Part I focused on why and
how the Resiliency Rap, “A
Generational-Digital Diatribe” (aka “Dinos & Digits”) kept evolving in my
mind- and screen-scape, delaying its formal (“kicking & screaming”) entry
into the world, to the chagrin of some others.
And not just in my mind was it worth the wait. (See a reader’s kind words below.) In review and preparation for Part II,
“Characteristics of an Evolving Creative Process and Product,” it became clear
that the tools and techniques already outlined had application beyond poetic
creation. (Email stressdoc@aol.com if you missed Part I.) The first five,
1. Engaging the Forest and
Trees
2. Challenging and Clarifying, Unifying and
Lightening the Message
3. Eyeballing and
Ear-calling
4. Trusting My Creative
Discontent
5. “Going from Good to Great”
would enrich or expand
all manner of problem-solving procedure, practice, and product development. The Part I closing verse (predictably,
slightly amended ;-) certainly captures this:
The search for perfection
does not equate
With an intent to go from
“good to great”
When you can’t get out of
that starting gate.
But if being stuck in
that mental muck
Should prove more pluck
than mere dumb luck
Then one will stumble and
crawl, dream and incubate
So neurons may pursue and
whirl, scream and gyrate.
What’s next…Aha!...that creative
state?
And the Part I essay
about that desire and drive to explore as well as patiently-passionately persist
and design closure and meaningful completion of the “Resiliency Rap,” inspired
at least one reader, a creative entrepreneur in her own right. AM wrote: Love This. Your midnight oil is burning
bright. You kept on going and got it just right!
Merci mademoiselle. And now, without further ado…Part II: the final five hands on “how to”s (process)
for maximizing creative evolution (product):
1.
Striving for Visual Metaphors.
To foster message sent equals message absorbed, not just received,
especially when dealing with abstract ideas, as a writer and speaker I want to
put as much flesh as possible on the conceptual skeleton. Visual metaphors are a powerful language tool
for making ideas visible, understandable, and memorable. They are especially useful when trying to
build a bridge between seemingly different ideas and viewpoints or needing to
traverse different assumptions and belief systems. And, naturally, designing an apt
mind-bridging metaphor may take time.
Purposes of
Metaphor
A good metaphor not only
helps one walk in another’s shoes but, especially, to feel their bunions. However, sometimes the purpose of metaphor is
to reveal or heighten difference and diversity, that is, to acknowledge or
reinforce barriers between divided camps in a “culture” war. For example, when it comes to our “digital
divide,” there are folks who acknowledge if not embrace being symbolic
“dinosaurs” as a way of poking fun at themselves and/or preempting
criticism. Conversely, some Boomers and
beyond wear the metaphor like a generation-dividing, Purple
Heart.
A satirist uses metaphor,
especially visual metaphor, to poke
fun and expose issues or people by making them larger or a bit more “out-rage-ous” than life. Some metaphors may go beyond the visual; they
range from emotional and/or philosophical firecrackers to TNT explosives – definitely meant to
startle and surprise if not awe and mesmerize; and sometimes to challenge a
worldview and even to browbeat.
Defining
Metaphor
Wikipedia cites Metaphors We Live, by George Lakoff and
Mark Johnson. The authors argue that
“metaphors are pervasive not just in language, but also in thought and action.
A common definition of a metaphor is…a comparison that shows how two things that
are not alike in most ways are similar in another important way…a metaphor helps you understand and
experience one kind of thing in terms of
another.”
Here are two examples of
metaphor followed by an simile-analogy:
a) the ship plowed the sea and
b) the security team plowed through the
crowd, and c) when you add the words “as” or “like” – e.g., the security team
broke up the crowd like a plow through a field; you make explicit the
implicit, analogous image of a plow breaking up and tossing soil aside while
making furrows in a field. Getting back
to metaphor, the authors have conceived the notion of “conduit metaphor.” That is, a speaker can put ideas or objects
into words or containers, and then send them along a channel, or conduit, to a
listener who takes that idea or object out of the container and makes meaning of
it. In other words, communication is
something that ideas go into. The container is separate from the
ideas.”
Provocative
Metaphors
Of course a container
and/or its contents can exaggerate and be quite provocative; as previously
mentioned this may emphasize or exaggerate divisions within a culture. As a Stress and Team Building Consultant, I
recall how the work floor at a 6000 person US Postal Service Processing Center
was called the “Postal Plantation,” while management was situated in their
“Tower.” The numbing effects of
never-ending high-tech letter sorting work, while not back breaking like picking
cotton, can make one pay a mind-body (carpal tunnel) toll. And role-status tension is heightened if you
feel spied on by a (literal, metaphoric, or technologic) over-seer in “The
Tower.”
