Creative Tension

"If people never misunderstand you, and if they do everything the way you tell them to, they're just transmitters of your ideas and you get bored with that. But when you work with people who misunderstand you, instead of getting transmissions you get transmutations, and that's much more interesting in the long run."--Andy Warhol

I don't know about you, but I think I work better when my ideas are challenged. It seems to ingite some adrenal wick which runs up my spinal column leading to some sort of flash-bang synapse explosion deep within my skull.

As I see it, the key to that is to surround yourself with people that genuinely care about you and the thing you're having ideas about who are creative and innovative, too. And, since I work for a church, sometimes people have a view that we sit around in prayer and a bell sounds, calling the monks to vespers, then we mystically achieve unity on whatever we're planning. That's hardly the case.

Watching a beloved idea that you think should have a "wow-factor" attached be misunderstood and blistered by other creative folks who care about you can sometimes be the impetus to a transmutation that the team can call their own and frankly, will be more effective and rewarding than the original.

I'd get bored with that. In short order.

But being misunderstood can have much more interesting results if it's worked and massaged and kneaded and tossed around and pounded again. I like the malleability of chaos sometimes. And it's even better if you allow for the reality that "spirituality" and "polite" aren't necessarily one in the same.

And, I think today will be one of those days, man.

I can just feel it.

Nice.