working with a creative block

A creative block is due entirely to social conditioning,

Social conditioning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Social conditioning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


in that this creates expectations about what you will create, that cannot be fulfilled. First though we must identify what social conditioning is. Well. Best to describe it as pre-conceived ideas, beliefs, prejudices, rules, which are mostly good for society, but not for the individual. The difference between individual and society, being that, society is unfeeling. Mechanical. Whereas the individual is feeling and biological. So. Simply put. We fail to discriminate between what is good for us as an individual, and what is good for society, as a whole. Your expectations, being based on social conditioning, are simply not based on your inner needs; but on that social agenda that was programmed into you by virtue of you being born into a certain culture at a certain time.

(Sci-Fi Story.) A human is teleported to another world where everyone is tremendously creative and free but where there is no
social restraint or organisation whatsoever. The first thing the man sees is a man shitting the street and writing a sonnet at the same time. Gosh! The man enjoys himself tremendously, painting fabulous paintings, writing wonderful, post-modern, epic poetry!!!…. but is murdered the first time he goes to the pub, in argument over how frothy the beer should be! Gosh!)


Now. It is important for society to have rules and beliefs and laws. It is good that people promote social integration. It is good that people act in similar ways, especially regarding the less fortunate members of society. And yet, it is also good to be creative. It is good to express what you feel. And this means following your inner world, and that world may well be at variance the outer world. It may be negative. In simple terms the block is, how can I go against something I know to be good? How? And that will block you. It will trap you in a vicious circle you can’t extricate yourself from.

But let’s take a musical analogy. Say you believe that only complicated classical music is actually good or worth playing. This is a belief. A rule. Then to reproduce that musically you will have to spend many years practising to gain the necessary technique. And this is good if you achieve that goal. But realise. It is a creative block in many ways as this time will not be spent writing your own music and remember. Even a very simple piece of music, you could play with one finger, is still your creation, and not someone else’s. However. This not a fixed rule I am describing. It is quite possible for an individual to understand the pitfalls of ‘identification’ and to tirelessly study technique and still compose his own highly original compositions. This is an enlightened person. We all know them. Steve Reich. Frank Zappa. The problem of course being that we can’t all be genius. In this regard it is interesting to see how all piano lessons are geared to producing concert pianists regardless of whether it is statistically probable that the pupil will ever be a concert pianist!!! It would be much more sensible to gear lessons to something less ambitious and more creatively enjoyable for the pupil. This never done of course.

MOTHER.
“What! Are you saying my child couldn’t be a concert pianist! Arrrggghhh!!!!! Die You Mother-f**ker!

This also explains why vast numbers of people who had piano lessons early on, simply give up the instrument in later life, probably because they were not taught to do anything else, like compose, or improvise, or jam, or listen, but, BUT! just play Beethoven sonatas!!!!!!

But let’s look at writing. Say poetry. Poetry! What is socially conditioned expectation here? Answer is to be a poet, and to be published in a ‘quality’ publication. But to achieve that you will have to play the academic game. Your poetry won’t be ‘your’ poetry anymore. Instead it will be a response, academically, to the poetry climate. A very difficult and clever game indeed. (Plath played this game and won at it! But we must ask, at what price, considering how unhappy she was. What? You think it was all Ted’s fault?… well… there could be some truth in that.) That is if you have the ‘normal’ expectation. In this regard it’s interesting to note that very many well known poet’s like Blake, Villon, Rimbaud, positively did not play the academic game, we’re NOT published in ‘quality’ publications, and yet are the poet’s we treasure most! Hum. Above argument applies it must be remembered to those poets who want to be recognised as ‘Poets’!!! If you are happy being published in small independent mags all well and good and more power to you!!!!! And when I say your poetry, not your poetry, I mean you will be tricked out of finding your own true authentic poetry voice. I know there are exceptions to this rule. Clever bastards who do both at once, but in the main it holds good. Remember. It’s easy to simulate things if you are academically brilliant. And a true authentic poetry voice simple won’t conform to the norm. It will just conform to itself.

Let’s finish off with painting. Panting? No! Painting!!! The ‘cant’ here is that before Picasso could paint abstract or ‘wrong’ pictures, he has to first paint like an old master. What is this saying? It’s saying you can’t just paint. Express yourself. That bad. So it’s a block. It’s saying no. You shouldn’t. You’re not qualified. It discourages, doesn’t it? Think. So let’s reverse argument. If Picasso great because he could first paint like old master then so is anyone else who could do that, and there were lots of his contemporaries, who could, and they, they Horatio, are all quite forgotten. Panting, or panting, like an old master for them, didn’t mean doodley-squat. It didn’t help.

So here is same thing. An expectation. If you want to paint a picture, but if you think it must be a picture which other people will agree, is a certain sort of picture then, then, you have a block. Because, suppose you don’t possess ability, at that moment in time, to technically paint that picture?????????
Then you can’t paint, and you is stuck.

So to finish off. There will be many people who disagree with me here. They will require some more user-friendly and less challenging solution to the creative block phenomena. Or it will have to be some unique personal psychological hang-up thing. This will be so they can hang on to their block, because, let’s face it, it is useful to them. They have an investment in it. Well. I can’t help that, and to those people I say good luck. This then for the odd few, who may agree with what’s below.