I’m continuing my reporting on the current installment of Conservative Estimate, the recently founded website that is devoted to demolishing Conservatism.
On Friday, Alfred George showed that eliminating our fears is the key to freedom, and that creativity and freedom are mutually reinforcing.
Today, he follows up on the relationship between freedom and creativity, and shows how increasing our freedom increases our creativity, and vice versa.
We’ll take a look at his argument on the other side of the billowing orange smoke trails.
Mr. George begins by reminding us that the best way to undermine our fears to treat them unexpectedly.
When you make an unaccustomed move in relation to fear—when you approach it, dialogue with it, sidestep it, joke with it—and new possibilities arise, the conditions for being creative are prepared. All you have to do then is fix a new possibility in mind and start inspecting it with an eye toward figuring out how to bring it into being. This is the essence of all creative activity: making an inner vision of an as-yet-unseen possibility, followed by transferring that vision into reality.
He goes on to say that this two-step process is the kick-starter for creativity: first, by refusing to obey the fear, the game is restarted, and new actions become possible; second, by latching on to one of the new possibilities and working to make it happen, you can forget the fear and even lose it altogether because your attention is absorbed in bringing the new vision you have into reality.
In this way, becoming freer stimulates creativity.
Mr. George then shows that the reverse is also true.
Just as freeing yourself from fear can make you more creative, so too can becoming more creative free you from fear.
Every foray into any creative activity . . . is a step away from fear. The longer you can engage in creative activity, the more you learn the feeling of living without fear. And this also applies to living your life—perhaps especially so. When you respond to a fearful event by refusing to obey the fear, new opportunities arise. If, for example, you habitually cringe at criticism and slink off with shame, refusing to do so opens up new possibilities. You can listen carefully to the criticism, for instance, and ask the critic for explanations and even assistance, take up the suggestions, continue to engage the critic, perhaps even become friends. This is creative living: learning to treat your life like a theatrical performance or an ongoing inventive project.
Living creatively like this makes you as free as a human being can be.
You can read the whole post here.
Tomorrow, Mr. George is going to lay out a practical plan for enhancing both your creativity and your freedom.
I’ll be reporting back each day as a new installment appears.