Creativity

No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve in quality as it goes along, or that the point of playing it is to reach the finale. The whole point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening. It is the same I feel, with our lives; if we are unduly absorbed in improving…we may forget altogether to live.
-Alan Watts

I found this quote on Lynda Klau's website, Life Unlimited: The Center for Human Possibility. It immediately caught my attention and brought forward a question - How do we balance setting goals and living in the moment? Does one preclude the other?

I think not. I believe they must both be present. Without goals/dreams we wander aimlessly, blown by the wind and without living in the present we never realize the pure joy of being blown by the wind.

To me, this is not an either or question. We must have both but be unduly absorbed in either. The goals/dreams set the structure of our moments and the moments combine to make our goals/dreams. The symphony (our life) will reach a finale but do we enjoy the journey?

I have been reading about creativity in Scott Jeffrey's book, Creativity Revealed - Discovering the Source of Inspiration.

In the foreword he states "Creativity is intrinsic to the evolution of life. It is the manifestation of the hidden substrate of all existence, termed "consciousness". "

Scott Jeffrey invites us to a new paradigm of thinking, from the linear to the nonlinear. In the above quote, the linear is about the improvement and finale of the symphony and the nonlinear is about the moments of playing and listening. It is a shift from understanding a process to experiencing the object. Jeffrey proposes Old Word Thinking is cause and effect, we must be able to see it and measure it or it is not real. New world thinking, instead of one thing causing another, is unfoldment, emergence when conditions are appropriate.

In my work as a coach I am very conscious of the conditions we create and live in. What environment do you create at home? at work? with your family? How do you create these environments? I believe it is important to ask these questions, it is part of the unfolding of our lives. These questions allow us to adjust our lives to realize our dreams. But first the dreamer please!

Does the symphony of your life inspire you each day?