A return to the self story

Mark Ziniel worked construction all the way through college, then got a job as a manager with cargill. He hated it. Although he had to work long hours,  he felt that most of the time he spent was useless activity. He finally quit and went back to work building things. 

“I get immediate feedback from my customers and can see the results of my work,” he says, adding that he often hears highly paid professionals say they wish they could be doing his job instead of theirs. 

Create art. You may not see yourself as being creative or artistic. Most of us have these talents squashed flat under the steamroller of the three Rs. Re-inflate it. For a guidebook, read the artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to higher creativity by Jullia Cameron. The principles, tools and exercises will help you remove block to your creativity. They’ll also help you confront your own fears of being creative. Cameron wrote the book after she quit drinking, which she had previously used as a catalyst and crutch for her creativity. 

“The Idea that I could be sane, sober and creative terrified me,” she said, “implying, as it did, the possibility of personal accountability. ‘you mean, if I have these gifts, I’m supposed to use them?’ Yes.” 

Here’s another shibboleth about creativity that you must let go the nation of “art’s sake.” In her book the reenactment of art, Suzy Gablik says that art must be more than art. It can and should have purpose. Self-transformer, she says, cannot come from ever-higher material expectations; “it’s more likely to come from some new sense of service tho the whole from a new intensity and personal commitment.” 

Be truthful with yourself in answering this question: would you be happier living in a glorious big house paid for by your toil at a boring job you hate, or living in a small cottage spending your workdays creating something that is beautiful in your eyes because of it’s purposefulness in service to others? 

People who recognize their potential are constantly bridging the gap between inner and outer. Tjeu omvest the external world with meaning because they disown neither the world’s objectivity nor their own subjectivity. Anthony storr, Solitude: A return to the self.