Friday, June 07, 2002

This may come as no surprise to some, or perhaps most. But a few folks might related I warrant. Folks feeling a little down, or perhaps experiencing higher levels of anger at other folks who are just being who they are.

I was feeling both of late. A sort of slow sapping of my life energy over the last couple of months. Nothing serious on the outside, still showing up for work and kicking ass. My friends still talk to me. My cat is happy and purrs. But a general frosting of malaise was slowly spreading and I wasn't keeping in shape, and was a little short with folks.

Now I have found partly why. I was not being creative enough.

Sure, I'm making a database with an engineer at school that I designed. Sure, I've written a manual, and some other stuff. But those things have a lot to do with other people. Ah yes, other people. So complex!

I'm talking about being creative alone. On a project nobody knows about and may never know about.

A project so secret that you yourself are not on a need to know basis until perhaps the very moment you start.

For some people, like me, there is a special kind of joy in this kind of work. It is the work bench in the garage with scrap wood begging you to walk up simply with the idea that you are going to make something out of wood, or at least start. Staring at the different pieces of scrap wood and making things in your head can be a meditation in itself. I think it is a sort of re-charging of your mind. An emptying of life's complexities.

For some it is gardening. You're not sure what you're doing, but you get the gloves and go out to check some plants. You might dig a little, you might not. You will probably stand and stare at your garden for a long stretches though and then get to work on what comes into focus.

As a kid, this was Legos. There is a joy in sitting alone, with no timeline, no expectations from others. They don't even know you'd begun your project. Directions are not the thing for this time. This is the time when you dump your Legos on the floor and walk around seeing what sculpted shapes appear out of the square plastic pieces and then build it. But it can change mid-way from a house to a plant and nobody's timeline or budget will be hurt in the slightest.

This is the value of working in a top secret environment. You are free to create.

So this weekend I made a flow chart for a Web site. It was sort of an experiment in the effect of free-flowing creativity on mood. I spent at least an hour on the arrows connecting the boxes alone. Anyone (almost) watching would have thought I'd lost my mind. First they were blue, then they were black, then they were gray, then they were black, then they were curved, then straight, then right angled, then a mixture. What fun. Nobody was expecting this at work mind you. Nobody even knew I was doing it. But on Monday I paraded it around saying basically, Look Mom. Look what I made! I feel better.

I used to get the same feeling messing around with hoses and water. All you folks out there with self awarded Ph.Ds at age 8 in hydrodynamics with a thesis on water and it's relationship to dirt and rocks, know what I mean. We should have a conference - strike that, then it wouldn't be top secret.

---------------------posted by Caleb John Clark on 6/07/2002 01:05:00 PM