How Behaving Like a Poet Could Help Save You and the Planet
Balancing the three elements of effort, rest, and joy keeps your creativity flowing
Do you have big dreams? Are they as big as creating world peace? Well, there are a lot of smaller dreams that fit into that one big one for me, and I’ve got a long way to go on some of my goals. Lifetimes maybe. Some days I struggle with the weight of it all. But we do have an advantage I want to point out.
We writers (and I’m sure this applies to you readers too because you are reading this) are creators. That right. We are creating every day. All we need to do is harmonize the three elements of effort, rest, and joy to be consistent. To continuously move forward with hope and fulfill our dreams and our mission, we need to have balance in life — just like the body needs homeostasis to remain healthy.
If we are struggling, we have gotten out of balance. It’s easier to create fresh original thinking if we are rested and joyful. The products of our creative expression give us — as well as others — pleasure, which adds to the joy. Resting helps us rejuvenate ourselves to prepare for another round of effort. Mix joy with extraordinary effort and you take a valiant step toward your dreams, and your efforts are also a pleasurable process, rather than a painful austerity.
Applying that same creativity to other aspects of our lives heightens the experience of being alive and sharing our existence with others. Balance is a key element in our ability to persist in all our endeavors. And life, like a haiku, is a balance between struggling and acceptance along with leaps of imagination.
Focusing on your creative efforts, and the balance of the three elements that facilitate that flow, has many benefits.
One benefit of living a balanced poetic life is our ability to have dialogues with others that have a personal touch. Much of our communication lacks “communion” — the warmth of human presence. We can easily be in touch with many people across the globe. But often communication of this kind — through modern media, phone, TV, video, is artificial and electronic — involving little face-to-face, heart-to-heart contact.
Passions are dulled; even trash talk loses its sting. People are becoming so accustomed to talking to trusty machines and getting quick answers that they no longer find need or pleasure in talking to others — especially those who may speak haltingly or with whom we may disagree. One of the consequences of this is that well-organized pressure groups can influence large numbers of people because we walk side by side but remain separate. Because the crowd is amorphous, the city anonymous, and the family crippled, we are easy prey for those who seek power.
True communication is not unilateral, but a mutual exchange of ideas. Face-to-face meetings, handshakes, and pats on the back constitute true communication and can break down barriers that obstruct understanding.
Another benefit of behaving like a poet is that it is a great defense against AI bots. AI’s aren’t that intelligent just yet. They copy patterns from sampling the massive amounts of cliched and predictable writing and thinking, and the results are pretty banal. (See the recent article by Rayne Sanning where she demonstrates this quite eloquently.) Diametrically opposed to cliche, poets and creative writers learn to invent and reinvent language to arrive at fresh expressions. We are constantly striving to speak the truth with an authentic voice. Thus, we creatives are not in danger of being replaced just yet.
Many other benefits of living a balanced poetic life can be summed up by the knowledge that you will be happier, more creative, and more contributive to the greater good.
Breathe. Rest. Find Your Joy. Create. Do You.
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