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[fajrdrako]

...The best way to forecast the future is to create it. - Michael J. Gelb

Comments

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

oh dear, why do I have to think of sorcerer's apprentices at times like this :-)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Most appropriate!

This does sound to me as if it might have been from a Bujold novel - the kind of aphorism a Vorkosigan might come out with.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

My tendency would be to add the following: "... or you will let others create it for you."

I hope you don't think I'm rather controlling ... but sometimes, if you have an idea that others like, it should be you who's bringing it to fruition.

(not that I'm very good at that ...)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, it's a good point. One should be committed to what one creates.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

ah, but the situation you find yourself in is by no means allways what you have created. I am actually quite suspicious of the concept of çreation' in many situations. (Influence, steering, words like that are more convincing to me)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you mean. What does 'creativity' mean to you? "Influence' and 'steering' usually relate to one's relations with other people, not with one's own inner inspirations.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about the amount/level you can be said to have the control over the flow of your life/future. I am inclined to think there are more elements you have less grip on than we in our society (and the US perhaps more than the European, don't know about Canada) belief, both inner factors (like eg genetic and character) as external (both the minimal like who you happen to sit next to in class to the more major like in which country and era you are born in) that do steer and influence (not quite determine I mean).
I think it is bnoth good to to act like you can determine (a lot of) your future and keep in mind that you can't to the extend that you like to feel. It is a bit of a 'being torn apart position', but I am afraid that can't be helped...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, we can only influence the world a very little bit, but we can influence and change outselves. I don't think the degree to which we can do it matters: if whatever we create has a great impact or none, it still changes us and improves our lives - I have great faith in creativity as a psychological process regardless of its effect on others or on the outward situation. I'm talking about the inner life here.

But if that isn't our future, what is?

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

oh no, I have felt too much trampled by the world and tried too hard at the same time to build an innersanctum and feel free in that without much succes to believe in a sort of stoic freedom (or is that not what you are thinking of, am I just reminded?) (Note, this was during my schoolyears). I have since come to the conclusion that much inside myself (and that does mainly include my constant lingering depressions) can be nudged but more by influencing the outer world than by an inside out approach. Am I making sense?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm not postulating stoic freedom - which isn't possible. But more like... working within whatever boundaries we have, whatever they are. If influencing the outer world is what works for you, then that's the kind of action to go for. I'm trying to expand the notion of creative options, not to restrict it. Everyone has a different path, and it's usually a trial and error sort of thing to find out what works.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

personally, my problem was that I could do it entirely from with in. Fight the demon, build my own pristine innerworld. Body nor people were to be taken into account. Now I know I am a physical being and I need people. Not all people hate me. So In that respect I believe I have figured out more about myself even though the demons won't be slayn (sorry I do have a borderline depressive day, were thinking tends to turn bleak)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

So for you, the first step in creativity was to acknowledge the vlue of the outer world, and set up a relationship between that and your inner world. And that's a creative act, the kind of thing I was talking about.

So you're having a bad day - I hope it brightens up soon.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of something Lymond says about planning your future and then the hand of Fate reaches over your shoulder and upsets all the pieces. Only he says it in far more elegant terms. *g*

Possibly to Richard, IIRC - the scene in the dell in GoK perhaps? ::goes to check::

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

Found it!

GoK, Arrow 1990 edition, p.448:

"Why? I made one mistake. Who doesn't? But I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands."

I had another Lymond moment earlier today, during a otherwise uninspiring lecture on ergonomics. The sacrum was labelled in a diagram of the spine. I wrote "sit on my sacrum and sneer" on my notepad, knowing it was Lymond but unable to place it. I've just realised that he says it to Will Scott about Mariotta.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Lymond quotes! I love you.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oooh, good icon!

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That's my favorite look for her in that movie. So Eden-esque, I can't stand it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Edeneque is a good thing. I think she's gorgeous in that scene.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

:D I agree, on both points.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I love that passage. It's one of many I used to recite at bus stops. Still do. Badly. "Of course it left me maimed and unserviceable, deformed and dangerous to associate with, but what has happened to common charity?" I think I have all the words wrong now... time to reread.

"sit on my sacrum and sneer"

LOL - wouldn't have got it! Well done!

I love it when random words or contexts evoke memories of Lymond and his mellifluous comments.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Only he says it in far more elegant terms. *g*

Lymond says everything in more elegant terms. Isn't it Gideon who says to him, "I wish to God you'd talk in prose sometimes, like normal people"?

Gotta love Gideon.

Yes, Lymond is a good example of this. As of so many things.