December 12, 2007, 3:53 p.m.
M. Kathleen Casey - "You are the only person on earth who can use your ability."
“Every flower has the right to bloom.”
I am reading a book called The Artist’s Way right now. The premise is that everyone - everyone - is creative, but that our creativity can be blocked. The author is insightful, clever, entertaining, and wise all at the same time, and the book is actually outlined as a 12-week course with specific steps and exercises to do to stimulate your creativity… I’m not sure why I started out this entry with that, it just came to me, and lately I’ve been emphasizing and trying to honor that part of me that just comes to me, my intuition. In some ways I think it is the most sacred part of me. My intuition is my inspiration.
The other I yelled at the bus stop. I had an irritated day, one of those days when everything irritates you (I’m fairly certain because I was PMS-ing). So I was irritated by everything - the people in my life, the circumstances of my life, my job, the weather - all of it. Only I didn’t fight it. I embraced my irritated-ness and I yelled as I walked to the bus stop and yelled as I stood at the bus stop (don’t worry, no one was around … or if they were they fled pretty fast). Yes, I was the crazy person talking to herself as she walked down the street, complaining and kicking the pavement, pausing only to admire a cute black lab or to notice the small white flowers that hide their tiny faces under small, thick green leaves of hedges in the Sunset. And you know what? It felt great. It felt great not to fight it, not to try to do positive visualizations or make a list of all the things I’m grateful for, or imagine the world as all-connected, or any of the rest of it. I believe in a universally-connected universe, in a complex energy system that is full of bright learning and mystery and joy. But at that moment, I didn’t feel like spending energy on guilt for being pissed. I just WAS pissed. I reveled in my annoyéd-ness, completely and totally feeling what I was feeling, letting it course through me until it actually bubbled up through my mouth I yelled, frustrated and peeved and irked and all manner of aggravated upsetness.
I believe there is a profound lesson here. I believe that there is a paradox between being authentic and genuine and rising to all of the potential within you to be a compassionate source of pure energy and love in the world. I believe there is a paradox and a tension between learning life lessons and just being alive. I believe that there is truth and power in being a vessel that you allow your feelings to pass through, understanding that eventually, all things will pass and that in order to be healthy and real sometimes you’re going to yell at the bus stop.
Vanya and I had a conversation about The Artist’s Way, and she mentioned that in fact, she thought the baseline was that people AREN’T creative, and it takes a lot to MAKE them so. The author (and I) believe that in fact, the opposite is true: everyone is creative, from birth. No exception. Every human being has within them tremendous potential to be creative, whatever form that takes - ideas, music, science, poetry, cooking, dancing, engineering, painting, fashion, writing, comedy, drumming, speaking, teaching, knitting, filmmaking, managing, just to name a few. Society and upbringing and education and that nun in fifth grade that slapped your hand for staring off into space and dreaming in your own private dreamland (great source of inspiration) - they are the ones who helped block your creativity, but it was always there to begin with. It doesn’t take anything to make someone creative - they already are. Taking away the blocks reveals their iridescent, melodious, freeform, creative core - and the expression of that always lends more grace and beauty to the world. There is nothing more inspiring, uplifting, or mesmerizing than witnessing genuine, uninhibited creativity.
When was the last time you fingerpainted? When was the last time you sat down for an hour and just read a book for fun? When was the last time you went barefoot in the mud just because? What was the last game you played? When was the last time you put on your favorite song and danced around your living room, breathy and distracted by belting it out at the top of your lungs at the same time? When was the last time you yelled at a bus stop?
Language spot:
(Prize for boringest way start to an essay): “Issues of poverty, gender, race, and ethnicity in the urban environment interest me.”
“My B.S. thesis was about modeling temporal power-law which appears in neuronal adaptation.” (Sure sounds like BS to me …)
(Dad will appreciate this one): “As a university with a long history, Brown is very delicacy like its location Rhode Island.”
“The undergraduate life is going to be over in next year, and I want to apply for graduate studies.”
