“Being with” creative opportunities

Yesterday I wrote about the concept of “Being with.” It’s an exciting concept, where one lets go of all preconceptions and preoccupations, if possible, and is just being with what presents itself. I am like that with new creative opportunities, for example. 

Most creativity workshops and services out there speak about the generation of new ideas, innovative thinking, divergent thinking, thinking out of the box, you name it. 

But if you’re a creator like me, that’s not the issue, and trust me, if you’re not a creator like me, the concept of “being with” before doing anything with what presents itself, is vital to you too.

The opposite direction for a while

This may seem strange in this day and age, where everything, literally everything, pokes at you from all over, and the best exercise is in saying “NO” to most things. Choosing is a skill and daily practice we all need to be working on regularly if we don’t want to go mad. Stay with me, though. 

It is precisely in times like these that learning to “play” with time is of the essence. The first thing I vote for is learning to stop time altogether. In a sense, when you meditate, you do that. Slowing down has been something I have been working on daily since last October. I distinctly declared to my two best friends(I recommend that too, by the way) that slowing down is my goal now. And I have. But then, you know… life happens, as it usually does.

My new friend Alex

So a couple of weeks ago, Alex contacted me about a new creative collaboration we might have if I’m interested. (of course, I am, I’m always interested in creative collaborations 😁, but of course, you cannot go for everything. So we scheduled a Zoom call. This collaboration relates to a book. A book I knew about already. A book that is out of print. This means you can only get used copies of it. 

For someone who reads two-three books a week on kindle, not being able to read it on the phone is already a forgotten habit to revive… What do you know, the concept of an actual book, an old used one… 

If that’s not enough, the book speaks about all times, relatively old times, like at least a century ago, if not before that.  Books, too, are a form of time travel that slows down all things “Now.” I ordered the book, and it arrived pretty quickly, I was lucky to find a good used copy, and now I am time traveling. 

Time-traveling in present progressive

All this to say that time traveling is part of my “being with” Alex’s proposal, though I know his proposal interests me already since I had a week before getting the book and another zoom with Alex. We brainstormed some ideas about what this project may be, with time and some work 🙂 

Alex Stolz is a brilliant musician who lives in the ex-GDR, where I used to live between 1998-2000. Somewhere close to the Polish border. The ex-GDR is a place with the spirit of the past still hanging in the air. Forty-one years of authoritarian socialism created friendship bonds between people I’ve rarely seen in other places (one of the consequences of underground opposition to governing forces in dark times). There is a lot to say about that, but something about people there being for each other strikes you when you meet them, still today. 

These hunches, I can’t help but go for

Even before Alex called for some strange reason unknown to me, I started reading “A team of rivals” by  Doris Kearns Goodwin, about Abraham Lincoln and his political genius. One of these hunches that go: “Do that now, Orit!” (read this book, that is). I can’t help it; from time to time, I get those, and nothing can stop me from doing what I presumably absolutely have to do. I have learned to trust these hunches; they serve me well when I finally get why I have them.

Strange how one’s mind and spirit wander. 

If you’re looking for me these days, know that I’m somewhere in the past, researching with wonder the fate of yesteryears’ events, geopolitical – historical ones, and my own. I am taking my time to “be with” what has been and see how I relate to it from my “Now” perspective.

Try it sometime; there can be tremendous value in it. 

So…From your “now” perspective, does this post relate to anything you’re interested in? Let me know!

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