Generational-Digital
Metaphors
As final
examples, visual metaphors in “A Generational-Digital Diatribe” (see
Rap below), purposefully if not playfully spotlight troubling contemporary
issues:
a) Talk “thumb trash” and
bully. For this younger generation,
being “all thumbs” is a compliment to their digital “texterity”; in my era “all
thumbs” was an expression for clumsiness.
Today, alas, some are known for hurtful or abusive texting – talking thumb trash as a form of “con-textual”-emotional
bullying.
b) The stanza on “viral
attacks” (itself a classic fear-inducing cyber-metaphor), identity theft, and
information leaks concludes with a contemporary, scene-setting (if not stealing)
comparison:
Even big Uncle Sam cannot safely “hold em”
Playing NSA Poker with
one Mr. Snowden!
A
metaphoric, David vs. Goliath game of cards hides and reveals “data” and weapons
as adversaries maintain a façade – from the inscrutable to one of bravado;
bluffing and posturing along with making a quick exit (or being run out of town)
are all intrinsic to the lore of both poker and spy craft.
2.
Sharing and Soliciting.
For me, a key part of the generative process is letting go of the draft,
coming out of that creative cocoon, and allowing my ideas and images to fly in
public space. Timing is vital; solicit input when the work is in a “semi-solid
state”: strong enough that you believe in its basic
substance and style; fluid enough to move pieces around, to incorporate useful,
even challenging, input, to explore novel forms and functions. If the work is already set in stone, there’s
likely to be a wall between message sent and the receiver. It’s difficult planting a new tree in
concrete. (Or when living in N’Awlins,
for good and bad, trends that were flourishing on the east and west coasts had
difficulty making local traction when surrounded by an Iron Swamp!
Evolving a
Generational-Digital Diatribe
Asking for and being open
to feedback definitely enabled “A Generational-Digital Diatribe” to grow. A friend shared how in the ‘60s she wrote a
poem about daily calls home becoming a lifeline and symbiotic cord for an
anxious roommate. This story helped
update the concept and spurred these two psychological and paradoxical
lines:
With all things wireless, you're always on board
Alas, still tied
to that e-umbilical cord?
I also showed my work to
a late-20 something at the local coffeehouse.
He agreed with a number of issues often articulated by those on the other
side of the digital divide. This
Millennial specifically mentioned recently expressing concern to and for a
friend who is always online or on a gadget.
He also said one word – “privacy” – and, immediately sensing a glaring
gap, I quickly worked out the opening of this stanza, completed by the
above-cited “NSA Poker” metaphor:
It’s “Privacy vs.
Piracy”: we’re under viral attack.
And now identity theft from the
neighborhood hack.
Finally, I received
kindred comments from a newsletter reader who could well relate to this
generational-digital divide. (Talk about
a cultural inversion, she was expectantly waiting for her daughter’s “hand me
down” Android phone.) In fact, she
signed her email “Dino Gal-Pal.” And a
day later, this innocent prompt spurred major upgrades: the techno-generational divide phrase “Dinos
and Digits” and, as analyzed in Part I of this essay, a recurring
hook:
Dinos and Digits, both give me the
fidgets
Digits and Dinos, they sure can be
whinos!
also
Dinos and Digits can be mental widgets
Digits
and Dinos, like spoiled bambinos.
3.
Letting Go with the Rhyme Scheme.
As I’ve been writing the
“Resiliency Raps” these last several months, it’s become clear that in addition
to searching for images, a word that beckons for a kindred rhyme may send a mind
off in widely divergent or improbable directions. For example, when sketching my “Privacy vs.
Piracy” stanza, I was conscious of literally being in the NSA shadows. The National Security Administration is
located in Columbia, MD, where I live. I
can’t precisely recall if an image of a card game came first or the “hold em”
phrase. But soon thereafter I connected
the perfect rhyme with the phrase and had conjured NSA poker between Uncle Sam
and Mr. Snowden!
With the following couplet, having my teacher in a state of shock,
facilitated finding a word to capture my feelings about some of those letter
combos that in my mind give acronyms a bad name: “crock!”
Those short cut acronyms…geez, what a
crock
My poor English teach…in anaphylactic
shock!
And in the next to last
stanza, wanting to help (with a touch of irony) one afflicted with a
cyber-addiction, I invented a video game – “Past Life
Regression” ® – with a less violent, “calmer shooter” position. And after enough rounds of “ear-calling,” the
homophone “Kama Sutra” (an ancient Indian text of love-making positions) grabbed
me as a preferred (and a tad absurd) game playing position. It certainly connects through rhyme the
Internet’s and the gaming industry’s commercial embrace of sex and
violence.
So to expand your
creative problem-solving possibilities, try free associating to key words and
concepts with rhyme – for-“word” to the absurd; turn playtime into the
sublime!
4.
