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The Courage to Create
What if imagination and art are not, as many of us might think, the frosting on life but the fountainhead of human experience? What if our logic and science derive from art forms, rather than the other way around? In this trenchant volume, Rollo May helps all of us find those creative impulses that, once liberated, offer new possibilities for achievement.
A renowned therapist and inspiring guide, Dr. May draws on his experience to show how we can break out of old patterns in our lives. His insightful book offers us a way through our fears into a fully realized self.
A renowned therapist and inspiring guide, Dr. May draws on his experience to show how we can break out of old patterns in our lives. His insightful book offers us a way through our fears into a fully realized self.
104 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 6, 1975
626 people are currently reading
8,995 people want to read
About the author
Rollo May
75books799followersRollo May (April 21, 1909 � October 22, 1994) was an American existential psychologist. He authored the influential book Love and Will during 1969.
Although he is often associated with humanistic psychology, his philosophy was influenced strongly by existentialist philosophy. May was a close friend of the theologian Paul Tillich. His works include Love and Will and The Courage to Create, the latter title honoring Tillich's The Courage to Be.
Biography
May was born in Ada, Ohio in 1909. He experienced a difficult childhood, with his parents divorcing and his sister becoming schizophrenic. His educational career took him to Michigan State College majoring in English and Oberlin College for a bachelor's degree, teaching for a time in Greece, to Union Theological Seminary for a BD during 1938, and finally to Teachers College, Columbia University for a PhD in clinical psychology during 1949. May was a founder and faculty member of Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center in San Francisco.[1]
He spent the final years of his life in Tiburon on San Francisco Bay, where he died in October 1994.
Accomplishments
May was influenced by American humanism, and interested in reconciling existential psychology with other philosophies, especially Freud's.
May considered Otto Rank (1884-1939) to be the most important precursor of existential therapy. Shortly before his death, May wrote the foreword to Robert Kramer's edited collection of Rank’s American lectures. “I have long considered Otto Rank to be the great unacknowledged genius in Freud’s circle,� wrote May (Rank, 1996, p. xi).
May used some traditional existential terms in a slightly different fashion than others, and he invented new words for traditional existentialist concepts. Destiny, for example, could be "thrownness" combined with "fallenness" � the part of our lives that is determined for us, for the purpose of creating our lives. He also used the word "courage" to signify resisting anxiety.
He defined certain "stages" of development:
Innocence � the pre-egoic, pre-self-conscious stage of the infant.
An innocent is only doing what he or she must do. However, an innocent does have a degree of will in the sense of a drive to fulfill needs.
Rebellion � the rebellious person wants freedom, but does not yet have a good understanding of the responsibility that goes with it.
Decision � The person is in a transition stage in their life such that they need to be more independent from their parents and settle into the "ordinary stage". In this stage they must decide what to do with their life, and fulfilling rebellious needs from the rebellious stage.
Ordinary � the normal adult ego learned responsibility, but finds it too demanding, and so seeks refuge in conformity and traditional values.
Creative � the authentic adult, the existential stage, self-actualizing and transcending simple egocentrism.
These are not "stages" in the traditional sense. A child may certainly be innocent, ordinary or creative at times; an adult may be rebellious. The only association with certain ages is in terms of importance: rebelliousness is more important for a two year old or a teenager.
May perceived the sexual mores of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as commercialization of sex and pornography, as having influenced society such that people believed that love and sex are no longer associated directly. According to May, emotion has become separated from reason, making it acceptable socially to seek sexual relationships and avoid the natural drive to relate to another person and create new life. May believed that sexual freedom can cause modern society to neglect more important psychological developments. May suggests that the only way to remedy the cynical ideas that characterize our times is to rediscover the importance of caring for another, which May describes as the opposite of apathy.
His first book, The Meaning of Anxiety, was based on his d
Although he is often associated with humanistic psychology, his philosophy was influenced strongly by existentialist philosophy. May was a close friend of the theologian Paul Tillich. His works include Love and Will and The Courage to Create, the latter title honoring Tillich's The Courage to Be.
Biography
May was born in Ada, Ohio in 1909. He experienced a difficult childhood, with his parents divorcing and his sister becoming schizophrenic. His educational career took him to Michigan State College majoring in English and Oberlin College for a bachelor's degree, teaching for a time in Greece, to Union Theological Seminary for a BD during 1938, and finally to Teachers College, Columbia University for a PhD in clinical psychology during 1949. May was a founder and faculty member of Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center in San Francisco.[1]
He spent the final years of his life in Tiburon on San Francisco Bay, where he died in October 1994.
Accomplishments
May was influenced by American humanism, and interested in reconciling existential psychology with other philosophies, especially Freud's.
May considered Otto Rank (1884-1939) to be the most important precursor of existential therapy. Shortly before his death, May wrote the foreword to Robert Kramer's edited collection of Rank’s American lectures. “I have long considered Otto Rank to be the great unacknowledged genius in Freud’s circle,� wrote May (Rank, 1996, p. xi).
May used some traditional existential terms in a slightly different fashion than others, and he invented new words for traditional existentialist concepts. Destiny, for example, could be "thrownness" combined with "fallenness" � the part of our lives that is determined for us, for the purpose of creating our lives. He also used the word "courage" to signify resisting anxiety.
He defined certain "stages" of development:
Innocence � the pre-egoic, pre-self-conscious stage of the infant.
An innocent is only doing what he or she must do. However, an innocent does have a degree of will in the sense of a drive to fulfill needs.
Rebellion � the rebellious person wants freedom, but does not yet have a good understanding of the responsibility that goes with it.
Decision � The person is in a transition stage in their life such that they need to be more independent from their parents and settle into the "ordinary stage". In this stage they must decide what to do with their life, and fulfilling rebellious needs from the rebellious stage.
Ordinary � the normal adult ego learned responsibility, but finds it too demanding, and so seeks refuge in conformity and traditional values.
Creative � the authentic adult, the existential stage, self-actualizing and transcending simple egocentrism.
These are not "stages" in the traditional sense. A child may certainly be innocent, ordinary or creative at times; an adult may be rebellious. The only association with certain ages is in terms of importance: rebelliousness is more important for a two year old or a teenager.
May perceived the sexual mores of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as commercialization of sex and pornography, as having influenced society such that people believed that love and sex are no longer associated directly. According to May, emotion has become separated from reason, making it acceptable socially to seek sexual relationships and avoid the natural drive to relate to another person and create new life. May believed that sexual freedom can cause modern society to neglect more important psychological developments. May suggests that the only way to remedy the cynical ideas that characterize our times is to rediscover the importance of caring for another, which May describes as the opposite of apathy.
His first book, The Meaning of Anxiety, was based on his d
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July 25, 2019
Yaratma Cesareti kitabını haftalar evvel elime aldım ve okumaya başladığımda ilerleyemediğimi fark ettim. Rollo May’in bu durumla hiçbir ilgisi olmadığını anlamam ise oldukça zaman aldı. Çevirmen Alper Oysal, “Yaratma Cesareti üzerine� adında bir kitap yazsa bu kadar uzun yazabilirdi. Tam tamına 33 sayfa onun bana aptalmışım ve okuduğumdan hiçbir şey anlamayacakmışım gibi muamele etmesiyle geçti. Rollo May’in metnine geldiğimizde ise sürekli verdiği dipnotlarla bu süreç devam etti. Farkındalık, esrar, otantik, gebe kalmak ve daha nice kelimenin anlamlarını dipnotta vererek ve bu dipnotları yarım sayfaya kadar uzattığı görülerek bir şekilde bu kitabı eline almış okura cahil muamelesi yaptığı için çok rahatsız oldum. Bütün bunlardan sıyrılıp; önsöz ve dipnot(ç.n.) okumayacağım, çevirmenin ukalalığını unutacağım dediğimde, kitaba 10 hafta sonra tekrar döndüm�
Ve cidden, hafta sonu hobilerinizden bahsetmeyen, pazar günü ressamlığını es geçen, boş zaman aktivitesi olmayan yaratıcı sürecin bilim insanlarının, düşünürlerin oluş emeğinde yatan, bir annenin çocuğuyla normal ilişkilerinde ortaya çıksa bile çizilip sınırlandırılmaması gereken, varlığın ortaya çıkma sürecini ifade eden bir kavram olarak karşımıza çıkıyor yaratmak�
Yaratıcı sürecin “karşılaşma”nın yoğunluğu ile ortaya çıktığının anlatıldığı kısmı oldukça duyumsadım diyebilirim. Yaratmanın kapılıp gitmek, gömülmek, emilmek, dalıp gitmek gibi yoğun bir farkındalık ve bilinç artışı ile nitelendiğinden bahsediyor. Bir çocuğun oyuna dalıp gitmesiyle eşleştiriyor� Dans etmeye de benim benzettiğim bu tanımları, kendi üretimlerimde yaşayan biri olarak rahatlık, huzur ve çevremizde olan bitene kayıtsızlaşma olarak da görebiliriz. Kaygı ya da korkudan arınmış tamamen akmakta olan bir coşkuya kapılarak gerçekleşiyor. Bitiminde hissedilen mutluluk ve tatminin yaratım sürecinde hissedileni ise aslında coşkuya iten bir rahatsız olma durumudur diyor. Yaratma coşkusuna tutulmak isteyen biri öncelikle kaygısıyla yüz yüze gelmelidir açıklamaları ile devam ediyor metin. Burada Rollo May, Picasso’nun bir cümlesini alıntılıyor “Her yaratma edimi, ilk önce bir yıkma edimidir.� Ne zaman önemli bir fikrin ya da sanatta önemli bir biçimin öne çıkması söz konusu olsa bu yıkma edimi olmadan gerçekleşmesi neredeyse imkânsızdır diyor.
