Beginning Our Journey: Ch. 1 & 3; Tart, Ch. 6

Wow... where to begin? I can see why one would choose to start out in this direction for a "psychedelic" or a "mind-altering" journey. These chapters/readings were certainly filled with enough technical "mumbo-jumbo" to make my brain fizzle out for a couple hours. However, while preparing for any "psychedelic" journey, it is always best to know what you are getting yourself into. ::wink wink::

The first thing from these readings that made an impression on me was the slight drift towards a sense of negativity. Both readings did a good job at breaking the human mind down into these mathematical processes and formulas - something that I will not disagree with but yet I will not focus on it nor will I let it influence my life. It seems as if our creativity (according to the readings) comes from distress. It seems as if we use these altered states to escape and upon our return we bring creativity. This may be true for some but not for me. An altered state is not an escape - it is a window to your mind, it is a journey for knowledge of internal awareness and external awareness as well. When we go off into these states, we are discovering new paths. Paths not seen by any other individual and paths that CAN NOT be seen by any other individual (hence the term "individual"). This truth lies in the "filter process" that is discussed in the Tart reading. We must learn to break these everyday "filters". We have been conditioned to the point of numbness almost. I say almost because there are still those out there that have that desire to break out of this normal everyday shell - our d-SoC if you will.

I enjoyed how the Hughes reading kept referring to creativity as a synthesis because indeed it is. A synthesis of everything that has been in your life. A synthesis of what your life is. A synthesis of what your life can be. When Hughes pulled towards the negative side of creativity, he lost me. Talking about Van Gogh and some random graffiti artist of the 80's is not enough to convince me that all creativity stems from some sort of negativity. They were probably just wackos. I can find creativity in a flower, a rainstorm, a gold-medalist Olympian that is suddenly paralyzed. There is beauty and creativity in all of these things whether they are stereotyped as positive or negative aspects of life. I come back to that dreadful, awful, disgusting of a word: conditioning. YOU HAVE BEEN CONDITIONED!! Myself included or I wouldn't be sitting here typing on a Penn State computer for a Penn State class and a Penn State professor. We must look past these formulas and theories that can not be TRULY explained but so many scholars and students try to - there is simply no answer. Life is creativity. Creativity is life. It's all psychobabble really - isn't it??