of habit. But the point is it is good for me to realize it every once in a while and laugh hard at myself. It's what keeps my life in perspective and my healthy ego in check, which, let's be honest, is important.

So anyway, in trying to recover both mentally and physiologically from the all nighter and essay writing I decided to go into London today. I forced myself out of bed at the crack of 11:30 and headed in to Trafalgar Square where the Russian Winter Festival was going on. It was a really cool vibe. Traditional Russian music and dancers. Russians everywhere speaking their language and wearing furry hats. The beer flowed like wine and it was a good time. After hanging out there for a bit I walked around the city. Went by an outdoor photo exhibition put on by Oxfam of before and after pictures of the areas affected by the Dec. 26th Tsunami. Afterwards I headed up to Camden Town. It's the young bohemian hipster area in north London. I felt like I was back in good ol' SF, it's all superficial, but there was at least a moment of home.

Got back here and passed out at like 10 watching Malcolm X. Woke up at 12:30AM and haven't been able to sleep since. So it's four and I am about half way through Bob Dylan's Autobiography "Chronicles" and I am having these thoughts about creativity. First of all let me say this about Dylan: the man is a FREAKING GENIUS. His music, his writing, all of it. And what I am about to say takes nothing away from the statement I just want to identify that my thought process came surrounded by his words, even though the two are mostly unrelated.

Where is creative social thought? I am talking about non-artistic thought. Creativity is part and parcel of art, but where is creativity in our social structure? Philosophies would be nice, but where are the thinkers of our time saying, "shit, this is just not working, something has to change, and here is something that hasn't been tried before. Lets try this." I don't think that everything has been thought of, I think there have got to be solutions out there, I just don't see it happening. I see people running in circles, creating philosophies that are inescapable paradoxes, perpetuating a system that is spiraling, maybe downwards, but certainly not forward. I would like to think that I could be part of a revolution, people who are open minded and see not only the problems but also solutions.

Innovation and creativity in the Thought-process, not just art or music.

I'm not finished, in fact I have just begun.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

-Henry David Thoreau-