“Yaratıcılık, bilinci yoğunlaşmış insanın kendi dünyasıyla karşılaşmasıdır.�
Bilinç eşiği ve bilinçdışından gelen yaratıcılığın sadece sanat, şiir ve müzik için değil, uzun vadede bilim için de aslolduğunu ileri sürüyor.
En çok hoşuma giden kısım ise, çelişkinin yaratıcılık için bir dip dalgası olduğunu anlattığı kısımdı. Çelişki sınırları görür ve sınırlarla mücadele gerçekte yaratıcı üretimlerin kaynağıdır diyor. Akılsız kişiler kendisiyle çatışmanın kendi içinde bir uyuma vardığını anlamazlar diyerek sürdürüyor. Sınırlar olmadan yaratıcılığın ortaya çıkamayacağının anlatımını, Bauman’ın kısıtlanmadan özgürlüğün ortaya çıkmayacağını anlatmasını benzettim diyebilirim.
Rollo May’in yazdıklarını baştan sona keyifle okudum ve sonrasında dahi önsözü okumak içimden gelmedi. Psikoloji alanında çalışmaları olan May’in diğer kitaplarını zaman içerisinde okumak için listeme ekliyorum.
Ve cidden, hafta sonu hobilerinizden bahsetmeyen, pazar günü ressamlığını es geçen, boş zaman aktivitesi olmayan yaratıcı sürecin bilim insanlarının, düşünürlerin oluş emeğinde yatan, bir annenin çocuğuyla normal ilişkilerinde ortaya çıksa bile çizilip sınırlandırılmaması gereken, varlığın ortaya çıkma sürecini ifade eden bir kavram olarak karşımıza çıkıyor yaratmak�
Yaratıcı sürecin “karşılaşma”nın yoğunluğu ile ortaya çıktığının anlatıldığı kısmı oldukça duyumsadım diyebilirim. Yaratmanın kapılıp gitmek, gömülmek, emilmek, dalıp gitmek gibi yoğun bir farkındalık ve bilinç artışı ile nitelendiğinden bahsediyor. Bir çocuğun oyuna dalıp gitmesiyle eşleştiriyor� Dans etmeye de benim benzettiğim bu tanımları, kendi üretimlerimde yaşayan biri olarak rahatlık, huzur ve çevremizde olan bitene kayıtsızlaşma olarak da görebiliriz. Kaygı ya da korkudan arınmış tamamen akmakta olan bir coşkuya kapılarak gerçekleşiyor. Bitiminde hissedilen mutluluk ve tatminin yaratım sürecinde hissedileni ise aslında coşkuya iten bir rahatsız olma durumudur diyor. Yaratma coşkusuna tutulmak isteyen biri öncelikle kaygısıyla yüz yüze gelmelidir açıklamaları ile devam ediyor metin. Burada Rollo May, Picasso’nun bir cümlesini alıntılıyor “Her yaratma edimi, ilk önce bir yıkma edimidir.� Ne zaman önemli bir fikrin ya da sanatta önemli bir biçimin öne çıkması söz konusu olsa bu yıkma edimi olmadan gerçekleşmesi neredeyse imkânsızdır diyor.
“Yaratıcılık, bilinci yoğunlaşmış insanın kendi dünyasıyla karşılaşmasıdır.�
Bilinç eşiği ve bilinçdışından gelen yaratıcılığın sadece sanat, şiir ve müzik için değil, uzun vadede bilim için de aslolduğunu ileri sürüyor.
En çok hoşuma giden kısım ise, çelişkinin yaratıcılık için bir dip dalgası olduğunu anlattığı kısımdı. Çelişki sınırları görür ve sınırlarla mücadele gerçekte yaratıcı üretimlerin kaynağıdır diyor. Akılsız kişiler kendisiyle çatışmanın kendi içinde bir uyuma vardığını anlamazlar diyerek sürdürüyor. Sınırlar olmadan yaratıcılığın ortaya çıkamayacağının anlatımını, Bauman’ın kısıtlanmadan özgürlüğün ortaya çıkmayacağını anlatmasını benzettim diyebilirim.
Rollo May’in yazdıklarını baştan sona keyifle okudum ve sonrasında dahi önsözü okumak içimden gelmedi. Psikoloji alanında çalışmaları olan May’in diğer kitaplarını zaman içerisinde okumak için listeme ekliyorum.
February 28, 2021
Rollo May (1909-1994) was an American psychologist who, alongside Carl Rogers and Viktor Frankl helped create and popularize humanistic and existential psychotherapy.
May was also an artist and particularly focused on the psychology and phenomenology of creativity and the creative process.
May describes the creative process as laboring at the edge of knowing, and then pausing in mindfull receptivity to the insights and epiphany that emerge from the embodied unconscious.
I’m assuming that everyone has had the experience of working on something and feeling stuck or uncertain, only to be surprised by a sudden insight later on, when doing the dishes, or walking the dog, or in the shower.
This is exactly what May is talking about.
May sees this process of conscious working, in an unknown or uncharted territory, in collaboration with the unconscious as the important difference between creativity and other kinds working and learning.
May recognized that the artist (or the creative in any capacity) risks serious ridicule and failure at every juncture.
May argued that creativity of every kind is ultimately about making the world a better place.
May named the fact that attempting to create something new, for the sake of the betterment of mankind was a truly courageous act.
May saw creativity as more than a type of cultural production, and viewed courage as more than simply risking danger and scorn.
May viewed the courage to create as a fully embodied and wide awake way of being in the world, knowing ones self and being in relationship with others.
May argued for a new type of “physical courage� that entails abiding in the here and now, with an ongoing undefended awareness of the emotional body, for the sake of cultivating attuned sensitivity.
May states: “it will be, as Nietzsche remarked, a learning to think with the body. It will be a valuing of the body as the means of empathy with others, in expression of self as a thing of beauty and as a rich source of pleasure."
I am myself a psychotherapist, and I take great joy in May’s articulations of the creative heart of our work.
One of the things I really appreciate about May, is his fearless commitment to psychology as a humanistic pursuit.
He’s an erudite scholar of art, literature, religion and philosophy.
His psychological writing has an inspirational, soaring quality when it’s at its very best.
Unfortunately, he was somewhat hostile to science, and failed to fully integrate a systematic, skeptical methodology and critique into his thinking.
And when his writing is at it’s very worst, it comes off as self indulgent, pompous, and nearsighted.
That being said.
I’m absolutely enamored with the interstitial zone between the humanities and the hard sciences.
And popularizations of psychology are at their very best when they are born from that place.
Large swaths of May’s work hit the bullseye and deserve to be remembered.
Other aspects of May’s work hit like a rock on an old tin pot.
The discerning reader will be aware of this, and proceed with the stance of the garage sale shopper, looking for a treasure buried in the junk pile.
May was also an artist and particularly focused on the psychology and phenomenology of creativity and the creative process.
May describes the creative process as laboring at the edge of knowing, and then pausing in mindfull receptivity to the insights and epiphany that emerge from the embodied unconscious.
I’m assuming that everyone has had the experience of working on something and feeling stuck or uncertain, only to be surprised by a sudden insight later on, when doing the dishes, or walking the dog, or in the shower.
This is exactly what May is talking about.
May sees this process of conscious working, in an unknown or uncharted territory, in collaboration with the unconscious as the important difference between creativity and other kinds working and learning.
