(Time for another visit with my friend Jack …)

William: Hey, Jack, good to see you again!

Jack: Always a pleasure, my friend!

William: The news about the economy lately is sure amazing. It’s an astonishing and sad thing to behold.

Jack: Yes, there’s a lot of misery out there. How are you doing?

William: I’m doing fine. But I’ve been where a lot of those folks are right now.

Jack: Really? Do tell…

William: Well, in the 1990’s I got sucked into the computer-tech craze. I was a “contract programmer”–basically a “temp” doing 6-9 month contracts for various companies in the Seattle area. There was amazing money to be made doing that. By the end of the 90’s, however, I knew the whole tech-bubble would crash–far too many start-ups with absolutely no idea how they would actually make money someday. In Seattle there were only a few big firms that weren’t software companies–Boeing was one of them, so I got myself a contract there to “weather the storm”. And the tech-world did indeed crash in 2000–but I was OK at Boeing. Then one Tuesday morning, 9/11/2001, all of us there at Boeing watched those planes fly into the Twin Towers. I was watching this, standing next to the folks who had personally designed and built those planes. It utterly defied comprehension.

(Pause)

Jack: As I recall, the whole air-travel industry pretty much augured into the ground after that.

William: It sure did. So Boeing had to lay off all its contractors and lots of their full-time employees. They kept me around longer than most, but eventually it was my turn to go.

Jack: And you couldn’t find another job?

William: No. And I had a good resumé. Just a year prior I could hit “send” on my resumé and my phone would start ringing within an hour. At this point, however, the software field was truly on life support, and there were just no positions. “We wish we had something for you, but we just don’t.”

Jack: So what happened?

William: I tried everything I could think of, but it wasn’t enough. I ultimately lost my house and went bankrupt. Music, which had been part-time income all along, was now my sole source, so the judge let me keep my glass armonica, other music equipment, my 10-year-old truck and basic personal stuff. After the final bankruptcy hearing I went out to my truck and wept. I was just stumped, and beaten.

Jack: That is tough, my friend.

William: Yes–those were dark days…

(Pause)

Jack: So, what did you do next?

William: Well, the “good” part about being reduced to zero is that you have complete freedom on how you rebuild your life. I decided that if I was going to be broke, I’d rather be broke doing something I really believed in instead of doing something just “for the money”–especially when the money was gone! Computers had been easy money, and I had succumbed to that siren song–and crashed on the rocks–just like Homer warned us. Mind you, I’ve known folks who really love programming itself–they eat and breathe it. But I wasn’t one of them.

Jack: Apparently you settled on music.

William: Yes.

Jack: So you say you’re doing music because “you believe in it”.

William: Yes!

Jack: And not because “it’s fun” or for “fame and fortune”?

William: Well, I won’t deny that when you’re doing what is fundamentally your path, it is also fun–just as my colleagues who really love computer programming were constantly lost in an amazing zen state when they were coding difficult algorithms.

Jack: And what about “fame and fortune”? (Grin!)

William: (Laughs.) I don’t know about that! The thing is, however, that although few musicians are wealthy, it’s still eminently possible to make a reasonable living at it–as long as you approach your craft like a professional.

Jack: You still haven’t explained “you believe in it…”

William: Right. Well, my 2001 crash-and-burn wasn’t my first trip to the “dark side of life”–as a teenager my youngest brother committed suicide and my whole family imploded after that. People would try to tell us things like “it must have been God’s will” or “you just need to get over it” or all sorts of horrible things. The fact is, I don’t think there are any words that can help when you’re in the midst of an agony like that. All that helped me was music. I found myself powerfully attracted to the music of composers who had gone through their own agony–Beethoven is a good example, especially the music he wrote after he went deaf–and their music was able to reach out across the centuries and say something to me like: “I really know what you’re feeling, but you’ll get through this.” Not that they consciously thought that when they wrote their music. But that was the end result.

Jack: And now you want to do the same?

William: Yes, I suppose so. One of the results of trips to “the dark side of Life” is that you become sensitized to it, and all of a sudden you can see that the world is full of “walking wounded”. I don’t know or care if my story is “harder” or “easier” than someone else’s–it’s certainly not a contest! But music helped me feel better, it helped me survive, and to remember the feeling of Hope. When you’re in the middle of hell, it can be hard to even remember what Hope feels like. Telling someone who’s there that they’ll be OK is pretty useless–a hug communicates so much more, and a “musical hug” communicates more still. <!–[endif]–>

Jack: Looks like you brought some music…

William: I just finished a new piano piece: “A Leaf in the Wind”. Just a “meditation” on how I’m probably more like a leaf in the wind than I really care to admit to myself–carried along by forces much greater than I. Thought you might like to hear it!

Jack: Bring it on!!

• Here’s the complete MP3 of A Leaf in the Wind (5:12)
• Here’s the first 20 seconds
• Here’s the score to A Leaf in the Wind for you pianists.

