• About

is this anything

~ a compendium, by Nancy Coughlin

is this anything

Tag Archives: creativity

beginner (a quote from Shunryu Suzuki)

13 Saturday May 2017

Posted by is this anything in quotation, zen

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

art, creativity, quotation, zen

writing_child

“The most difficult thing is, always keep your beginner’s mind. There’s no need to have a deep understanding of zen. Even though you read much zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, ‘I know what zen is,” or “I have attained enlightenment.” This is also the real secret of the arts. Always be a beginner.” –Shunryu Suzuki

 

Explicar (a quote from Jorge Amado)

25 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by is this anything in quotation

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

creativity, jorge amado, memoir, quotation, writing

“Para que explicar? Nada desejo explicar. Explicar é limitar.” –Jorge Amado

goat bike

[‘Why explain? There’s nothing I wish to explain. To explain is to limit.’]

creativity (a quote from Albert Einstein

30 Monday May 2016

Posted by is this anything in quotation

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

apophenia, comfort, creativity, grace, happiness, meditation, memory, serendipity, serenity, surrender, thinking out loud, writing, zen

Take-time-to-smell-the-flower-resizecrop--

Creativity is the residue of wasted time. –Albert Einstein

(PS: if this is true, I’m golden.)

Image

creative (a quote from John Cleese)

24 Saturday Jan 2015

Tags

creativity, john cleese, quotation, risk, writing

cleese mistakes

Posted by is this anything | Filed under quotation

≈ Leave a comment

apophenia in writing (random thoughts)

06 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by is this anything in Evolving ideas, random thought

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

apophenia, both, coincidence, comfort, creativity, freedom, helplessness, illusion, memoir, memory, pareidolia, pattern, randomness, surrender, synchronicity, thinking out loud, writing, zen

fish constellation

The art of accident, the accident of art. Serendipity. Synchronicity. Coincidence. Luck. A world in which “success” and “failure” coexist. Where what feels like choice, also feels like surrender. Finding patterns in wallpaper, a piece of toast, the relative positions of stars–how different is this from configuring a unified plot from my life’s for-all-I-know random moments? Writing a memoir (writing anything) is an exercise in what I want to call “the management of apophenia.” Apophenia: the innate human tendency to find patterns in randomness. Michael Shermer, who wrote The Believing Brain, calls it “patternicity.” (Note to self: maybe I should too?)

So, “managing apophenia.” As far as I can gather, it’s the same practice as what I’ve heard other people call “harnessing serendipity.” At any rate, as I write this book I watch myself collate, from what may well have been a haphazard life, only those moments that my apophenic mind has singled out as vital to my “story”–and meanwhile viewing a million other moments as extraneous, as ignorable white noise. And how many events have I forgotten entirely, or never truly experienced as they happened, because they didn’t fit my evolving, concocted self-narrative? What details have I left out of focus, in the blurry background of the photo? (And don’t get me started on all the things that might have happened to me but happened not to happen.)

Without knowing it, I’ve spent my life culling memories, leaving only those that befit my apophenic self-vision. It’s what we all do, I imagine. It’s how we remember and distinguish ourselves as selves instead of hapless, nameless waves in an indifferent ocean. This is how we make “sense” of it all. When we view the night sky we have two basic choices: to be dumbstruck by chaotic infinity, or to superimpose a mythology.

The trick of it all, it seems to me, is to recognize and manage our innate search for patterns. The first step must be to comprehend that the patterns are indeed self-created, and not (necessarily) objectively “real.” But reality, of course, is a bit overrated. Sometimes a useful fiction gets you farther than a useless truth. We were born to invent a world out of random flecks of residue. The trick, now, is to waken to the whole of it, to understand that background and foreground, importance and trivia, failure and success, are objectively meaningless, so you might as well train your eyes to locate patterns that might help you best explain your myth, metaphorize your story.

Recent Posts

  • Schrodinger’s cat (a poem)
  • impeachment
  • Excerpts (a poem, maybe?)
  • a trap I’m in
  • As a kid, I had a crush on Aesop (journal entry)
  • practice (a journal entry)
  • Abbreviated (a poem)

Tags

acceptance apophenia autism balance both choice comfort compassion freedom grace grief happiness illusion love memory metaphor paradox poem quotation randomness serendipity serenity surrender thinking out loud transience tweet writing zen

Top Posts & Pages

  • On days you can't remember (a poem)
    On days you can't remember (a poem)
  • Now (a poem)
    Now (a poem)
  • creativity (a quote from Albert Einstein
    creativity (a quote from Albert Einstein
  • luck (a quote from the Dalai Lama)
    luck (a quote from the Dalai Lama)
  • aperture (quote from Alan Watts)
    aperture (quote from Alan Watts)
  • The odd things we love, when we love (a poem)
    The odd things we love, when we love (a poem)
  • my latest notion (a poem)
    my latest notion (a poem)
  • too much happiness (a quote from Alice Munro)
    too much happiness (a quote from Alice Munro)
  • enlightened (a quote from Ram Dass)
    enlightened (a quote from Ram Dass)
  • Sea change (a poem)
    Sea change (a poem)

Archives

Categories

Recent Comments

Nathan AM Smith on Excerpts (a poem, maybe?)
Follow is this anything on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 395 other subscribers

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • is this anything
    • Join 258 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • is this anything
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...