May recognized that the artist (or the creative in any capacity) risks serious ridicule and failure at every juncture.
May argued that creativity of every kind is ultimately about making the world a better place.
May named the fact that attempting to create something new, for the sake of the betterment of mankind was a truly courageous act.
May saw creativity as more than a type of cultural production, and viewed courage as more than simply risking danger and scorn.
May viewed the courage to create as a fully embodied and wide awake way of being in the world, knowing ones self and being in relationship with others.
May argued for a new type of “physical courage� that entails abiding in the here and now, with an ongoing undefended awareness of the emotional body, for the sake of cultivating attuned sensitivity.
May states: “it will be, as Nietzsche remarked, a learning to think with the body. It will be a valuing of the body as the means of empathy with others, in expression of self as a thing of beauty and as a rich source of pleasure."
I am myself a psychotherapist, and I take great joy in May’s articulations of the creative heart of our work.
One of the things I really appreciate about May, is his fearless commitment to psychology as a humanistic pursuit.
He’s an erudite scholar of art, literature, religion and philosophy.
His psychological writing has an inspirational, soaring quality when it’s at its very best.
Unfortunately, he was somewhat hostile to science, and failed to fully integrate a systematic, skeptical methodology and critique into his thinking.
And when his writing is at it’s very worst, it comes off as self indulgent, pompous, and nearsighted.
That being said.
I’m absolutely enamored with the interstitial zone between the humanities and the hard sciences.
And popularizations of psychology are at their very best when they are born from that place.
Large swaths of May’s work hit the bullseye and deserve to be remembered.
Other aspects of May’s work hit like a rock on an old tin pot.
The discerning reader will be aware of this, and proceed with the stance of the garage sale shopper, looking for a treasure buried in the junk pile.
March 8, 2017
Önceklikle, kitap beklediğimden çok iyiydi. Bu tarz yazınların problemi çok fazla terimler içererek insanın kafasını karıştırması ve bir yerden sonra okumanın sıkıcı hale gelmesi benim için. Fakat Yaratma Cesareti sıkılmadan okuduğum, detaylıca anladığım ve okurken kendimi çok iyi hissettiğim bir kitaptı. Özellikle Alper Oysal'ın çeviri notları çok detaylı, yerinde ve besleyiciydi. Psikoloji temelimin ve psikolojik anlamlandırmaları iyi yapıyor oluşumun da bana okurken yardımcı olduğunu düşünüyorum. Temel psikanaliz bilgisi ve Kierkegaard'ın kaygı hakkında söyledikleri bilinirse okumanın daha zevk verici olacağı da aşikar. Varoluşçu yazını çokça takip etmiş olmak da bir avantaj May'i okurken.
November 13, 2016
Rollo May is wise and inspiring. The Courage to Create makes me long for a time when psychology was richer, full of life, and fed so much more by the humanities and mythology as compared to the sterile, narrow-minded field we have today. He retorts "I do not use this term myth in the common present-day deteriorated meaning of 'falsehood.' This is an error that could be committed only by a society that has become so inebriated with adding up empirical facts that it seals off the deeper wisdom of human history. I use myth as meaning, rather, a dramatic presentation of the moral wisdom of the [human] race. The myth uses the totality of the senses rather than just the intellect."
May brings together art, religion, psychology, and science in a powerful way. All rise from the same bed of creativity.
This book shows the empowering side of existential thought, showing that life is an act of creation. We cannot be without creating. "We express our being by creating. Creativity is a necessary sequel to being...We are called upon to do something new, to confront a no man's land, to push into a forest where there are no well-worn paths and from which no one has returned to guide us. This is what the existentialists call the anxiety of nothingness. To live into the future means to leap into the unknown, and this requires a degree of courage for which there is no immediate precedent and which few people realize." As Joseph Campbell often noted, if you can clearly see the path ahead of you, it certainly belongs to somebody else and is not your own.
He draws from other thinkers like Carl Jung, Otto Rank, Karl Marx, Leibnitz, Alfred Adler, and William James, and from artists and writers like Cezanne, Shakespeare, Picasso, Keats, Joyce, and Rilke. Artists are prophets and revolutionaries: "but the commandment also expresses the timeless fear that every society harbors of its artists, poets, and saints. For they are the ones who threaten the status quo, which each society is devoted to protecting...the creative artist and poet and saint must fight the actual gods of our society--the god of conformism as well as gods of apathy, material success, and exploitative power."
Creativity grows out of the rage, chaos, and mystery of the unconscious (personal and collective). May chastises us for our own busyness which prevents us from more complete living. "Of course, when an individual is afraid of the irrational--that is, of the unconscious dimensions of experience--he tries to keep busiest, tries to keep most 'noise' going on about him. The avoidance of the anxiety of solitude by constant agitated diversion is what Kierkegaard, in a nice simile, likened to the settlers in the early days of America who used to beat on pots and pans at night to make enough din to keep the wolves away." Take off those ear buds and put down your damn smart phones. Face your solitude with courage!
He then hurls a challenge at our mechanized world, explaining why artists are so distrusted or feared. "Irrational unconscious phenomena are always a threat to this mechanization. Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line. Mechanization requires uniformity, predictability, and orderliness; and the very fact that unconscious phenomena are original and irrational is already an inevitable threat to bourgeois order and uniformity...We cannot escape our anxiety over the fact that the artists together with creative person of all sorts, are the possible destroyers of our nicely ordered systems."
May affirms the tortured artist stereotype and praises them, over their conforming counterparts, for they ability to live with anxiety and ambiguity. "Creative people...are distinguished by the fact that they can live with anxiety, even though a high price my be paid in terms of insecurity, sensitivity, and defenselessness for the gift of the 'divine madness,' to borrow the term used by the classical Greeks."
I wish he would have kept out the final chapter of the book (Passion for Form), which felt flat, and closed with his musings on the benefits of human limitations (death, place of birth, height, illness, past decisions, resources). This is where his tempered existentialism really delivers. "I propose that it is the experience of this-is-the-way-things-are-meant-to-be. If only for that moment, we participate in the myth of creation. Order comes out of disorder, form out of chaos, as it did in the creation of the universe. This sense of joy comes from our participation, no matter how slight, in being as such. The paradox is that at that moment we also experience more vividly our own limitations. We discover the amor fati that Nietzsche writes about--the love of one's fate. No wonder it gives a sense of ecstasy!"
Western Civilization in the 21st century sorely needs more hearts and minds to continue the tradition laid out by Rollo May.
May brings together art, religion, psychology, and science in a powerful way. All rise from the same bed of creativity.
This book shows the empowering side of existential thought, showing that life is an act of creation. We cannot be without creating. "We express our being by creating. Creativity is a necessary sequel to being...We are called upon to do something new, to confront a no man's land, to push into a forest where there are no well-worn paths and from which no one has returned to guide us. This is what the existentialists call the anxiety of nothingness. To live into the future means to leap into the unknown, and this requires a degree of courage for which there is no immediate precedent and which few people realize." As Joseph Campbell often noted, if you can clearly see the path ahead of you, it certainly belongs to somebody else and is not your own.
He draws from other thinkers like Carl Jung, Otto Rank, Karl Marx, Leibnitz, Alfred Adler, and William James, and from artists and writers like Cezanne, Shakespeare, Picasso, Keats, Joyce, and Rilke. Artists are prophets and revolutionaries: "but the commandment also expresses the timeless fear that every society harbors of its artists, poets, and saints. For they are the ones who threaten the status quo, which each society is devoted to protecting...the creative artist and poet and saint must fight the actual gods of our society--the god of conformism as well as gods of apathy, material success, and exploitative power."
Creativity grows out of the rage, chaos, and mystery of the unconscious (personal and collective). May chastises us for our own busyness which prevents us from more complete living. "Of course, when an individual is afraid of the irrational--that is, of the unconscious dimensions of experience--he tries to keep busiest, tries to keep most 'noise' going on about him. The avoidance of the anxiety of solitude by constant agitated diversion is what Kierkegaard, in a nice simile, likened to the settlers in the early days of America who used to beat on pots and pans at night to make enough din to keep the wolves away." Take off those ear buds and put down your damn smart phones. Face your solitude with courage!
He then hurls a challenge at our mechanized world, explaining why artists are so distrusted or feared. "Irrational unconscious phenomena are always a threat to this mechanization. Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line. Mechanization requires uniformity, predictability, and orderliness; and the very fact that unconscious phenomena are original and irrational is already an inevitable threat to bourgeois order and uniformity...We cannot escape our anxiety over the fact that the artists together with creative person of all sorts, are the possible destroyers of our nicely ordered systems."