“He was a central figure in programs for exchanging humans from the United States and Japan.” (Ahh… pretty sure this person was referring to an exchange student program…)
“After I left graduate school, real estate investment markets were formed all over the world. For example, the market was formed in England 2006.”
“This case was chalk full of fun twists, turns and roller coaster dips and it was my job to tame them.”
“Although I later discovered that mature algorithms like Tomasulo preceded me, my original work still threw me into cheer.”
“So much depends on your favorable action upon my application.”
“My adroit technical skills were quickly satiated, but it would be an HPLC assay that would test my resolve.”
“I am prepared to challenge academically, passionately and sincerely to the great mountain called the ‘postgraduate course’.”
“Appendage
As lack of testing center in Korea, I had difficulty in registering TOEFL TEST.
Even I managed to register a test, very few test-day remained so that I couldn’t manage the schedule.
For this reason, I took the test in bad condition while I was busy for graduate exhibition
If it might be possible, I would submit another test score when I take one more test in January.”
This was a classic essay:
“Yes, I am the girl. For the chocolate of my life, thought I do not know what I am gonna get, I believe it will be sweet, for it is the combination of my talent and effort.”
From the same essay:
“I am also a member of Chinese Association of Young Volunteers, and have held a lot of activities to help the blend, the Aids, and so on.”
same essay again … I love the color theme:
“I am hard-working with my study, but I am not a bookworm. For me, life is so colorful. I am interested in psychology and have red all books related to Psychology in our library.”
The subtlety … aah, the subtlety:
“I believe that Texas A&M University can help me to fulfill my dream. So now, would you please offer me the chance to fulfill my dream?”
“I tried to conquer one after another difficulty on my way pursuing scientific ideality and the pursuit in graduate study in such a university as yours can offer me great power in strengthening my integrated background. With good chance, I can show you pleasant surprise.” (Does this not sound like an overqualified flasher? … I’ll show YOU a pleasant surprise …)
If anyone can tell me what the f this person is talking about, you get a prize:
“The enlarging divisions between national identity, ethnicity, and political parties in Taiwanese society not only obviate social homogeneity and polarize people, but also attach to political forces in the form of partisan competition or democratization.”
Or this person:
“I want to solve another cause except for the financial crisis that central government subsidize to control the local governments and want to make local governments strong as the financial institutions had made efforts to be strong to acquire customers from the world in order to survive.”
“I have observed and learned what it takes to be a legal professional throughout my entire life. My sister also studied law who went into a fashion field.”
“Mr. Li, Erte I know is an enthusiasm youth who is wishing to study the theory of in few people.”
“This several communications made us very happy and had amount harvest for each other.”
“It extremely gratified me that he is the one who with a high degree of sense of social responsibility and enthusiastically tireless diligence, and I firmly believe that he enjoys the submarine talent and the competent to do Crime and Criminal Justice research and the work.”
And from the comments section and/or individual e-mails to me:
“Comments - your service is excellent...but a little expensive...”
“Hi Melanie,
Thank you very much for your edits. I'm very pleased with how tight the
essay has become with all the extraneous fat removed. :) My hat is off to
you!”
“Hello Curtin.
I'm waiting for your responses about my last e-mail.
Actually, I'm in a hurry.
Thank you for your cooperation.”
“please express the essential meaning of my sentence in another way because I copy many of them,especially those in red!!! you must make some change to them.
Please highlight my advantages: academic performance,hardworking,personal character, tenacity to chemistry.”
“do I boast it too much?”
“Please make sure the admission committee can understand why my interests and career goals changed and what I did for this goal clearly and easily. Do NOT make them confused about passed history and changed interests.” (Right … cause that was my plan as your editor, to confuse the reader. Good thing you expressly told me not to do that.)
Interesting tidbit:
According to Dr. Glasser, a psychiatrist and psychologist specializing in education, counseling, and business, retention rates vary widely depending on the ways info is transmitted. By his estimates, humans retain:
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
70% of what we discuss with others
80% of what we experience personally
95% of what we teach to someone else
