Intro
Random thoughts on creativity, automatic-writing-style and the Lost Generation.
Phase 1
Press down on the keystrokes and record whatever it is that seems to be transmitting through you at that present moment. The whole object or aim of this form of writing can be thought of as the process of “getting out of your own way”. Thanks Alan Watts. It may come off as puzzling, and seems at the beginning of most creative endeavours counter-intuitive. If (I) the author of this story, am not the one truly writing, this piece of prose. Then who is? Good question.
Inspiration
How might we describe these moments of ‘indoscintrices’ that flash across our brains like a crack of thunder? Anyone in the business of creating knows this feeling. When Indoscintrices connect, in our head causing some type of firework show as fresh input flows in. It hits you in a flash, causing people to scramble, furiously attempting to (capture) something from that moment before it's gone. "Ah ha!" Moments. Light bulb goes off. Get the point?
Any artist worth their salt. Be it a writer, actor, designer, stand-up-comedian, painter, poet, and so on. Have a deep respect for these types of processes. Artistic expression, creative output, whatever label you feel comfortable slapping on the side of it. The creation of something from an idea in your head. Or perhaps, it even starts in the realms of the unconscious and seeing it transmitted onto the page for the first time, thats when it becomes conscious. The process of Automatic writing is not for everyone, it certainly does not mean you will be the next James Joyce. But it might be a good way to start, if you have any creative desire that involves writing.
This isn't just some hog wash that came out of the blue. It is my belief that people have been thinking, and speaking about this for tens of thousands of years. You have to look no farther than the great Paleolithic cave art of Europe. To have your mind (blown) by what people were able to create. Even thousands of years ago, the best description that comes to mind that describes these impressive works of art, comes from Picasso, after emerging from the caves. He said “ we have learned nothing”. It was his belief that all forms of painting had already been known by people some 30,000 thousand years ago.
This may seem, hard to swallow. Especially if you are a believer that all people living in that time period. Were nothing more than ignorant cave people. That only through the post-enlightenment thinking have were really progressed in the evolution of human thought. Our place in the universe, and our understanding of that thing we call the Cosmos.
Phase 2
American psychologist "William James", along with an undergraduate student of his Gertrude Stein, working together conducted a study on the phenomenon. Which was called (automatic writing). The act of someone sitting down at a desk and punching out whatever happened to be in their head.
Gertrude was apart of the infamous Lost Generation. Collection of crazy writers, that lived in Paris, France. During post WW1 Europe. LOST GENERATION. Expats living abroad, in a city that was far away from home. Many, were freshly shell-shocked after witnessing events, that words, can not describe. Such as the trenches of the Great War. The war said to end all wars.
Gertrude Stein, an American Woman had an art collective in the heart of Paris. Which attracted the likes Scott F. Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, T.S. Elliot.
Just to name a few. These artists, who in many ways, left a cultural stamping on our collective memories. They captured something about an epoch of time.
The writing style of the lost generation has many different facets to it. But for the sake of brevity you might be familiar with the term Modernism.
The common name referred to this type of writing is stream of Consciousness. ( SoC ) something that on a experiential level. I stumbled into.
Sitting around, speaking with a university friend. We would joke of the so called "lost generation" at that point in time, you could measure by creative output in a ‘thimble’. We wanted to find out where the next "paris of the 20's" was happening. Cough, cough, Berlin.
Paris, 1920’s
Like in every generation surely they longed for other times. The renaissance perhaps. To discover where all the magic was happening. An oasis of creativity, where secrets get poured out. The way, any artist, has respect for the thing that drives their creation of art.
Needing to express, the craziness inside their own heads. In the end, it helps, it hurts. “Trying to become a fiction author, using the technique of the party animals you wanted to be. Now living in the place where, you can make your creative dreams, manifest into reality."
Maybe this all sounds like pontification, or proselytizing, or just plain bull-shitting.
The Muse
The point I was alluding to early, was inspiration, creativity, and where it come from? What the (honest) Neuroscientist would have to conclude, is we really do not know yet. And leave that line of thinking up to the philosophers. Now looking further back-in-time (creativity) was already expressed by the Greeks. Now they did, this in myth and story. One that to our modern post-enlightenment, mechanistic reduction philosophy of the world. Does not realize its clever utility. That stating memories, cultural stampings, and teaching them in narrative form. As parts of stories, that can be easily remembered.
If I am still so privileged to have your ear, please follow this thought experiment with me. We know that Ancient Greeks and Romans. Used a technique called the "memory palace" as a way to store information. One that could be accessed and used to tell epics kind of like the equivalent of ancient films. On center stage of the royal court.
Think of this technique sort of how you can use RAM on a computer to store data. For you tech nerds.
Furthermore, the best way to remember things in your ‘memory palace’ is to make them outlandish, fantastical, and magical. That way they truly, stand out. In your minds eye. Sounds like an advanced technique to me, and makes you wonder also depending on how much (Graham Hancock) you have read.
How one might invent and cultivate such techniques.
Yes, the evolutionary part of my brain thinks that it could have been created by necessity, before we had invented modern luxuries that allow the outsourcing our memories.
Myth the great devices used for thousands of years to store and pack information into stories. The more large and fantastical they become, the easier it is to remember them. And inturn pass them down to new initiates, family members, and children.
So after that long rant. Let's remember where we left off. The Muse. The Greeks as I was saying, they already had a name for the place where inspiration and imagination met. The cleaver criss-crossing path, twisted with magic, and resourcefulness.
The Greek name to this force behind, human creativity. The muse, and told all sorts of (tales) to describe the devious nature of something, that is still hard to grasp even 2,000 years later. Training or better yet attempting to train one’s muse seems to be nothing short of a life-long-journey.
One that doesn't seem to end, even as you get better. There are days where nothing comes out. Or what does, is complete and utter garbage. You can have all the imagination in the world, but without the discipline to bring it into form. Your expression, stays in the non-material. It's truly a gift, to be writing these words, and for those whom, haven't given up near the beginning of this text. I appreciate, for sticking with me.
No I still do not where creativity comes from, but maybe one day.
Nahhh
