One quote from my journey through that meandering hyperlink hell spoke of the Sumerian culture and how to them, there was no such concept as discovery. Instead, all knowledge already existed and those whom our modern culture might refer to as pioneers and discoverers were simply remembering forgotten lore from the seas of knowledge. While the accuracy of this cannot be verified, as with most of the content from fusionanomaly, I simply fell in love with the concept thus depicted. I stored it in my own memory as nothing more than a cool quote and forgot about it.
Like most proverbs that one may be subjected to in their early years, we often learn these sayings and grasp their meaning in a superficial way. Most children would be able to recite "A rolling stone gathers no moss.", "A stitch in time saves nine." and so on but it is only after being subjected to the harrowing storms of life that the true meaning and impact of these mnemonic marvels truly sinks in.
Fast-forward to today.
I like discovering things for myself. Following instructions is something that I can do very well but as soon as anything unexpected crosses my path, I fall into complete and utter confusion. The only way to properly handle things in all areas of my life is through trial and error. Rote memorization is good for simple, temporary tasks and challenged but such a system inevitably fails when applied to the real world. The same principle can be observed when one copies and pastes code from stackoverflow vs. actually trying to figure out an algorithm by typing it in instinctively and running it.
The point is that after instinctively employing this method of learning in every sphere of my life, my mind somehow decided that it would define itself as a pioneer, as an innovative creator of impossible things, simply because my learning tactics and my solutions for acquiring and internalizing certain knowledge felt like discovery.
This learning process and the resulting delusion has also pushed me into thinking that I should only favor the immediate, the ephemeral. A drawing is only valid if I sit down and doodle something for a short period. Anything more than that and even revisits and polishing are useless, as they destroy the uniqueness and potency of my art. So naïve...
Cultural products
One`s creativity and imagination is bound by the culture and general inputs he is submitted to. When I first started working on my own game projects, I felt like I was breaking new grounds, inventing new types of characters and interactions, simply because I coded them in myself. It was my own overactive imagination, simply regurgitating my own experiences.I remember shunning many friends in high school because I judged their game designs as derivative : they simply wanted to remake Final Fantasy 6, which at the time, we knew only as Final Fantasy 3. Another friend would only play Final Fantasy songs, and I was utterly unimpressed, even though as he was doing that, he was becoming a very good pianist. Yet another friend drew a lot but every one of his drawings and comic strips featured Cloud Strife, Final Fantasy VII's protagonist. Again, derivative, worthless.
*I* was a true creator!
Up until recently, I took great pride in my sloppy drawings, my hacky way of writing, my complete disregard for basic scales and modes when I play music...I guessed I grew to love the smell of my own shit, to put it bluntly. But in recent months, I felt the joy leave me, my sense of appreciation, my sense of beauty, fading away, even for things I've worshipped for decades. Without joy, there is no creation. Rage and hatred sure feel good but they are ways towards blindness, not clearer sight.
All things which I had based my sense of self-worth on were simply ways of learning, which I have never fully pushed beyond the learning stage. I held on to these faulty constructs because I felt that it was my only source of identity; I was different, a rebel, a true original....
There are no such things as absolute originality. We are all products of the culture which we grew up in and I fear that at one point, many of us stop learning, stop absorbing new culture. Maybe that is due in part to the hyper-consumerism culture that seems to have taken over the globe. We seek comfort, a way to empower our ego, a way to give ourselves the illusion that we are meaningful, that our own experience is truly unique and worthwhile. The myth of the hero, laid bare. It is indeed time for the Jedi to end.
A good friend of mine recently introduced me to the song Innuendo, by Queen. I had never heard it, never even heard OF it. This video and the song itself were completely new to me.
To me, this was absolutely magical and fresh and new. I have listened to Queen's greatest hits (Those blue and red albums that everybody seemed to have in the 90s) but this masterpiece managed to slip by until its meaning could be unleashed upon me at precisely the right time. It didn't want to become just another thing to be quoted and misunderstood; it wanted to shred through my cover and reveal my fragile self to the whole wide world.
I guess the song's message hit hard enough to shake off the layers of self-importance that I wore with pride all these years :
Let go of your Ego, be free, be free to yourself
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