On Waste and Creativity

Happy One Thousand Views to my remaining loyal readers out there. I wish the Dilettante had arrived at this auspicious occasion in better shape. I wish my posting wasn't so infrequent as of late, but I assure you that my priorities are honorable and well-considered.

Today John Lazur and I sparred over the concepts of wasted time and uncaptured creativity. I will confess, the conversation struck a nerve in me.

It came to a head because I was in a bad mood. We humans are essentially empirical beings. Our actions generally follow trial and error rather than active thought. Moods are consequently essential for dislodging our path from false minimums. So though John had been harping on me for awhile, it wasn't until today that I brought the issue to a head.

One of the most haunting aspects of my college experience has been the dogged feeling that I have neither grown nor improved upon the flawed person I arrived at Davis with. This is partly a product of the wholesale romanticization of the college experience perpetrated by our elders. Many people recall their college years being formative ones that combined crazy adventures with dizzying intellectual growth.

There was nothing so depressing my freshman year as reflecting on how much I must have been missing. It was consequently with considerable joy that I discovered and embraced KDVS and music the next year. Having an organization to identify with and access to amazing resources, I felt that KDVS was the first thing in college that I was doing right.

The crash in my grades precipitated by this newfound outlet seems in retrospect to have been inevitable. The boundless possibilities that I was so keenly aware of suddenly came crashing around my head as I was forced to recognize my own limitations. This was exacerbated by my realization that Davis was short of interesting, intelligent people. Apparently those with the big ideas, those that could get themselves past the bullshit and hang-ups of pseudointellectualism, had been handily whisked away to better colleges. I knew such people existed because I had known them in high school, but I found that Davis students were overwhelmingly either depressingly stupid or depressingly tunnel-visioned.

I found exceptions, though. One by one I cobbled together a collection of outliers that transcended the Davis norm. These people were about as smart as me and nearly as unique. Leo Protas was witty and affable, though we never completely connected. Adam Kendall and John Lazur were hung up on their brand of militant atheism, but were otherwise fascinating individuals. Allison was of course perfectly stimulating, if inaccessible. The two girls I've dated in the last couple of years, Kylise and Jill, also were dynamic discoveries of mine as well as a few other individuals that I never capitalized on. These exceptions ended up being impossible to congeal into a group, but my essential needs for thoughtful conversation had been fulfilled through patience and a keen eye.

That said, it has been remarkable how few hijinks my roommates and I have gotten up to considering that we have no shortage of ideas. We never formed a band. We never got anything to grow but a bit of sad garlic in our double-size plot at the Experimental College Gardens. We never started a bike repair shop out of our apartment. We never syndicated a "modern art" chain museum with forged art by fictional artists. We never hosted a clandestine bike race. We never used the library computers to fake ad hits for revenue on Howard's blog. We never fixed the stable of abandoned bikes that we "reclaimed" from campus. We never dressed up as each of our favorite Starcraft units for Halloween. We never killed and ate a duck from the Arboretum. Verily, our active minds have been sorely wasted through our years at college.

I started this blog as an outlet for my creativity, but for every post on here there are two unused post ideas. The truth is that a terrifically low percentage of my creative ideas are ever brought to fruition. The process of creation is a painful, abortive one. Partly, it forces me to only try the most worthwhile among them, but there is also no process that reeks so desperately of waste as creation. Every nougat of inspiration that fails to connect, every plan too oversized for real life and every idea that doesn't receive due time weighs heavily on my mind.

I suppose that we must in hindsight content ourselves with the best we can do rather than the best we think we can do. However, I will be the first to advocate setting one's aim continuously above one's capabilities. Discontentment is the price we pay for productivity and it seems a minor one-- usually. When discontentment overwhelms us we must remind ourselves of the calculus we once made so carefully in plotting our life approach. We must remind ourselves that some variation in fortunes and morale are to be expected along the way, and that if we only trust to our former selves we will ride them out successfully. If we did our calculus correctly, there will be no bright sunlight on the other side, simply a manageable cloudiness. We will continue to take what solaces we may and we will march on into the future, bearing our continuing frustration as our continuing pride. Satisfaction is for the weak.