May affirms the tortured artist stereotype and praises them, over their conforming counterparts, for they ability to live with anxiety and ambiguity. "Creative people...are distinguished by the fact that they can live with anxiety, even though a high price my be paid in terms of insecurity, sensitivity, and defenselessness for the gift of the 'divine madness,' to borrow the term used by the classical Greeks."
I wish he would have kept out the final chapter of the book (Passion for Form), which felt flat, and closed with his musings on the benefits of human limitations (death, place of birth, height, illness, past decisions, resources). This is where his tempered existentialism really delivers. "I propose that it is the experience of this-is-the-way-things-are-meant-to-be. If only for that moment, we participate in the myth of creation. Order comes out of disorder, form out of chaos, as it did in the creation of the universe. This sense of joy comes from our participation, no matter how slight, in being as such. The paradox is that at that moment we also experience more vividly our own limitations. We discover the amor fati that Nietzsche writes about--the love of one's fate. No wonder it gives a sense of ecstasy!"
Western Civilization in the 21st century sorely needs more hearts and minds to continue the tradition laid out by Rollo May.
November 11, 2016
Gunun en verimli zamaninda okumama ragmen beyni epey zorlayan bir kitap. Sanirim yeniden okumam gereken kitaplardan birisi. Ilk okumada cok sey ogrendim ama eminim kacirdigim noktalar var.
Read
August 17, 2020Kaygı: Kişinin ''kendisi''ni özgürlük olarak kavraması, insanın geçmişi ve geleceği arasındayken,kendisini, kendisiyle hiçlik arasında bir kayma olarak yakalaması, anlaması, bu yüzden de kendisini sürekli olarak bir seçme zorunluluğu içinde bulması, bu seçiş anını anlamlı kılacak değerlerin geçerliliğini garantileyecek hiçbir şey olmaması.
August 30, 2010
Good stuff. Challenging. May asserts that artists, writers, poets, etc. need to genuinely encounter, or engage with the world which they are interpreting in their art.
I'm still mulling over his chapters on the Oracle of Delphi. I THINK that what he was getting at is that artists make new discoveries and create new things with the help of myths and symbols already available to us in our cultures and in the collective unconsciousness.
May does a fantastic job of recommending that rather than analyzing dreams in a simply symbolic manor, or perhaps as traditional psychoanalysis has in the past but instead by considering the visual-spacial relationships of the principal characters in a given dream. This process means visualizing the dream like a painting, or perhaps blocking out the staging of the actors as if it were a stage play or a film. Doing this reveals new insights into the dreamer's relationships to the persons or symbols in the dream. This made sense to me as someone trained in studio and design. Needless to say, this also contributed to my understanding of the expressive possibilities in design.
Rollo May's book helps us see that creative pursuits can help us to make sense of and cope with our lives and our world. This is a great read for anyone interested in creativity (art, music, dance, drama, poetry and writing, etc.) or in psychology.
Rollo May was recommended to me by a friend who, like May, practices depth-psychology and is most interested in existential psychology. I've always tended to lean toward cognitive-therapy or reality-therapy- assuming that they're somehow different than or opposed to the behaviorism that dominates elementary and secondary education in the U.S. This book helped me recognize that really, they're pretty much just derivatives of behaviorism, which is a principally American strain of psychology. This Western convention is very concrete, material, and empirical. Not that there's anything wrong with that (as they said on an episode of Seinfeld). But May suggests that there is a third way, balancing the mythology and almost mysticism of Eastern traditions with this very logical, measurable qualities of the American way. Once again, I am reminded of the text I've been teaching from for years, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," in which Dr. Betty Edwards posits that we all are capable of two complimentary ways of thinking, perceiving, experiencing and knowing.
Having read this book, I'm sure that three things will be impacted. 1) My own painting, poetry, and photography. 2) My perceptions, interpretations, and reactions to the creative arts I encounter, from art to film to literature. and 3) Hopefully and I'd like to think most importantly, my teaching
I'm still mulling over his chapters on the Oracle of Delphi. I THINK that what he was getting at is that artists make new discoveries and create new things with the help of myths and symbols already available to us in our cultures and in the collective unconsciousness.
May does a fantastic job of recommending that rather than analyzing dreams in a simply symbolic manor, or perhaps as traditional psychoanalysis has in the past but instead by considering the visual-spacial relationships of the principal characters in a given dream. This process means visualizing the dream like a painting, or perhaps blocking out the staging of the actors as if it were a stage play or a film. Doing this reveals new insights into the dreamer's relationships to the persons or symbols in the dream. This made sense to me as someone trained in studio and design. Needless to say, this also contributed to my understanding of the expressive possibilities in design.
Rollo May's book helps us see that creative pursuits can help us to make sense of and cope with our lives and our world. This is a great read for anyone interested in creativity (art, music, dance, drama, poetry and writing, etc.) or in psychology.
Rollo May was recommended to me by a friend who, like May, practices depth-psychology and is most interested in existential psychology. I've always tended to lean toward cognitive-therapy or reality-therapy- assuming that they're somehow different than or opposed to the behaviorism that dominates elementary and secondary education in the U.S. This book helped me recognize that really, they're pretty much just derivatives of behaviorism, which is a principally American strain of psychology. This Western convention is very concrete, material, and empirical. Not that there's anything wrong with that (as they said on an episode of Seinfeld). But May suggests that there is a third way, balancing the mythology and almost mysticism of Eastern traditions with this very logical, measurable qualities of the American way. Once again, I am reminded of the text I've been teaching from for years, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," in which Dr. Betty Edwards posits that we all are capable of two complimentary ways of thinking, perceiving, experiencing and knowing.
Having read this book, I'm sure that three things will be impacted. 1) My own painting, poetry, and photography. 2) My perceptions, interpretations, and reactions to the creative arts I encounter, from art to film to literature. and 3) Hopefully and I'd like to think most importantly, my teaching
March 2, 2011
This book started off so promising for me -- I found myself getting sucked in to May's descriptions of the types of courage that exist � be they physical, social, moral or creative. His detailings of the creative process in Chapter Two I found equally fascinating....and yet, half-way through this slim novel, I started to struggle with the themes and lose focus. In fairness, I was attempting to read this when I was dog-tired, at home with extended family in between the trials of visitations and a funeral service for my recently deceased grandmother. So, perhaps, if I were to attempt the second half again with a refreshed brain, I'd get more out of it. Then again, perhaps not. Because May takes his book into a territory that is too foreign for me -- TOO psychological, TOO intellectual (this disenchantment begins with a chapter titled "The Delphic Oracle as Therapist" -- see? SEE WHAT I MEAN?)
That being said, there were a lot of great takeaways from this one....Here are a few worth sharing:
"Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair."
On social courage: "It is the courage to relate to other human beings, the capacity to risk one's self in the hope of achieving meaningful intimacy. It is the courage to invest one's self over a period of time in a relationship that will demand an increasing openness."
It is infinitely safer to know that the man at the top has his doubts, as you and I have ours, yet has the courage to move ahead in spite of these doubts.
A cool quote from German mathematician Gottfried Leibnitz: "I would walk 20 miles to listen to my worst enemy if I could learn something."
Genuine creativity is characterized by an intensity of awareness, a heightened consciousness....we become oblivious to things around us (as well as to the passage of time). We experience a lessening of appetite..... But what the artist or creative scientist feels is not anxiety or fear; it is joy. Joy defined as the emotion that goes with heightened consciousness, the mood that accompanies the experience of actualizing one's own potentialities.
(frame this one in the context that this book was first published in the 1970s): The danger always exists that our technology will serve as a buffer between us and nature, a block between us and the deeper dimensions of our own experience. Tools and techniques ought to be an extension of consciousness, but they can just as easily be a protection from consciousness.
That being said, there were a lot of great takeaways from this one....Here are a few worth sharing:
"Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair."
On social courage: "It is the courage to relate to other human beings, the capacity to risk one's self in the hope of achieving meaningful intimacy. It is the courage to invest one's self over a period of time in a relationship that will demand an increasing openness."
It is infinitely safer to know that the man at the top has his doubts, as you and I have ours, yet has the courage to move ahead in spite of these doubts.
A cool quote from German mathematician Gottfried Leibnitz: "I would walk 20 miles to listen to my worst enemy if I could learn something."