---

As always, MP3s are on the ‘honor system’–if my music does something for you, do a little monetary something for me and

I had the good fortune of having a great music teacher in my youth named Jack, who later became my mentor for life in general. We’ve remained in contact over the years, and I always enjoy my conversations with him. The other day our conversation turned to the subject of creativity…

William: So, Jack, what do you think ‘Creativity’ is in the first place?

Jack: Why don’t you take a stab at it yourself, and we’ll go from there.

William: OK, how about the ability to ‘think outside of the box’.

Jack: I think I know what you mean, but can you give a couple examples?

William: All right, how about a ‘practical’ one, and an ‘artsy’ one. For a practical example, we’re actually surrounded in modern life by millions upon millions of creative solutions to practical problems–embodied in the buildings we live in, the way we feed ourselves, the tools we use, just about everything! But, instead, I’ve always thought it rather interesting to think about the really simple inventions that go back to time immemorial which we still use every day. Like the BUTTON. Who thought of THAT? I like to imagine some long-forgotten cave WOMAN inventing the button (made out of lizard tooth) to bind and unbind two brontosaurus hides. And now, thousands upon thousands of years later, we’re still using her same invention.

Jack: (chuckling) OK! I like that! And your ‘artsy’ one?

William: Um, how about a really interesting use of words, where both the MEANING of the words and the SOUND of the words themselves work together to paint a picture. One of my favorite poems is a good example of that: Edgar Allen Poe’s The Bells:

Jack: That IS a great one. The Complete Poe is right over there—let’s hear it again.

William:

Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Hear the mellow wedding bells -
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight! -
From the molten - golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle - dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! - how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now - now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale - faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the clamor and the clanging of the bells!

Hear the tolling of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people - ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls: -
And their king it is who tolls: -
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells: -
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells: -
To the sobbing of the bells: -
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the tolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells, -
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

Jack: That’s a great one all right! So, you said that creativity has something to do with ‘thinking out of the box’. How do the ‘button’ and Poe’s The Bells exemplify that?

William: Um, I don’t know! The button was definitely a “cognitive leap”—the inventor put stuff laying around to a new use; and Poe’s poem is definitely a creative and fairly unique use of just the SOUND of language itself to help propel the poem. Maybe “thinking out of the box” isn’t such a good description of Creativity after all.

Jack: Oh, there’s plenty of good “definitions” of creativity, and “thinking out of the box” is as good as many of them. So let’s not give up on it quite yet. In the case of the Button Cave-lady, what might HER ‘box’ be?

William: Well, there’s actually probably more than one. One would be her old way of doing things. Maybe it was a brontosaurus coat and it was lashed closed and you just had to wiggle your way into and out of it–which could be hard to do. So one box could just be HABIT—not taking a moment to stop and think: “there’s GOT to be an easier way!”

Jack: Good. That’s definitely one absolute necessity of being creative—you have to stop and THINK about what you’re doing, and ask yourself “is there ANOTHER WAY”?

What else?

William: It occurs to me, that maybe Button Cave-lady didn’t jump all the way to the button as we know it in one swell-foop. Maybe they first just wrapped rope around their waist to keep the bronto-coat closed; then they had the idea of attaching short pieces of rope to the coat so they could just tie it closed; then maybe they permanently tied that lizard bone onto one of the pieces of rope so the only had to tie/untie the one side; and so on.

Jack: That’s right. Of course we don’t know the details of how the button was invented, but that process of small improvements adding up to a big leap occurs constantly.

And there’s plenty more we could learn by thinking about your ‘button’ example. Meanwhile, how is Poe’s The Bells an example of thinking out of the box?

William: Well, maybe a variation on the ‘breaking a habit’ idea. It occurs to me that, as I listen to you speak, I’m essentially unaware of the specific vowels and consonants that you’re using, and just hearing the “meaning” behind what you’re saying. Just like reading—at a certain point you cease to be aware of the letters and spaces on the page, and are only aware of the ‘message’. To go from awareness of the meaning to awareness of the sound itself is actually shifting your awareness in a way.

Jack: OK, but is this something only a genius like Poe can do?

William: Well, if you don’t understand English and someone read you Poe’s poem, you would ONLY be aware of the SOUND of his poem—the meaning would be lost on you. Maybe you didn’t understand English because you’re a foreigner—or maybe just pre-verbal—a baby.

Jack: But once you call attention to it, it’s EASY to shift your perception and be aware of the vowels and consonants, or letters and spaces on the page. So that’s actually a skill we all already have—and a pretty easy one at that. Poe had the genius to take a mode of perception that we all have, but have forgotten, and to exploit it in a really interesting way.

William: Wow. In other words, we generally perceive our world stuck in ruts. And we’re perfectly capable of perceiving the world in new ways OUT of those ruts. And that shift can actually be pretty easy to do!

So, I wonder how many ruts I’m stuck in, that would be easy to get out of if I could identify them, where doing so would rock my world…?