Hey guys... it's Loren here. I've got some ramblings about my art and creativity that some times runs a muck! I want to share my process of thinking about creating and generating ideas and concepts. I feel it is time to discuss the depths of creating and producing "ideas" and how it effects my life on a daily basis. It may effect your life too!
Lately, I've been a little restless with my work and trying to find firm footing. I know that I am in love with making and creating things. I've been this way my entire life. The reality is that I want to do so many things, see so many ideas come to fruition that I some times get a little overloaded. I have to take a step back and decompress from the influx of concepts, ideas, imagery and visual stimulus. I think I have written about this some posts ago (I have to search for it)? I am racked by what is now called "ideaphoria'. Basically, it's being over run by ideas! This can be a good thing for some but not for everyone. Being able to go to battle with the flood of energy and captivation of thinking that comes from ideas is a tricky line to navigate. In one respect, creators may have loads of ideas and realize that it is so, therefore they need to block some out just to down right function and move forward day to day. But, then they, as everyone would, they need to ask them self "may I be blocking out good, viable ideas that will never see the light of day since they are suppressed or essentially removed from my consciousness?" So, the game and tightrope walking begins.
What to sort through and eliminate is no easy feat I must admit in my own life. New ideas need to be able to germinate inside for a while to even tell if they are descent , productive concepts. By then, I can be bogged down in the minutia of each idea and hence the overloading starts to takes place. Let me give an example of my own brand of "ideaphoria". Now let me also say, that this is my brand and thinking and creative experience with this process. Yours might be a different flavor or color so to speak. Every person, I believe has their unique process of ideas and thought generating concepts/
Many times when I am out in public or anywhere for that matter and, I will see something in a store window perhaps that is bright and colorful. It captivates my visual attention and senses so intensely, so magically and mysteriously, that I then experience a internal jolt inside my mind signalling that a new idea is being formed. I then experience what I call a "POP" sensation that goes out into my consciousness as a new idea or concept for something that appears to me. The idea maybe be nothing like or even remotely similar to what triggered the idea in the first place. It could be just a "glance" or a 'peek"at something and viola! the idea is born and processing in my mind. This is what was happening to me so much, so intensely that I had to put the brakes on it it because it was clogging my memory and thought process. I had to constantly say to myself, "NO" as if I was talking to the child part of my mind like everyone has. (they just show up differently for each of us) Now don't get me wrong. This idea generating process is not all that bad. I have learned that it can create euphoria and an increase in certain brain chemicals like adrenaline and endorphins, as well as change brain activity (too much to go into here) that makes us feel super good. I imagine it is like a runners high, but having it intermittently all day long! If this idea generating process is not curtailed, it is in essence is like you are running here and there all day, everyday. Imagine that? Sounds tiring just to write about it much less experience it in it's rare form. This is what is so overwhelming about this brain idea creating and idea producing 'machine like' thinking process. It is exhausting at times, stressful at others but mostly I say it's the most enjoyable fun one can have with their closest friend and toy like product, " their brain!"
There is one more thing I'd like to share about this creative way of thinking. I want to discuss to tell about the life of the most brilliant man I have ever known and the one who was never, ever short of ideas, my Dad! My smart, funny and so super creative Dad was the gasoline that made the car run and run in life he he did. He was a toy inventor for Kohner Bros. Toys and everything he looked at, everything he experienced was seen and felt through the lens of his intriguing, fascinating and brilliant mind. He was playful, imaginative, innovative in every way. His mind was always going even when he was working or drafting one thing, he was thinking up a slue of other products, toys and inventions at the same time!. To me, he was the ultimate creator and one inventor that created the imaginary world we live in. Nothing passed his spirit and soul without being absorbed into his brain and juggled around and then pushed back out producing sketches, drawings and demonstrations of the wildest, funniest things one can imagine. He was said to have "done the work of what would have been five men", at Kohner Bros. Toys.! He was prolific in every sense of the word. He used up every minute of time creating and his nourishment for a mind that was way ahead of it's time. Creativity was no laughing matter for my Dad, but then again, it was the laughing matter! My Dad, the man who could create something, anything that would help one to leap tall buildings 'with out' needing a single bound. The man that turned the creative world on his head, was not able to insulate himself from the stress of life and the enormous responsibility he had. Four children and no 'Momma to care for my siblings and me. My Gram helped and tried and did her best but it was fate that had already been handed down. My Dad, the light of my life, the man who knew how to have fun and how to show me how to express myself and have fun too, as well as the creator who taught me how to live as a creative soul, tragically lost his life at the age of 40 from a heart attack
That was truly...the day the music died.
So, after that experience, life certainly moved on but it is lived from a different perspective and purpose. Everyone who has ever known me knows that creativity became and is now the center of my life with the 'ideaphoria' pattern of thinking becoming an everyday experience. Now, when I experience the 'ideaphoria', I don't feel as annoyed, angry, frustrated or upset anymore as one would expect. Actually, I now welcome it at times because I think that every time an idea comes to my mind, it is a little message, a sign and reminder that my Dad is watching over me and filling my heart with lots of creative ideas and concepts which he loved so much. I feel it is a way of communicating with him. I carry on his legacy in a unusual way and hope that I share even some small amount of the extraordinary abilities my Dad may have passed down to me both genetically and experiential?
For me now, I have found a great way to deal with the overload that I have some times feel by writing my ideas ( if I can remember them), down in a specifically designated journal for inventions and ideas. I find it frees up some mental space and leaves a little room internally to focus on the present! I highly recommend a visual journal for anyone who experiences 'ideaphoria' or just wants to record your ideas. I don't concern myself with the quality of the sketches or drawings and ramblings of my ideas. I just scribble them down as precisely as I can without being a perfectionist.
Well, that's a wrap up for this post. Thanks so much for reading through this entire post. It's certainly an important issue concerning some artists and inventors. Leave a comment if you have any of your own ideas or thoughts about "ideaphoria". I realize that we must all be patient with people who process ideas the way I have explained in this post , as I need to be patient with myself. Keep creating and coming up with ideas. It fills the world with love, happiness and joy! Without it, we would wilt on the vine!
Cheers,
Loren
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