Cultivating Creative Potential

“You don’t understand. I could’a had class. I could’a been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it.”
Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront” (1954)

A friend of mine is pregnant. This, combined with watching the second season of “Six Feet Under”, in which Claire applies to Art School, made me think.

I read somewhere this great quote that when a child is born, you do not know what its strengths and weaknesses are, what it is gifted for, but you have to do your best to figure it out and support it in that direction. No matter what your preferences are.

And I thought about my parents and my childhood. The support I got, not only from my parents but also from school. Let’s just say that my parents love me and I love them, but support according to my skills was perhaps not their strong suit. And I wasn’t the type to fight for it, which, yes, was my fault. And school … well, if puberty scars are one of the driving forces in our society, then thank’s for the drive — but direction and skill training would have been nice, too.

In short, I think whatever chance I have had to develop my creative side professionally was missed — I had missed it. And this chance is over now … for good.

Which, actually, is not good and very hard to accept. I think this might be one of the reasons, if not the reason, why I invest so much time and effort in a site like this. Perhaps it’s just the need to do at least something that is related to creativity. Perhaps it’s the wish to help others avoid what happened to me during my childhood. Although most times I try not to think about the past.

But sometimes I do look back … at the shitty art course we had in school (in some schoolyears), or the one drawing course I payed from my own money, and which did only teach my that I apparently had no talent for drawing … and at my own projects that I did privately.

And I think doing these private projects, this amateur stuff, worked for a while. But now that release valve is broken. And the tension still keeps rising, the pressure builds up day after day, the desire to create, to express the things that I see, with my eyes, and with my mind … and yes, perhaps even with my heart, occasionally, … and I am lacking the means to express myself, because I have never learned how.

And now I think it’s too late to learn.

(and yeah, hello mid-life crisis 😉 … nah, not that bad, but it made me think)