Woetoe’s Reviews > Witness to the Fire: Creativity and the Veil of Addiction > Status Update

‘I feel like a small battlefield, in which the problems of our time are being fought out. All one can hope to do is to keep oneself humbly available, to allow oneself to be a battlefield. After all, the problems must be accomodated, have somewhere to struggle and come to rest and we, poor little humans, must put our inner space at their service and not run away.’

- Etty Hillesum

‘… The heavenly powers
Cannot do all things. It is the mortals
Who reach sooner into the abyss. So the turn is
With these. Long is
The time, but the true comes into
Its own.’
- Hölderin

Heidegger: ‘What threatens man in his very nature is the view that technological production puts the world in order, while in fact this ordering is precisely what levels every ordo, every rank, down to the uniformity of production, and thus from the onset destroys the realm from which any rank and recognition could possible arise.”

‘We often dismiss the disclosure of meaning as revealed in art as “mere play”—something to entertain us—rather than that which essentialy confronts us with the meaning of life and death. Instead of honoring the sacred silence revealed in the poetic image, we prefer rational concepts. We want easy answers and solutions rather than insights that leave us with a new reverence for the questions of life.’

‘We try to control love and human relationship through noisy small talk and gossip, which escalates through alcohol, rather than opening up ourselves to the surprise of genuine conversation, when we listen with awe to each other and to the silence of creation.’

‘Just as an individual can be hostage in the abyss of addiction, so can an entire epoch or culture. Western civilization is experiencing a Dark Night of the Soul due to our self-asserting will to control, epitomized by the technology that we expect to provide us with a secure, happy and comfortable life.’

‘The patriarchal Judge emphasizes comparing and competing, as well as results (fame and fortune) rather than process. This impedes creativity. All of these proclamations from The Judge, who wants to be “highest”, are toxic to the creative process. In contrast, creativity requires judgements that have unconditional respect for the unique voice and style of each person and that celebrate the creative process.’

You must be able to stand in the tension between potentiality of the vision and the finite limits of the embodiment, just as a genuine work of art always contains creative tension and offers it to the recipient. This conflict—essential to the creative proces—keeps many people from daring to create or to risk putting their creation out into the world. The same issue arises in the recreating of one’s life.’