inventive

Can-jo, originally uploaded by gurdonark.

Everyone uses the term creative with a kind of mantra-like intonation that once was reserved for terms like "spiritual". I find something appealing in the notion of art-as-religion and religion-as-art. Yet I like the idea that people are inventive as well as, or in lieu of, being creative.

I like the notion that a kind of humility and self-sacrifice is necessary to invention or creative pursuits. I'm often amused, too, that people draw broad distinctions among different pursuits of invention or creativity, when the difference may be one of mode rather than substance.

I like, too, the idea that the true test of the value of creative endeavor is not money, or accolades, or even accolades by the *really insightful people*. The true worth of invention is and creativity and craft s the way that it gives life a kind of meaning. For some, it's unimaginable to live without those bursts of insight and direction.

I think it's an advantage, in a way, though, to enjoy creative pursuits but not to consider oneself particularly gifted or creative. To be second-rank spares one the burden of disappointment in oneself.

I read a weblog which made the well-trod point that perfection is the enemy of done. The key is not to be perfect--people are pretty much denied that by definition. The key is to do the things that matter to one--and to do them as tasks to be done.