To create or to reshape. My understanding is that these are two different things. They are often blurred in my mind even as I acknowledge the distinction. Can people truly create? Or can we only reshape what has already been created? If the platonic ‘ideal’ holds true then it seems that everything I, we, do is a reflection, an iteration maybe, of the ultimate.

The idea that I could perhaps create a new ultimate is intriguing but has no possibility of being authenticated. It is most likely an exercise in idle speculation, but the thought process has led me to some interesting places. These places, these recesses in the corners of my soul have often gone unexplored. Why? Because I have no way of qualifying what I find there. I can’t compare myself, my darkest deepest mysterious elements with anyone or anything. Who could I ever safely share them with?

In my core, in my heart of hearts is the blackest of darkness absolutely impenetrable by light or reason. It is not evil, nor good. It is total chaos and utter stillness. It is the yin yang in its every application. The Wellspring of all things. The Great Mystery.

It is within this darkness that I often send my consciousness. I try to find the things about myself that can help or hurt me. I am always amazed at the riddle that is me. It can not be understood in any conventional way. It can not be expressed in any words but yet, I am compelled to try.

This is the force behind my “creativity.” I express myself through music, through my writing, my singing, my guitar. I take the secret parts of myself, I take the inexpressible, and I express them. I unveil to the world and sometimes even myself, the mystery of self.

I have found that this is the best way for me to quantify and qualify my darkness. I cannot bring light into my black heart, but I can bring my heart out into the light. A little bit by little bit, I am insulated from internal damnation and external condemnation. Art, music, artistic license: these protect me. Even though I can still feel the pain of rejection (I often do), I can also recognize that the rejection may simply be of the manner of presentation, not what is being presented. That may seem like semantics, but it’s still true.

I have found that it is impossible for me to explore these caverns and not return again to the surface with a gem. I have found that when Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is within me, he wasn’t kidding. I have found that although I have many flaws and shortcomings, I am actually an amazing being, completely and totally without equal, and pricelessly valuable. I have found, often to my chagrin, that so can everyone else be. I am not unique in this potential. Everyone has the Kingdom of Heaven inside them. One needs only to go for a walk one day and they too will find these truths.

How can I exist and not create? How can the space between that mysterious darkness of the limitless unknowns, of myself and the well-defined light of my reason and awareness not be charged with possibility? The constantly renewed flux of the streams of consciousness flowing up through the wellspring to the mysterious subconscious, bringing with it all the possibility of the unknown. How could I not create in this situation? How could whole new worlds not be formed? New ideas, new vistas, new fears, new hopes. The dreams of a slumbering god.

To return to my initial question regarding the concepts of creative and reshaping, I find that creation is not an act of deliberation. It happens spontaneously and instantly. It is then that the individual reshapes, polishes it up, smooths the rough edges, makes a second draft, and starts all over.

What many call creation is really just the process of deciding how to present what was created.

A sculptor works hard to free the image from within the stone. The painter strives to capture the image in their mind or sitting in the model’s place. The musician struggles to deliver the song within their soul. But all these “presentations” are not creations but simply the revelation of what already is. The creation is done instantly, instinctively and every time we look into the darkness.

Gregory
CLF member, incarcerated in NH