Genuine creativity is characterized by an intensity of awareness, a heightened consciousness....we become oblivious to things around us (as well as to the passage of time). We experience a lessening of appetite..... But what the artist or creative scientist feels is not anxiety or fear; it is joy. Joy defined as the emotion that goes with heightened consciousness, the mood that accompanies the experience of actualizing one's own potentialities.
(frame this one in the context that this book was first published in the 1970s): The danger always exists that our technology will serve as a buffer between us and nature, a block between us and the deeper dimensions of our own experience. Tools and techniques ought to be an extension of consciousness, but they can just as easily be a protection from consciousness.
May 16, 2014
Alper Oysal başarılı çevirisi ve 33 sayfalık sunuş yazısı ile kitabı felsefe ve psikoloji terimlerinin ağırlığına rağmen sıradan bir okurun anlayabileceği bir dille aktarmış. Yaratıcılık olgusunu anlama ve yaratıcılık esnasında süregülen değişiklikleri kavrayarak aydınlanma yaşamanızı sağlayan bir kitap. Cesaretin ne olduğunu sorgulamanıza neden olurken, yaratıcılığın doğası ve sınırları üzerine bilimsel açıklamalarla ve örneklerle daha önce bakmadığınız açılardan dünyayı görmenizi sağlıyor.
Amerikalı varoluşçu psikolog Rollo May, Bilim ve sanatta özgün bir fikrin nasıl doğduğunu, yetenek ile yaratıcılık arasındaki ilişkiyi ve kaygı, farkındalık, duygu ve cesaret kavramlarının yaratıcılık üzerine etkisini araştırıyor. Kitap ilk bölümde ‘cesaret � üzerinde yoğunlaşarak türleri hakkında bilgi veriyor.
ٱ𱹲ı:
Amerikalı varoluşçu psikolog Rollo May, Bilim ve sanatta özgün bir fikrin nasıl doğduğunu, yetenek ile yaratıcılık arasındaki ilişkiyi ve kaygı, farkındalık, duygu ve cesaret kavramlarının yaratıcılık üzerine etkisini araştırıyor. Kitap ilk bölümde ‘cesaret � üzerinde yoğunlaşarak türleri hakkında bilgi veriyor.
ٱ𱹲ı:
April 3, 2019
Çok ara verdiğim ve mental anlamda çok uygun olmayan bir zamanda okuduğum için sanırım, kitabın içerisine girmekte çok zorlandım, ders kitabı okuyormuşum gibi hissettim çoğu zaman.
Alper Oysal’a ise başarılı çevirisinden dolayı kocaman bir alkış. Bu tarz kitaplarda bu kadar başarılı çeviriler gerçekten insanın okuma şevkini artırıyor.
Alper Oysal’a ise başarılı çevirisinden dolayı kocaman bir alkış. Bu tarz kitaplarda bu kadar başarılı çeviriler gerçekten insanın okuma şevkini artırıyor.
June 5, 2018
Kaygı üzerine bakışımı nispeten daha olumlu hale getirdiği için yazar ve psikoterapiste öncelikle minnettarım.
Kitabın bize sunduğu şey kaygı ve sanat ikileminin yaratıcılık üzerine etkileri. Bu etki anlatılırken çağdaş ve antik çağ filozoflarından, nietzsche ve kierkegaard alıntılarla birlikte hiçliğin temellendirilmesi üzerine çeşitli analojiler kuruluyor.
Neden 5 yıldız değil noktasına gelecek olursak da, son bölümde imgelem ve biçim üzerine hasta diyaloglarına girişmesi temelde düşünsel boyuttaki kitabın somutlaştırılmaya bireysel yollarla çalışılması bence negatifti, bunlar haricinde psikoloji ve felsefe arasındaki bağlantıları merak eden okurlarca okunmasını salık verebilirim.
Kitabın bize sunduğu şey kaygı ve sanat ikileminin yaratıcılık üzerine etkileri. Bu etki anlatılırken çağdaş ve antik çağ filozoflarından, nietzsche ve kierkegaard alıntılarla birlikte hiçliğin temellendirilmesi üzerine çeşitli analojiler kuruluyor.
Neden 5 yıldız değil noktasına gelecek olursak da, son bölümde imgelem ve biçim üzerine hasta diyaloglarına girişmesi temelde düşünsel boyuttaki kitabın somutlaştırılmaya bireysel yollarla çalışılması bence negatifti, bunlar haricinde psikoloji ve felsefe arasındaki bağlantıları merak eden okurlarca okunmasını salık verebilirim.
February 14, 2012
أقل ما يوصف به الكتاب أنه رائع والغريب أنى اشتريته بالصدفة من باعة الكتب القديمة وكان ملقى بإهمال على الرصيف ثم تركته فترة فى مكتبتى حتى عثرت عليه مرة فالتهمته كاملا فى أقل من يومين.
August 16, 2020
Sem dúvida, o melhor livro que um aspirante a artista ou criador (ou apenas um curioso sobre o processo criativo e a criatividade) pode ler. Finalmente, um livro que compreende o acto de criar e o que muitas vezes impede os potenciais criadores de o fazer, assim como as duas crenças, manias e motivações.
Também é interessante para curiosos sobre a psicoterapia e psicanálise, em especial quais os seus objectivos específicos na construção e reconstrução dum novo "eu", assim como a relação do autoconhecimento que se atinge através destas últimas e o autoconhecimento e momento de "plenitude" que se atinge no acto criativo (não esquecendo o papel da ansiedade e do conflito na construção do "eu" e da obra)... Entre tantas outras coisas.
Fiquei com imensa vontade de ler outros livros do autor.
Também é interessante para curiosos sobre a psicoterapia e psicanálise, em especial quais os seus objectivos específicos na construção e reconstrução dum novo "eu", assim como a relação do autoconhecimento que se atinge através destas últimas e o autoconhecimento e momento de "plenitude" que se atinge no acto criativo (não esquecendo o papel da ansiedade e do conflito na construção do "eu" e da obra)... Entre tantas outras coisas.
Fiquei com imensa vontade de ler outros livros do autor.
January 10, 2019
A classic book that contains a lot of time-less wisdom. Rollo May's existential point of view towards creativity and art is very interesting. Why should creative people be courageous and the analysis of the anxiety inherent in creation is the main theme of this book.
The book is written in a straightforward and easy to read fashion, however, the concepts are very deep and this is a book that I will have to return to a few more times.
This was the first book I read by Rollo May, will for sure plan to read his other books.
The book is written in a straightforward and easy to read fashion, however, the concepts are very deep and this is a book that I will have to return to a few more times.
This was the first book I read by Rollo May, will for sure plan to read his other books.
March 10, 2017
1988 yılında çevrilip, yeni yeni hak ettiği değeri bulan bir eser. muazzam.
June 9, 2024
‘Without courage our love pales into mere dependency� writes May.
The essence of being human is that, in the brief moment we exist on this spinning planet, we can love some persons and some things, in spite of the fact that time and death will ultimately claim us all. By the creative act, however, we are able to reach beyond our own death. But why does creativity require courage? Because creativity provokes the jealousy of the gods, when we enter into a creative act, we seek to surpass our mortality with the creation of something eternal, thus an active battle with the gods is occurring. The creative artist and poet and saint must fight the gods of our society—the god of conformism as well as the gods of apathy, material success, and exploitative power.
What artists do is to reveal the underlying psychological and spiritual conditions of their relationship to their world: it is a search for the foundation of individuality that can withstand anti-human political developments and an attempt to reflect emotional and spiritual condition of human beings in that period of history. Artists have the power to reveal the underlying meaning of any period precisely because the essence of art is the powerful and alive encounter between the artist and his or her world. Thus, May writes that ‘creativity� is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his or her world.
What I would consider an illuminating insight in this book is how exactly a breakthrough occurs in the search of a creative idea. The experience can be characterised as follows: (1) the illumination reveals itself suddenly; (2) the the insight may occur, and to some extent must occur, against what one has clung to consciously in one’s theories; (3) by the vividness of the incident and the whole scene that surrounds it; (4) by the brevity and consciseness of the insight, along with the experience of immediate certainty. Continuing with the practical conditions which is necessary for this experience are (5) hard work on the topic prior to the breakthrough; (6) a rest, in which the “unconscious work� has been given a chance to proceed on its own and after which the breakthrough may occur (which is a special case of the more general point); (7) and finally the necessity of alternating work and relaxation, with the insight often coming at the moment of the break between the two, or at least within the break.
A refreshing theory, emphasising the notion of the constructive use of solitude in our individual creative endeavours. If we are to experience insights from our unconscious, we need to be able to give ourselves to solitude.
