What do you think?
Rate this book
Living Creatively (original title Envy and Originality): How to Discover Your Sources of Originality and Self-Worth
Envy and Originality marks a milestone in the unfolding of the van kaamian theory of personality. It points to the basic necessity of respect for one’s own and others’ original life call and the motivations stemming from it. The author intends that his reflections be seen as passionate appeals for the just treatment of people hemmed in by envy and oppression in any leveling society or community.
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 9, 2017
As I write this, I remember the distinction between judging a preacher's performance vs his or her content. I wanted to focus on van Kaam's content, but unfortunately, what stands out to me was his performance.
On the one hand, the book is or ought to be very interesting. The subject matter is interesting, the basic ideas are interesting, the specific ideas, when reflected on, seem sound and interesting, for the most part. I doubt I can find a contemporary Christian author who thinks like van Kaam. On the other hand, I frequently struggled to keep paying attention to the book, and I found a certain slipperiness to it, not that he was wily and deceptive, not that sense of "slippery", but that my attention couldn't get a good grip on what he was saying.
A few factors that may have contributed to this are his conciseness and abstractness. Some authors might present something very concise and abstract as a series of aphorisms. Some of Nietzsche's philosophy, for instance, is presented as aphorisms. This breaks up the text in a way that the reader does not expect any kind of flow, and then fleshes out the work in their own mind (or abandons it in frustration). Van Kaam seems to make the text flow but without giving it enough of a "narrative warmth" or truly personal warmth (or enough life-like concreteness) to make it actually awaken the mind or lodge passages in one's memory for future rumination. (Granted, I'm writing this right after reading the book, and I may find I retained more than I realize as time goes on.)
One notable passage was his story of envy, that is, of a particularly extreme, yet somewhat general, story of an original person being taken down by people with envy of originality. That I think is a minor masterpiece. It seemed weirdly specific and over-the-top and perhaps inapplicable in real life, but it had that "narrative warmth" I mentioned before. In fact, perhaps by being "wrong" in one sense it was more thought-provoking and useful in another.
The last 30 pages or so were a real struggle for me to get through, save perhaps the very last 3 or 4 pages.
I liked this last quote:
"Be faithful to a value that means much to you, if only a little to your colleagues in the office or your cronies on the golf course. You may be called by your own originality to keep this neglected or forgotten interest alive, even if this may not make you rich or popular in the incidental phase of the culture or counterculture in which you happen to be born."
Thoughts I thought from reading the book:
The kind of envy van Kaam talks about is not necessarily the kind of envy I went into the book seeking insight into. My envy usually involves me respecting someone else's mastery of some ability, while feeling personally deficient and feeling that there's something perhaps unfair about that scenario, or more often simply feeling a craving to have what they have. This might better be called "coveting", perhaps? His envy probably wouldn't even present itself as envy to the envier, because they would think that the person they're envying wasn't even that good to begin with: "Yeah, he thinks he's smart, but he's just pretentious." Envy would probably present to the envier as a sense of superior judgment, not a painful apprehension of the envier's weakness.
Van Kaam (and his colleague, Susan Muto, judging by her book on singleness) are big fans of people being true to themselves and doing their own thing and developing themselves in a way that may or may not fit the culture. I suspect that this book will most have its effect on me by having me say "Am I or are you being true to my or your original personality?" But maybe it won't be exactly that. But I think it will have a lot to do with their basic value on individualism (if altruistic) and personal unfolding.
On the one hand, the book is or ought to be very interesting. The subject matter is interesting, the basic ideas are interesting, the specific ideas, when reflected on, seem sound and interesting, for the most part. I doubt I can find a contemporary Christian author who thinks like van Kaam. On the other hand, I frequently struggled to keep paying attention to the book, and I found a certain slipperiness to it, not that he was wily and deceptive, not that sense of "slippery", but that my attention couldn't get a good grip on what he was saying.
A few factors that may have contributed to this are his conciseness and abstractness. Some authors might present something very concise and abstract as a series of aphorisms. Some of Nietzsche's philosophy, for instance, is presented as aphorisms. This breaks up the text in a way that the reader does not expect any kind of flow, and then fleshes out the work in their own mind (or abandons it in frustration). Van Kaam seems to make the text flow but without giving it enough of a "narrative warmth" or truly personal warmth (or enough life-like concreteness) to make it actually awaken the mind or lodge passages in one's memory for future rumination. (Granted, I'm writing this right after reading the book, and I may find I retained more than I realize as time goes on.)
One notable passage was his story of envy, that is, of a particularly extreme, yet somewhat general, story of an original person being taken down by people with envy of originality. That I think is a minor masterpiece. It seemed weirdly specific and over-the-top and perhaps inapplicable in real life, but it had that "narrative warmth" I mentioned before. In fact, perhaps by being "wrong" in one sense it was more thought-provoking and useful in another.
The last 30 pages or so were a real struggle for me to get through, save perhaps the very last 3 or 4 pages.
I liked this last quote:
"Be faithful to a value that means much to you, if only a little to your colleagues in the office or your cronies on the golf course. You may be called by your own originality to keep this neglected or forgotten interest alive, even if this may not make you rich or popular in the incidental phase of the culture or counterculture in which you happen to be born."
Thoughts I thought from reading the book:
The kind of envy van Kaam talks about is not necessarily the kind of envy I went into the book seeking insight into. My envy usually involves me respecting someone else's mastery of some ability, while feeling personally deficient and feeling that there's something perhaps unfair about that scenario, or more often simply feeling a craving to have what they have. This might better be called "coveting", perhaps? His envy probably wouldn't even present itself as envy to the envier, because they would think that the person they're envying wasn't even that good to begin with: "Yeah, he thinks he's smart, but he's just pretentious." Envy would probably present to the envier as a sense of superior judgment, not a painful apprehension of the envier's weakness.
Van Kaam (and his colleague, Susan Muto, judging by her book on singleness) are big fans of people being true to themselves and doing their own thing and developing themselves in a way that may or may not fit the culture. I suspect that this book will most have its effect on me by having me say "Am I or are you being true to my or your original personality?" But maybe it won't be exactly that. But I think it will have a lot to do with their basic value on individualism (if altruistic) and personal unfolding.
Displaying 1 of 1 review