Transformation

I made it all the way to #DareToExcel Challenge 2! I honestly didn’t know if I’d make it this far, but I’m enjoying the prompts as they’re helping me explore something that’s been weighing on me lately.

Challenge 2 is to answer several questions to create a project brief.

Project Title: (a tentative title is fine)

Transformation

Since writing up the question from Challenge 1, I’ve clung to the metaphors of Brahma and Shiva as a way to understand the forces of creation and destruction. What really stands out to me is the idea of the cycle. Destruction is not necessarily negative, it is the spark of Transformation.

The Problem: State the problem you’re wanting to pursue in one sentence.

The problem is that creativity has taken my time, energy and money, and left me with less than I started with.

The Feeling: Articulate the feeling that you’re driven to give shape to through this project. 

The feeling is a bitterness toward creativity, like it owes me something for all I’ve sacrificed to it. The sacrifice of time and money — three years and thousands of dollars for an MFA which has resulted in a debt larger than my annual income (by the time I pay it off, it will be more than double my annual income.) This is just one example, but prioritizing creativity has left me feeling sour in a lot of ways. It’s not only money. It’s the time I’ve spent writing (time that I could have invested in friends and family, building my resume, or learning other skills.) I’ve been in a creative rut lately, where the very idea of creation makes me feel exhausted and defeated. I’m hoping the Dare To Excel challenge can help me figure out a positive way to balance my life.

Wonder & Curiosity: What are you curious about in relation to this project?

I’m curious to explore what I have gained from creativity, why I can’t give it up, and how I can learn to value it again. To realize how it has transformed me. As far as wonder goes, I guess I am in awe of the strength of the force of creativity, how I am compelled to answer to it no matter how many times I try to push it away. I have given writing up for good 3 times in the past year. Each time I began a new short story a few hours later.

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Book Review: Player Piano

I first picked this book up about three years ago, around the time I started my first full-time job. I’ve always been a dreamerand had a fear of selling my time and becoming a slave of the 9-5. Through this book I was seeking a way to make myself feel better about signing my soul over to the corporate world. I’d heard that this was a book that explored the idea of why work is important, why we need to keep busy and productive to be happy. But I was disappointed that Vonnegut’s conversational tone wasn’t present in his first novel, and found the story to be slow and boring. I read the first few chapters and put it down.

Fast forward three years into the future. To now. I absorbed the book in a couple days. I couldn’t put it down. What changed? Me. I’ve had my ups and downs in the corporate world since the first time I tried to read Player Piano. I now understand the cut-throat world of office politics, but also the fulfillment of a job well-done and the structure of a set schedule.

I’ve seen my job begin to be phased out by automation software, so the story of a working force displaced by machines really hits home. But what really kept me turning the pages was the career of the protagonist, Paul Proteus, one of the few people left with a stable job after machines replace humans in almost every part of society. What really drives the novel is Paul’s identity crises as he tries to decide if he wants to go for a promotion or give it all up to follow his ideals.

Despite the fact that it was written in 1952, and the technology sometimes feels dated (audio is always recorded on cassettes, and computers use physical cards to record data), Player Piano is a terrifyingly relevant story that brings to life a future that we have already stepped foot in.

Though Vonnegut hadn’t established his voice yet, Player Piano is a great work of literature reminiscent of other satirical dystopian masterpieces. Vonnegut acknowledged that he “cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World,” and it’s easy to see the similarities, but his story is a fresh one, with a wealth of insight to offer us more than half a century later. This is now one of my favorite Vonnegut novels (And I’ve read most of them). It belongs on the shelf alongside Brave New World (We), Fahrenheit 451, and 1984.

Dare To Excel Challenge

I’ve been meaning to get in on the whole Quest thing for a while, and am finally giving it a go! Thanks for the nudge, Brenna. 🙂

I’ve been struggling a lot with creativity lately, and the spaces it allows me and forces me to carve out of my life, and I would like to better understand or appreciate the give and take of creativity. Why I struggle so much with it, and why I need it. So here is my question:

I’m already feeling a pull towards the iconic struggle of Brahma and Shiva, and an acceptance that the riddle of my question won’t have a clear answer, but a tangle of half-answers. Maybe it’s because something has to be destroyed for something new to be created. Whatever the case, I’m going to peer down the abyss.

More about #DareToExcel here: trackingwonder.com/DareToExcel