Finger Painting by Robert Fritz
Children
love finger painting. In case you have forgotten, or have never had the
pleasure, finger painting begins with globs of paint laid down on a piece of
paper. Then you begin to move the paint around, and you can make shapes, forms,
lines, designs, and so on. You continue to do that until something pleasing
shows up. Robert
Fritz, composer, filmmaker
and organizational consultant is founder of Technologies For Creating® and
author of the international bestseller 'The Path of Least Resistance' and the book 'Your LIfe As Art'.
A finger painting approach is one in which you play
around in some unstructured way until something worthwhile appears. Many people
organize their lives around such an approach, hoping that, with enough
activity, something good will occur.
While finger painting is fun, it is limited. Most artists
do not use finger paints, nor a finger painting approach. Instead, as their
visions become more involved and complex, they begin to shift to a different
method, that of beginning with a vision of the end result they want to produce.
Phrases like "go with the flow," and "let
it be" give the impression that if you "let go" all will be
right with the world. This is a popular myth that can't translate into real
life because of the nature of things. If you go with the flow in white water
rafting, for instance, you end up crashed on the rocks. There are forces in
play that will take you where you don't want to go. Therefore, you must first
decide where you want to go, and then navigate your way to get there.
It is surprising how many people don't know what they
want. There are a few reasons for this. One is the hope that, if they hold the
right beliefs, things will turn out. They fail to consider the primary question
in the creative process: What do I want to create?
Others hope that there is something that can make them
happy, satisfied, fulfilled and complete. They just don't happen to know what
it is. They think that if they find the right thing to do, they will have found
the magic key to success. Since they can't seem to find this elusive key, they
are unable to commit to anything for very long. They are plagued with doubts
about which is the right course. Therefore, they think they don't know what
they want because their focus in not on questions of what they want to create,
but rather on what process will bring them salvation in one form or another.
If we shift our focus to the creative process, we shift
our motivation from finding what I sometimes call "the 'it' in shining
armor," – the thing that will do it for you – to what you actually want to
support. Rather than life as finger painting, hoping something good shows up,
we can begin to envision desired outcomes. Without an organizing principle, it
is hard to organize. It is hard to mobilize your energies, discover the best
processes, learn on the way to achieving your goals, and develop creative
strength and stamina over time.
Does it matter what you create? Yes, and no. One thing I
have written that is often quoted is: "It is not what the vision is, it is
what it does that is important." Well, I partly agree with that. If you
have a vision, and you go ahead and create it, the act of creating itself
teaches you lessons about creating. And, like any skill, the more you create,
the more you can create. So, in that sense, it doesn't matter what you happen
to be creating.
On the other hand, it often does matter what you are
creating. There are things we care about. There are things we want. And one of
the things we want is to live more of the life we want to live. On one level,
there is the quality of our lives. The feeling tone, the rhythms, the sense of
relationship and relatedness, an experience that what we do matters (at least
to us), and that we have a sense of a positive future.
On another level, there is the outward manifestation,
which might include the physical circumstances of our lives, our professional
experiences, our creative projects, our involvement with the world in which we
live.
And, within the scope of the creative process, some things
we want may seem small: a nice meal, a fun time with the kids, a shared moment
with a loved one. Some things we want may be much larger types of creations: a
career, a family, mastery of a difficult skill, a large project such as writing
a book, building a business, creating health, etc.
Large or small, step one is always the same: begin with
knowing what you want to create. There are moments in life in which the finger
painting approach is just fine. But when your aspirations become focused, they are
more easily created. Then your vision becomes a powerful organizing principle.
© 2008 Robert Fritz
