Rita on creativity and friction

Creativity and friction

From DeMarco, Frank. Rita's World Vol 2: A View from the Non-Physical (Kindle Location 3524). Rainbow Ridge Books. Kindle Edition".

(A) Let's say a few words about friction.

(Q) All right.  I'm not sure I posted our convesation the other day where that came up.

(A) Doesn't matter.  You are not obliged to post everything that happens to you.  Are you going to start taking photos of your breakfast and posting them?

(Q) I'll take that as a rhetorical question.

(A) What I was getting at is simply this.  A main deterrent to creativity is internal friction, and a main cause of internal friction is blockages, and a main cause of blockages is - how shall I put it?  Fear? Disagreement?  A struggle among your constituent community?

Psychology knows very well the sort of situation or reaction that can construct blockages withn a person, but because it regards individuals as units rather than as communities functioning as units, it pathologizes what it sees as internal conflict, hence underplays the common.

No, put it, it underplays the fact that such conflict is inevitable, even health-giving.  But conflict is productive only if the parties of the conflict growas a result of it.  Grow in understanding, grow in sympathy, grow in ability to deal with one another with respect and even appreciation.

The conflicts that you experienced at Hampton Roads, for instance, or in any romantic or non-romantic relationship you ever had, or - more subtly but no less importantly - in any assimilation of new material that contradicted or modified what you thought you knew - all these "external" conflicts (for the book that changes you may be looked at as an "external" source of change) are of course internal, or they would not affect you.

So - conflict produces friction.  To the degree that friction wears down the rough edges, that's all to the good.  To the degree that it jams up the works, not so good.  And the goal is not to keep producing friction, but to keep producing greater harmony through (rather than despite) the friction.

If you will consider friction as a potentially productive factor and will willingly workwith it, you will make progress toward integration rather than producing greater blockages that will leave you feeling diminished and less creative, less productive.

This is true of conflict whether it seems to you to be internal or external, for of course they are the same thing.

That's enough for now about friction.  I thought it worthwhile to give you something to post, as your experiment is meeting response.