For some reason the combinations the unconscious presents to us are also the most beautiful. There is elegance to it, the revelation is a flawless aesthetic encounter. New understandings surface not primarily due to their "rationally true" nature or practical utility, but rather because they possess a specific form—a form that holds beauty in its ability to fill in the gaps of an incomplete Gestalt. The form is exactly the way it should be. The creativity of the mind unveils such perfection and purity that it feels as a discovery of something that already existed.
I recall the same phenomenon when I listen to certain compositions. Even though the composer created the piece, the creation is akin to the discovery of a star in a galaxy that has always been. Listen for example to Scriabin’s second piano sonata, Chopin’s fourth ballade or Brahms intermezzo in A major. This is why many artists feel that something holy is going on when they paint or compose, there is something in the act of creating which is like a religious revelation.
Another beautiful fragment in the book of the courage of the artist in relation with his unavoidable self-doubt and anxiety is the following: ‘Creative people, as I see them, are distinguished by the fact that they can live with anxiety, even though a high price may be paid in terms of insecurity, sensitivity, and defenselessness for the gift of the “divine madness,� to borrow the term used by the classical Greeks. They do not run away from non-being, but by encountering and wrestling with it, force it to produce being. They knock on silence for an answering music; they pursue meaninglessness until they can force it to mean.�
But for me personally, the paramount part is the notion May makes concerning the creating in one’s self. What I share with May is a boundless believe in self-directing en self-forming. As Kierkegaard well said, the self is only that which it is in the process of becoming. And of course, this starts with Socrates’s famous dictum: ‘Know thyself�. The plethora of myths surrounding the reincarnation of individuals into various life forms, with their status determined by their actions in life, reflects the recognition within human experience that individuals bear some responsibility for their own actions. Sartre's assertion that we construct our identities through the myriad choices we make further emphasizes this idea. Thus, we must change our life and pursue passionate beauty to become a new more fulfilling form of ourselves and this is only achievable by actively seeking to create one’s self.
Another good point I agree with is May’s idea that limits are not only unavoidable in life (as opposed to the idea that human possibilities are unlimited), they are valuable. Creativity requires limits. The painter is bound by the frame of the painting, the director is confined by the expanse of the white canvas and the piano composer by 88 keys. A river is constituted by the tension between the flowing water and the banks. Art in the same way requires limits as a necessary factor in its birth. As Heraclitus said: ‘harmony consists of opposing tension, like that of the bow and the lyre.� Therefore, it’s good to have limits. Never is form itself superseded so long as creativity endures. If form were to vanish, spontaneity would vanish with it.
Insights emerge not chiefly because they are “intellectually true� or even because they are helpful, but because they have a certain form, the form that is beautiful because it completes what is incomplete in us.
Thus, people are engaged in a passionate re-forming of their world by virtue of their interrelationship with it. This passion for form is a way of trying to find and constitute meaning in life.
And this is what genuine creativity is.
The essence of being human is that, in the brief moment we exist on this spinning planet, we can love some persons and some things, in spite of the fact that time and death will ultimately claim us all. By the creative act, however, we are able to reach beyond our own death. But why does creativity require courage? Because creativity provokes the jealousy of the gods, when we enter into a creative act, we seek to surpass our mortality with the creation of something eternal, thus an active battle with the gods is occurring. The creative artist and poet and saint must fight the gods of our society—the god of conformism as well as the gods of apathy, material success, and exploitative power.
What artists do is to reveal the underlying psychological and spiritual conditions of their relationship to their world: it is a search for the foundation of individuality that can withstand anti-human political developments and an attempt to reflect emotional and spiritual condition of human beings in that period of history. Artists have the power to reveal the underlying meaning of any period precisely because the essence of art is the powerful and alive encounter between the artist and his or her world. Thus, May writes that ‘creativity� is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his or her world.
What I would consider an illuminating insight in this book is how exactly a breakthrough occurs in the search of a creative idea. The experience can be characterised as follows: (1) the illumination reveals itself suddenly; (2) the the insight may occur, and to some extent must occur, against what one has clung to consciously in one’s theories; (3) by the vividness of the incident and the whole scene that surrounds it; (4) by the brevity and consciseness of the insight, along with the experience of immediate certainty. Continuing with the practical conditions which is necessary for this experience are (5) hard work on the topic prior to the breakthrough; (6) a rest, in which the “unconscious work� has been given a chance to proceed on its own and after which the breakthrough may occur (which is a special case of the more general point); (7) and finally the necessity of alternating work and relaxation, with the insight often coming at the moment of the break between the two, or at least within the break.
A refreshing theory, emphasising the notion of the constructive use of solitude in our individual creative endeavours. If we are to experience insights from our unconscious, we need to be able to give ourselves to solitude.
For some reason the combinations the unconscious presents to us are also the most beautiful. There is elegance to it, the revelation is a flawless aesthetic encounter. New understandings surface not primarily due to their "rationally true" nature or practical utility, but rather because they possess a specific form—a form that holds beauty in its ability to fill in the gaps of an incomplete Gestalt. The form is exactly the way it should be. The creativity of the mind unveils such perfection and purity that it feels as a discovery of something that already existed.
I recall the same phenomenon when I listen to certain compositions. Even though the composer created the piece, the creation is akin to the discovery of a star in a galaxy that has always been. Listen for example to Scriabin’s second piano sonata, Chopin’s fourth ballade or Brahms intermezzo in A major. This is why many artists feel that something holy is going on when they paint or compose, there is something in the act of creating which is like a religious revelation.
Another beautiful fragment in the book of the courage of the artist in relation with his unavoidable self-doubt and anxiety is the following: ‘Creative people, as I see them, are distinguished by the fact that they can live with anxiety, even though a high price may be paid in terms of insecurity, sensitivity, and defenselessness for the gift of the “divine madness,� to borrow the term used by the classical Greeks. They do not run away from non-being, but by encountering and wrestling with it, force it to produce being. They knock on silence for an answering music; they pursue meaninglessness until they can force it to mean.�
But for me personally, the paramount part is the notion May makes concerning the creating in one’s self. What I share with May is a boundless believe in self-directing en self-forming. As Kierkegaard well said, the self is only that which it is in the process of becoming. And of course, this starts with Socrates’s famous dictum: ‘Know thyself�. The plethora of myths surrounding the reincarnation of individuals into various life forms, with their status determined by their actions in life, reflects the recognition within human experience that individuals bear some responsibility for their own actions. Sartre's assertion that we construct our identities through the myriad choices we make further emphasizes this idea. Thus, we must change our life and pursue passionate beauty to become a new more fulfilling form of ourselves and this is only achievable by actively seeking to create one’s self.
Another good point I agree with is May’s idea that limits are not only unavoidable in life (as opposed to the idea that human possibilities are unlimited), they are valuable. Creativity requires limits. The painter is bound by the frame of the painting, the director is confined by the expanse of the white canvas and the piano composer by 88 keys. A river is constituted by the tension between the flowing water and the banks. Art in the same way requires limits as a necessary factor in its birth. As Heraclitus said: ‘harmony consists of opposing tension, like that of the bow and the lyre.� Therefore, it’s good to have limits. Never is form itself superseded so long as creativity endures. If form were to vanish, spontaneity would vanish with it.
Insights emerge not chiefly because they are “intellectually true� or even because they are helpful, but because they have a certain form, the form that is beautiful because it completes what is incomplete in us.
Thus, people are engaged in a passionate re-forming of their world by virtue of their interrelationship with it. This passion for form is a way of trying to find and constitute meaning in life.
And this is what genuine creativity is.
February 29, 2024
Rollo May had a hell of a life... really interesting fellow.
I expected some cheesy, 70s self-help channeling Dr. Phil� the paperback I have looks like the kind of thing you would find in Mr. Rosso’s guidance counsel office. But I was pleasantly surprised.
It was enjoyable and thought-provoking. Beginning with clear and effective definitions of ‘courage� and ‘creative,� Rollo May launches into a treatise on what it means to be an artist/creative (in all eras and ages, which is maybe problematic to assume...), and why it does take courage to confront the unknown of the future in the form of the individual (and collective) unconscious. This sounds crazy in theory, but he does a really good job, I think, of breaking down the ways in which our encounters with the objective world play a critical part in our unconscious cycles (sleep, dreams, daydreams), which in turn inform the objective world that we interact with.
I particularly enjoyed May’s articulation of this longstanding idea that the artist is an artist simply because they are aware of the tension between the seemingly limitless potential of their imagination and the limits of form/structure. I personally feel like I am constantly struggling to establish a form that works with the circumstances of what it is I am trying to create (substance-wise)� whether it is a choreographed sequence of dance moves or a collection of stories� I struggle with commitment to any type of form/structure; I like chaos and disorder and am constantly my own biggest threat to the demolition of my own creations.
