The Gray Area

So often people like to take the ambiguous, complex aspects of reality and attempt to make them black and white in their heads. This can lead to many problems as this constructs mental misrepresentations of reality and thus they are unable to properly deal with things as they really are. This goes back to the problem of one not dealing with reality as it really is and the problems that stem from that.

'The psychic task which a person can and must set for himself, is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity, without panic and undue fear.' -Erich Fromm The Sane Society p. 174.

The Abyss of Freedom

Writing in terms of style hinders your writing altogether. 'Style' implies delimiting factors with parameters and confines within which you / your piece must stay. All else is verboten and thus your piece is denied anything which might enhance it if it falls outside this prefabricated construct. Style, in my approximation, is best employed in the capacity of inspiration. I.e., a blues-inspired section or piece; an impressionist-inspired piece, etc.

This advice would go for all forms of creativity. Everything from musical composition to cooking; film-making to interior design.

As in all aspects of life, specifically, creative endeavors, strictly speaking, to 'left brain thinking' or 'right brain thinking' is missing a whole world of possibilities – the key whole-brain thinking: applying all of the intellect that one has developed throughout their lifetime, but also conjuring and incorporating all of the experiential / emotional factors which make up what one is.

Just as culture benchmarks ideas, individuals benchmark concepts that over time become fragmented and disorganized. 'Reflection' is an important practice and can be energized if used as a period for reintegration of all the concepts one has accumulated – a sort of defragging and reorganizing of both gained concepts and emotionalized experiences. This, once again, conjures whole-brain thinking – combining the intellect and the emotions; left and right brain.

'With all the possibilities at [Debussy's] disposal, and conscious habits blocked, he came to confront what Stravinsky later called “the abyss of freedom.” Thereafter he complained of a paralysis of the imagination. In 1909 he wrote to Caplet, “No, it is not neurosis, or hypochondria either. It is the sweet sickness of the notion of having to choose among all conceivable things.”' -Music in the 20th Century, W W Austin p.33.

-A definition of information overload in the creative process?