Resisting the Urge to “Just Be Finished.”
In a TNT-3 D – Time-Numbers-Technology — Driven-Distracted-Disrupted – World, one
feels compelled to get into or react to the next big, hot (or cool),
thing(s)…right now! In the interactive and “multi-taneous moment,”
(a Stress Doc invention), “when instant gratification seems a delay” and linear
thinking and storylines are passé, we’re all jumping from one (or a dozen)
sensations or experiences to the next. (For example, consider your TV watching habits
before remote control or your current driving-interactive media routine – smart
phone, GPS, music, perhaps web/TV, hopefully not texting – routine.) According to media theorist Douglas Rushkoff,
much of our society is abandoning a cause-effect timeline and mindset; “planning
for the future” skills are diminishing, for both individuals and
corporations. With this desire or
ADHD-like need to be in multiple places and spaces at the same time, often
absorbed in “crisis mode,” we are struggling with Rushkoff’s “Present Shock” (Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, 2013). In such a climate, survival appears to depend
on clicking to and rushing through (or putting aside) one task or event as
another seductive or mind-numbing stimulus pops up on your mental and physical
web-screen.
The Critical
Question
The critical
question: How to elevate “Mindful Focus”
over “Multi-taneous Choices/Chaos” and “Just Be Finished?” When I think back to my “Big Easy” daze,
taking a break from my doctoral studies to engage in three times/week
psychoanalysis for a year with a Tulane Medical School psychiatry resident (for
$10/session; the starving grad student rate), it truly seems a bygone era. Lying on the couch, eyes closed, brain-body
dreamily drifting, my awareness wandering and concentrating at both a conscious
and subterranean level, suddenly seizing on fleeting or fiery emotional images
and memories, converting these to cathartic expression, tears flowing, tales of
family illness and angst, shame and grief.
From this echo-system evolved an “ivory couch” process for accessing and
focusing the deepest and broadest recesses of mind. (In fact, it was during this period that I
first started dabbling in poetry, purposefully playing with and ultimately
synthesizing rhythms and rhymes, imaginings and
ideas.)
Bottom Line
Recommendations
The bottom-line: We
need time for a meditative and integrative present, not only an interactive
multi-media NOW. I don’t mean a
never-ending blissful state; as we’ve seen, ongoing creativity also requires
tension (personal and/or interpersonal), if not some torment. I’ve previously referred to Dr. Richard
Rabkin’s concept of “thrustration” – when
you’re torn between thrusting ahead with direct action and frustration as you
cannot yet put together the pieces of your puzzle. At an implicit level, this smoldering if not
agitated state is percolating, comparing, and connecting ideas and images often
necessary for that unexpected Aha!
Three specific
recommendations: a) sleep on the problem
to find that missing piece or to regain fresh sensory antennae b) if exhausted
or experiencing brain freeze, put the work aside for a period of time; walk away
for an hour, a day, perhaps an extended stay (a period of hibernation), and c)
allow that state of “thrustration” to discover new internal and external
information through psychic eruption or by allowing the simmering tension to
evolve into a quiet phase-covert process of organic gestation, that is, take an
“incubation vacation” to hatch a new perspective.
5.
Recognizing “You Can Go Home Again.”
In the
“screwball comedy” film, “His Girl Friday,” Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant are
forever verbally sparring. Recently
divorced, they still work for the same newspaper. However, Russell is planning to ride into the
sunset with her new beau (and his mother!!).
Despite the still obvious chemistry, Grant’s attempts to have the two
reconcile is repeatedly and always cleverly rebuffed. Exasperated, Grant finally blurts out, “My
dear, you have an old-fashion notion of divorce…You think it will last
forever!”
So too with a creative
process and product. Misguided by
thoughts of final perfection or, perhaps, itching-impatient to move on to the
next project, we may lose sight of the bigger picture: closure is not necessarily forever! As William Faulkner observed, the past is never finished…it’s not even
past! Not only are our hard-earned
efforts a continuous source of motivation if not inspiration – whether
self-satisfied pride or constructive discontent; hopefully, not frequent
humiliation, though, if courageous, this too is potential creative fuel – but we
can literally return and construct new and enriched variations on a theme. During this interim, we have changed; and, of
course, times have changed, even if the original work has remained
untouched. In looking back, we find a
meaningful foundation, or a conceptual tree pattern, to build upon. Once
again we are ready to move forward, to alter the landscape…to introduce an
expanded or streamlined mindscape, to modernize or redesign a vision while still
maintaining a connection, still being nurtured by our tree-forest
roots.
Closing
Summary
So explore these five
evolutionary characteristics:
1. Striving for Visual
Metaphors
2. Sharing and
Soliciting
3. Letting Go with the Rhyme
Scheme
4. Resisting the Urge to “Just Be
Finished”
5. Recognizing “You Can Go Home
Again”
Strengthen your creative
process and product and also…Practice
Safe Stress!
