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Loneliness, grounding, creativity.
Loneliness becomes a creative superpower if we let it.
Chris Valdheims
April 02, 2024
Listen to this episode: “Loneliness, grounding, creativity”
I spent much of my life trying to get away from feeling lonely.
Only recently did I begin to understand that maybe loneliness wasn’t something to fear at all but something to embrace. If I could find a way to embrace it, maybe it could become fuel for creativity.
In the book Loneliness, Clark Moustakas kind of tipped me off to this:
“I began to see that loneliness is neither good nor bad, but a point of intense and timeless awareness of the Self, a beginning which initiates totally new sensitivities and awarenesses, and which results in bringing a person deeply in touch with his own existence and in touch with others in a fundamental sense.”
And because one quote just ain’t enough, here’s this:
“[E]xperiencing a solitary state gives the individual the opportunity to draw upon untouched capacities and resources and to realize himself in an entirely unique manner. It can be a new experience. It may be an experience of exquisite pain, deep fear and terror, an utterly terrible experience, yet it brings into awareness new dimensions of self, new beauty, new power for human compassion, and a reverence for the precious nature of each breathing moment.”
That whole book (which I am still reading, by the way) has helped me to understand that not only is loneliness a fundamental human state (surprise! We all feel separate!) but that it’s also a source of some grounded, creative power if only we let it be that.
I say it’s a grounded, creative power because I’ve understood that my best creative efforts come when I can stand alone, create without reference to others, and really dig into what I want to see happen.
There’s also an overlap with play, which I consider a way of creating just for the joy and fulfillment an act brings rather than action for a goal.
I trust that you’ll get it.
Listen to the podcast; I also discuss how the roots of my aversion to loneliness began in foster care in the 1980s and what Andre 3000 had to say about trying new things when I saw him play his flute at Luna Luna a few weeks ago.
Go ahead and let me know if any of this speaks to you.
Listen to this episode: “Loneliness, grounding, creativity”
PS - say hi, please. 🖤