Love as Creativity

[Received]

When I create something (a word, an idea, a tune), the payoff for my action is found in the very created thing itself. I'm not looking to feel good, even though feeling good is a side effect of it. I'm not looking to make a profit, although that could again be a secondary possibility. I find happiness in not merely the creation as a finished product, but in the continual aspect of creating and recreating until the end is here.

This, it turns out, is precisely the description I have of helping other people, of showing them benevolence in whatever form, whether this means my good intentions or actually practically aiding them in some way. The intent is toward the blooming of the self of the other through my willing goodness toward them, precisely the morphology of benevolence, which also results in their growth in at least a minimal sense. That is, to love another person is to help them unfold their selves, for no other reason than to unfold them (self-unfolding is an organic activity). It breaks down barriers and allows the organic process of self-unfolding to occur. This self-unfolding culminates in a returned love from the individual who was initially loved. Love is the act of bringing the other to a (higher) state of love, and this progression is precisely the unfolding of the self, which includes a fulfillment of the individual in embracing his or her values and meanings -- what it means, loosely, to become oneself.

Love is creativity. In loving I am creating (always the present progressive; there never is a point at which love is enough) the other person with his or her own ontological supplies.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

What you are describing sounds existentialist in the Sarterian sense of creating ones self out of a void, rather than having a pre-existing essence.

I think that there has tio be a mixture of the two. People have pre-existent capacities and propensities, for example intelligence, emotion,understanding. But they need to be honed and developed both spiritually in the fact of eternal truth and temporally in the context of specific issues.

 

[Received]

I think what you're describing is exactly what I believe. I'm a Kierkegaardian, but I was channeling more Carl Rogers. He believed that the goal of therapy should be creating a safe environment for the client (through unconditional positive regard, empathy, authenticity, and warmth), which she can use to unfold herself throughout sessions -- to have the kernel of self buried within take root because defenses are lowered.

Basically, what Rogers was instilling was a sense of love packaged in therapy form. That same style of relatedness is what I'm talking about in our daily, non-therapy affairs.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Didn't Rogers believe in something akin to "buddha nature", that everyone had a loving and human essence waithing to be realized?

 

[Received]

I don't know if he put it in Buddhist terms. He was very influenced by Kierkegaard in his ontology of the self. He thought there was a unique individuality within us waiting to become unfolded. He didn't put this individuality in a religious context like Kierkegaard; he thought simply allowing the individual to be in a safe environment (one perceived as safe by the client) would organically result in the self unfolding itself. He thought the task of the therapist wasn't (as was very common at the time) to work as a teacher or directive professional who guided the client and toward whom the client had as much a professional (i.e., non-personal) relationship with as possible. With this unfolding of individuality comes certain tendencies that are common to other people's experiences, such as the appearance of an internal locus of control, an acceptance and trusting of one's own emotions, etc.

Rogers gets far too little credit. He's just as good or better than Rollo May, Viktor Frankl, and the other psychologist-philosophers.

 

[Nooj]

That is, to love another person is to help them unfold their selves, for no other reason than to unfold them (self-unfolding is an organic activity). It breaks down barriers and allows the organic process of self-unfolding to occur.

Doesn't the creation reflect the creator? For my part, I think of love as a form of creation also, but with the result (and not necessarily the conscious intention) that the beloved resembles the lover more closely.

 

[DisingenuousChristian]

For the longest time I held the opposite view. That love is constant, creativity on the other hand is fluctuating and wayward. A part of me always wondered how great artists could become so egotistical at times. I know I might be being a tad judgmental here, but its a fact. The pride in creation, one's own energetic frenzy, can sometimes override the impulse to love. Now though, I see the problem really within our own selves and not the creative act in itself. Now I am taking a much more integrated view regarding creativity, and that it somehow is not compulsory, but indicates a higher reality.

 

[Received]

Doesn't the creation reflect the creator? For my part, I think of love as a form of creation also, but with the result (and not necessarily the conscious intention) that the beloved resembles the lover more closely.

I definitely think that happens, but I wonder if that's more a (perhaps unconscious) preference by the beloved toward the lover rather than a natural ingredient in the process of loving.

 

[Received]

For the longest time I held the opposite view. That love is constant, creativity on the other hand is fluctuating and wayward. A part of me always wondered how great artists could become so egotistical at times. I know I might be being a tad judgmental here, but its a fact. The pride in creation, one's own energetic frenzy, can sometimes override the impulse to love. Now though, I see the problem really within our own selves and not the creative act in itself. Now I am taking a much more integrated view regarding creativity, and that it somehow is not compulsory, but indicates a higher reality.

Perhaps you're saying that previously you perceived creativity as somehow intrinsically related to arrogance, but now you see that arrogance is an independent variable from creativity. Ironically, I'd say the pride in one's creation is often linked to a desire to be loved -- "look at me, look at what I'm done, accept me, love me, adore me!"