Abiding by limitations is itself a difficult process; striking a balance between surrender to the limitations and understanding of the possibilities that exist within them is something else entirely.
I would still take everything he says with a grain of salt since it’s an old-ish book and just kind of outdated with certain ideas... Ultimately, it’s a great, fun read; you will have “aha� moments and audible gasps if you’ve ever considered yourself a creative individual, in whatever capacity.
I expected some cheesy, 70s self-help channeling Dr. Phil� the paperback I have looks like the kind of thing you would find in Mr. Rosso’s guidance counsel office. But I was pleasantly surprised.
It was enjoyable and thought-provoking. Beginning with clear and effective definitions of ‘courage� and ‘creative,� Rollo May launches into a treatise on what it means to be an artist/creative (in all eras and ages, which is maybe problematic to assume...), and why it does take courage to confront the unknown of the future in the form of the individual (and collective) unconscious. This sounds crazy in theory, but he does a really good job, I think, of breaking down the ways in which our encounters with the objective world play a critical part in our unconscious cycles (sleep, dreams, daydreams), which in turn inform the objective world that we interact with.
I particularly enjoyed May’s articulation of this longstanding idea that the artist is an artist simply because they are aware of the tension between the seemingly limitless potential of their imagination and the limits of form/structure. I personally feel like I am constantly struggling to establish a form that works with the circumstances of what it is I am trying to create (substance-wise)� whether it is a choreographed sequence of dance moves or a collection of stories� I struggle with commitment to any type of form/structure; I like chaos and disorder and am constantly my own biggest threat to the demolition of my own creations.
Abiding by limitations is itself a difficult process; striking a balance between surrender to the limitations and understanding of the possibilities that exist within them is something else entirely.
I would still take everything he says with a grain of salt since it’s an old-ish book and just kind of outdated with certain ideas... Ultimately, it’s a great, fun read; you will have “aha� moments and audible gasps if you’ve ever considered yourself a creative individual, in whatever capacity.
June 23, 2020
Çok uğraştım, çevirmeni eleştirmeyeyim diye çok uğraştım ama son 50 sayfayı artık dayanamayarak orijinal dilinden okumaya devam ederek bitirdim. (İlk 30 sayfa zaten çevirmen sunuşu, Rollo May okusa kahırdan ölürdü, orijinal dilde kitap 85 sayfa, siz ne demek istediğimi böyle anlayın işte.) Kurtlarla Koşan Kadınlar'da da böyle olmuştu, bu kadar güzel bir kitabı nasıl ve neden böyle harcadınız diye düşünerek hayal kırıklığına uğramıştım. Neyse, iyi ders oldu.
Bu kitap öyle dolu ve aslında öyle anlaşılır bir kitap ki - orijinal dilinden de okuduğunuzda anlayacaksınız - sizi hiç yormadan yaratıcılık ve cesaret konusuna ait her şeyi kavramlar üzerinden açıklayıp, örnekliyor. Her yeni tecrübenin bizi kendimizle yüzleştirdiği, bunu yapmak içinse cesarete ihtiyaç duyduğumuzu anlatıyor. 'Ben' denen sınırları nasıl aşacağımızı, sınırların bizi yaratmaya zorladığını ve bu sınırlardan taşmaktan korkmamamızı söylüyor. Yaratma sürecinde beklemenin aslında olgunlaşmak olduğunu anlatıyor, bilakis çiçek bile zamanı geldiğinde açıyor.
Sonuçta da aslında en başında söylenen şu cümle kalıyor: "Courage is not the absence of despair; it is rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair."
İmkanı olan, okuyabilen herkes İngilizce dilinden okusun. Başka da bir şey demiyorum.
Bu kitap öyle dolu ve aslında öyle anlaşılır bir kitap ki - orijinal dilinden de okuduğunuzda anlayacaksınız - sizi hiç yormadan yaratıcılık ve cesaret konusuna ait her şeyi kavramlar üzerinden açıklayıp, örnekliyor. Her yeni tecrübenin bizi kendimizle yüzleştirdiği, bunu yapmak içinse cesarete ihtiyaç duyduğumuzu anlatıyor. 'Ben' denen sınırları nasıl aşacağımızı, sınırların bizi yaratmaya zorladığını ve bu sınırlardan taşmaktan korkmamamızı söylüyor. Yaratma sürecinde beklemenin aslında olgunlaşmak olduğunu anlatıyor, bilakis çiçek bile zamanı geldiğinde açıyor.
Sonuçta da aslında en başında söylenen şu cümle kalıyor: "Courage is not the absence of despair; it is rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair."
İmkanı olan, okuyabilen herkes İngilizce dilinden okusun. Başka da bir şey demiyorum.
June 28, 2021
What a gift! I find there is this confounding and compounding energy when it comes to being creative. An oscillating feeling of start and stop. Rollo May really sheds light on the courage required to head into the unknown and come back with new ways of expressing what is the human condition. Whatever your medium, physics or pottery, creativity is a teacher and a beacon and a portal into understanding who we are but perhaps even why we are.
I really enjoyed this book and couldn’t put it down. He mentions Heraclitus, who was an enigmatic philosopher who always spoke of maintaining the tension of the opposites. Perhaps the enigma of creativity lies in that tension. One pushing on the other and vice versa.
All in all creativity is a courageous act and we often hold ourselves back out of fear of where it will lead as opposed whether it will be good or not. Sometimes it feels like an overthinking that undermines creativity but perhaps it’s an unthinking that is needed and to just go forth and create. Fuck I mean someone invented a hot dog. What was going through their mind?
I look forward to mining through some unfinished work with fresh eyes, fresh perspective and maybe some guts.
I really enjoyed this book and couldn’t put it down. He mentions Heraclitus, who was an enigmatic philosopher who always spoke of maintaining the tension of the opposites. Perhaps the enigma of creativity lies in that tension. One pushing on the other and vice versa.
All in all creativity is a courageous act and we often hold ourselves back out of fear of where it will lead as opposed whether it will be good or not. Sometimes it feels like an overthinking that undermines creativity but perhaps it’s an unthinking that is needed and to just go forth and create. Fuck I mean someone invented a hot dog. What was going through their mind?
I look forward to mining through some unfinished work with fresh eyes, fresh perspective and maybe some guts.
August 23, 2012
thought-provoking, quick read. wonderful historic analysis of the process of creativity written by an academic philosopher and doctor of psychology. covers psycho-analytic theory, Nietzsche, Dionysus. author argues that creative thought is essential for successful living, but only if it is transcended into action. ideas and concepts may be preceded or followed then by logic, stating that this initially is the most anxiety-ridden path to tread and so it requires a commitment to the process along with a relaxed mind.
from the preface... "All my life I have been haunted by the fascinating questions of creativity. Why does an original idea from science and in art "pop up" from the unconscious at a given moment? What is the difference between talent and the creative act, and between creativity and death? Why does a mime or a dance give us such delight? How did Homer, confronting something as gross as the Trojan War, fashion it into poetry which became a guide for the ethics of the whole Greek civilization?"
from the preface... "All my life I have been haunted by the fascinating questions of creativity. Why does an original idea from science and in art "pop up" from the unconscious at a given moment? What is the difference between talent and the creative act, and between creativity and death? Why does a mime or a dance give us such delight? How did Homer, confronting something as gross as the Trojan War, fashion it into poetry which became a guide for the ethics of the whole Greek civilization?"
May 2, 2011
Not my favorite work by May. Like Alan Watt's The Wisdom of Insecurity, this book trails off into a rant about how awesome artists and art is, but without any substance or meat to really link art and mental health. No one needs to read both these books, as they are too similar, although this is the slightly better of the two.
Update: having read a little Tillich and Carl Rogers' Dialogues, I wish I had the patience and time to look this over again. I now understand that May was at the center of an ideology war, and sadly perhaps some of his writing in this book are casualties of the war.
Update: having read a little Tillich and Carl Rogers' Dialogues, I wish I had the patience and time to look this over again. I now understand that May was at the center of an ideology war, and sadly perhaps some of his writing in this book are casualties of the war.
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January 19, 2021Kendinde anlattığına yakın bir okuma deneyimiyle kitabı tamamladım. Duyumsattığı, yaratmaya davet ettiği bir okuyuştu. Kelimelerle küçültmek istemeyecek kadar.