Mark
Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a
Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is a national keynote and webinar speaker and
"Motivational Humorist & Team Communication Catalyst" known for his
interactive, inspiring and FUN programs for both government agencies and
major corporations. A training and Critical
Incident/Grief Intervention Consultant for the National EAP/Wellness Company,
Business Health Services in Baltimore, MD, the Doc has also led “Stress,
Team Building and Humor” programs for various branches of the Armed Services.
Mark, a former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal
Service, is the author of Practice Safe Stress and of The Four Faces
of Anger. See his award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" -- www.stressdoc.com --
called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR). For more info on
the Doc's programs or to receive his free e-newsletter, email stressdoc@aol.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A
Generational-Digital Diatribe:
Still, Don’t Be Afraid to Pet the Dinosaur (aka “Dinos &
Digits”)
Why does the digital world spin so fast?
Why can't I simply hold on to
the past?
Facebook, tweeting, smart apps...oh what's next?
It’s no longer
“Safe Stress” ™…now it’s “Practice Safe
Text”!!
I am the turtle; the Gens are the
hare
They’re always racing, but why…and to where?
Those short cut
acronyms…geez, what a crock
My poor English teach…in anaphylactic shock!
And do you use email to settle a score
With that mortal colleague residing next
door?
The “e” in email – your Face-to-Face
“escape”
Go blast that e-rocket fueled by sour
grapes.
Okay, three hundred messages that for you
await
May have something to do with a volatile
state.
Does always being wired make you real
tired?
Or are you real tired of always being so
wired?
Don’t blame the company; they’re just doing their
best
In getting the troops to “Do More with
Less.”
It’s not PTSD but PTDS –
Post-Technological Deluge Stress!
Dinos and Digits, both give me the
fidgets
Digits and Dinos, they sure can be
whinos!
Smoldering anger, the anonymous stranger
Why not live large on the edge of danger:
Talk “thumb trash” and bully; “be happy, don’t
worry”…
Having an avatar means never being
sorry.
Hey, it’s just a multi-tasking age
Where ADHD is all of the rage.
When instant gratification seems a delay…
BOREDOM!
ASAP: Start
texting away.
With all things wireless, you're always on board
Alas,
still tied to that e-umbilical cord?
Oh,
no…can't use your phone or get online...
Blood
pressure PANIC surges most every time.
It’s
“Privacy vs. Piracy”: we’re under viral
attack.
And now
identity theft from the neighborhood hack.
Even
big Uncle Sam cannot safely “hold em”
Playing
NSA Poker with one Mr. Snowden!
Why do these young guns keep talking so
fast?
And spelling, of course, now a thing of the
past.
Or when presenting – a web session or on a Skype
phone
Please, an occasional pause…don’t just drone on an
on.
Dinos and Digits can be mental widgets
Digits
and Dinos, like spoiled bambinos.
Younger folks say “inclusion,” a trophy for
all
Forming an identity that’s off the Facebook
Wall.
When grizzled gens want winners not mere
pretenders
One must divide Alphas from “those bleeding heart
losers.”
Of course, many leaders don’t have a clue
For an e-conference, just what do you do?
Without live eyes and warm bodies keeping safe solid
ground
“Little Napoleons” start throwing their own head-weight
around.
And for those folks who both drive and talk
As if life is but one stroll in the park.
Or sleepwalk and text…and what do they
expect?
Either I clear a path or I’m the pain in the
neck.
Believe me; it wouldn’t take much of a dare
To shove that damn phone right up their…hot
air!
Man, I’m sounding more and more like a
grouch
Maybe what’s needed is another approach.
Dinos and Digits, there’s got to be
limits
Digits
and Dinos…the fate of White Rhinos?
A
crusade: “Save
the Analog Whales”
™…Is it
asking too much?
But
first, lure digital hare-brains from their wired world
hutch.
Pull
heads out of smart phones; break FOMO ** media habits.
(Though
“Get a Life” Coaching is for “Dinos,” not just “Digits.”)
Of
course, do not go cold turkey with a cyber-addiction…
Play
“Past Life Regression” ®; the “calmer shooter” or Kama Sutra ***
position.
Find a
virtual guru, one who’s no techno slouch…now
Plug-and-play
(if not hug-and-pay) on
that 3-D “smart couch.”
Well, let me reach closure, before I “break
bad”
On those always bragging about their iPad.
Consider my words, they are pretty rad:
I truly don’t mean to sound unkind…
Keep your iPad; I prefer an I-Mind!
** FOMO: Fear of Missing
Out
***
(sexual
positions illustrated by the ancient Indian text; personal
preference)
©
Mark Gorkin
2013
Shrink
Rap Productions
