The Coming Age of Imagination by Phil Teer

Author:Phil Teer [Teer, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783528028
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2019-12-22T16:00:00+00:00

Psyched up to risk all you’ve got

if you only had the confidence to take the

first step?

Basic income will set you free.

Lewis Hyde describes creativity as a gift that flows through the world and benefits all as long as it is kept moving. In his book The Gift, creativity is imagined as a force that flows through an artist and into their art, and their talent is a gift that is passed on to the world in the form of their art. Art is both the product of that gift and a token of it.

Hyde identifies a similar process in gift-giving in old folk tales and among ancient tribes. In tribal cultures, a gift would be passed from one person to another, perhaps from the chief of one village to the next, during visits. It could remain with the recipient for a while but at some point it must be passed on again, perhaps to the chief of another village. When the gift is passed on, the giver is ready to receive a new gift. The gift that is kept in motion brings good fortune to whoever passes it on and the gift that is kept brings misfortune. Eventually, the gift will complete a circle and come back to the giver, only to start its journey again. As the gift moves from village to village it bonds people together, builds a sense of community and gives all involved an investment in the future. The movement of the gift and the obligation to pass it on is a ritual that connects the various villages together and builds a shared culture.6

In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, Hermes invents the lyre, the first musical instrument. He gives it to his brother Apollo, who is immediately inspired to invent the pipes. If the first creation hadn’t been given away, then the second would not have been possible. You give in order to get.

For the artist, the gift can be seen as a creative spirit that flows through them. He or she is taken over by this spirit, translates it into a work of art and then that becomes a gift that has an effect on whoever sees it in the gallery or reads the book, listens to the song or watches the movie. The gift passes through the artist and into the world, making deep connections as it goes.

One creative act leads to another and soon we have something new. Anyone who has ever tried to write knows that one sentence will often follow another.

When the novelist Haruki Murakami is focused on his writing he experiences a separation from his normal state of being: ‘It’s a great feeling to enter this elastic, unrestrained state, as if my imagination had pulled free from my thinking mind to function as an autonomous, independent entity.’7

Murakami experienced the creative spirit as a transformation. It has also been described as a trance-like state of focus. As the creative spirit flows through a person, they experience a feeling of complete absorption in what they are doing.

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