"Bir şiir ya da resmin büyüklüğü yaşanan ya da gözlenen şeyi görüntülemesinde değil, sanatı ya da şairin, gerçeklikle karşılaşmasıyla, harekete geçen görüyü görüntülemesindedir. Resim ya da şiir bu yüzden eşsizdir, özgündür, sureti elde edilemeyendir."
"Bir şiir ya da resmin büyüklüğü yaşanan ya da gözlenen şeyi görüntülemesinde değil, sanatı ya da şairin, gerçeklikle karşılaşmasıyla, harekete geçen görüyü görüntülemesindedir. Resim ya da şiir bu yüzden eşsizdir, özgündür, sureti elde edilemeyendir."
June 11, 2008
This book is incredibly dated (1975), talking waaaay too much about the Russians and having a very traditional psychoanalytic, heteronormative outlook. I found it sort of grating, but there are a few very interesting theoretical pieces about the creative process. You can skim over it in 2 days, easy.
May 2, 2012
This is actually an excellent and small (thus manageable) book, but it is heavy psychological reading, very scholarly in tone. While I need to ponder it further, the basic themes are pushing against conformity, and living authentically and intentionally. Rollo May is an American existentialist philosopher who was very influential in the 1950s - 1970s.
April 9, 2019
6/10
February 20, 2021
Kitabı akıcı bir şekilde okuyabilmek için psikoloji ve sanat konusunda biraz birikim gerektirmesine rağmen zorlayıcılığının içerikten ziyade biçimsel olduğunu düşünüyorum. Belki ders kitabi ciddiyeti ve sürekli yüksek konsantrasyonla okunmalı zira gerçekten akıcı yazılmış/çevrilmiş veya kisisel olarak ilgimi çeken kısımlar dışında odaklanmakta sıklıkla zorluk yaşadım.
January 16, 2022
‘yaratıcı süreç; biçim için duyulan tutkunun dışavurumudur. parçalanmaya karşı bir mücadeledir yaratıcı süreç. uyum ve bütünleşmeyi doğuracak olan yeni varlık türlerinin varoluşa getirilmesi mücadelesi.�
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December 21, 2020Jeigu norite suprasti kurio nors istorinio periodo psichologinę ir dvasinę nuotaiką, nėra geresnio būdo kaip tiriantis ir atidus žvilgsnis į to meto meną, kadangi mene simboliais išreiškiama laikotarpio dvasia ir jos prasmė. Taip yra ne dėl to, kad menininkai stengiasi būti didaktiški, mokyti ar skleisti propagandą. Jeigu taip atsitinka, jų išraiškos galios sužlugdomos: ryšys su neaiškiais (galima pasakyti “pasąmoniniais�) kultūros lygiais sunaikinamas. Menininkai gali atskleisti tam tikro laikotarpio prasmę būtent todėl, kad meno esmė yra gyvas ir veiksmingas menininko ir jo pasaulio susitikimas.
Terminą “pasąmonė� vartoju kaip tam tikrą sutrumpinimą. Neegzistuoja toks dalykas kaip “pasąmonė�. Tiksliau būtų sakyti, jog egzistuoja neįsisąmoninti patyrimo matmenys (ar aspektai, šaltiniai). Tokia pasąmonę apibrėšiu kaip įsisąmoninimo arba veiksmo galimybes, kurių individas neaktualizuoja arba negali aktualizuoti. Šios galimybės yra vadinamojo “laisvojo kūrybingumo� šaltiniai. Neįsisąmonintų fenomenų tyrinėjimas yra nuostabiai susijęs su kūrybiškumu.
...įžvalga ateina pereinamuoju laikotarpiu tarp darbo ir poilsio. [...] Atrodytų, tarsi prasidėjęs intensyvus susikaupimas ties problema, t. y. mąstymas apie ją bei pastangos išspręsti, tęstųsi toliau, tačiau kartu manyje bręstų kažkoks naujas sprendimas, skirtingas nuo to, kurį bandau atrasti sąmoningomis pastangomis. Tokia įtampa neretai būdinga kūrybos procesui. Jeigu būsime pernelyg užsispyrę, dogmatiški ar prisirišę prie ankstesnių išvadų, niekuomet į sąmonę neįsileisime naujo elemento ir taip niekada neleisime sau atrasti pažinimo, esančio kitame mūsų vidinio pasaulio lygyje. Tačiau įžvalga dažniausiai negali užgimti, kol sąmoninga įtampa nebus atpalaiduota. Taip prieiname prie daugeliui žinomo reiškinio, kuris parodo, jog pasąmonės proveržiui reikalinga kaita tarp valingo ir intensyvaus darbo ir atsipalaidavimo, o įžvalga dažniausiai užgimsta [...] būtent to perėjimo metu.
Daugeliui žmonių būdinga vienumos baimė yra mūsų laikų bruožas: būti vienam reiškia socialinę nesėkmę. Niekas nebūtų vienas, jei tik galėtų. Dažnai man ima atrodyti, kad žmonės, gyvenantys šioje modernioje, beprotiškoje civilizacijoje, tarp nuolatinio radijo ir televizoriaus ūžesio, pasiduodantys bet kokios rūšies stimuliacijai [...], labai sunkiai leidžia pasąmoningai įžvalgai prasiveržti į sąmonę. Aišku, kai asmuo bijo būti iracionalus, t. y. bijo nesąmoningos patirties, jis stengiasi būti labai užsiėmęs, panirti į aplinkinį “triukšmą�, vengia nerimo dėl vienumos, nuolat kur nors nukrypdamas. Kierkegaardas tai gražiai lygina su Amerikos naujakuriais, kurie naktį mušdavo puodus ir keptuves, siekdami sukelti kuo daugiau šurmulio ir atbaidyti vilkus. Akivaizdu: jei norime patirti nesąmoningas įžvalgas, turime gebėti atsiduoti vienumai.
Kai aš imuosi rašyti ką nors man svarbaus, pastebiu, kad prieš tai dvidešimt minučių pameditavus mano pasaulis tampa pernelyg tvarkingas ir organizuotas. Ir tuomet nebeturiu apie ką rašyti. Mano susitikimas tarsi išgaravo į orą. Visos “problemos� išspręstos. Be abejo, jaučiu palaimą, tačiau rašyti negaliu.
Labiau mėgstu ištverti chaosą ir susidurti su “sudėtingumu bei keblumu�, kaip tai vadina Barronas. Tuomet šis chaosas skatina mane ieškoti tvarkos, grumtis su juo, kol atrasiu gilesnę esminę formą. Manau, kad tuo metu įsitraukiu į procesą, kurį MacLeishas vadina grumtynėmis su pasaulio tyla ir beprasmybe. Įsitraukiu tol, kol jis įgaus prasmę, kol išgirsiu tylos atsakymą, kol nebūtis taps būtimi. Ir tik po rytinio rašymo galiu medituoti, panaudodamas meditaciją tikrajam jos tikslui - protui ir kūnui atsipalaiduoti.
Sapnai, kaip ir pranašystės, vertingi ne todėl, kad jie suteikia konkretų atsakymą, bet todėl, kad atveria naujas psichinės tikrovės sritis, išmuša mus iš įprastinių vėžių ir nušviečia naują mūsų gyvenimo sritį.
Manyčiau, jog teiginys “žmogaus galimybės yra neribotos� atima energiją. Jeigu priimtume jį už gryną pinigą, tuomet neliktų jokios realios problemos. Gali tiesiog atsistoti, sugiedoti “Aleliuja� ir eiti namo. Tokios neribotos galimybės anksčiau ar vėliau įveiks kiekvieną problemą. Tuomet liks tik laikini sunkumai, kurie savaime išnyks atėjus tinkamam metui. [...] toks teiginys iš tiesų įbaugina klausytoją. Tarsi pasodintum žmogų į baidarę ir paleistum į Atlanto vandenyną Anglijos link, džiaugsmingai šūktelėdamas: “Nėra jokių ribų, viskas įmanoma!� Joje sėdintis irkluotojas labai greitai suvokia, kad neišvengiamai tikra riba yra vandenyno dugnas.
May 4, 2009
(page 15) "We need a new type of physical courage that will neither run rampant in violence nor require our assertion of ego-centric power over other people. I propose a new form of courage of the body: the use of body not for the development of muscle men, but for the cultivation of sensitivity. It will be, as Nietzsche remarked,a learning to think with the body. It will be a valuing of the body as the means of empathy with others, as expression of self as think of beauty and as a rich source of pleasure."
January 3, 2017
На това му се казва интелектуален кеф.
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