In Praise of Positive Obsessions

[Stacy]

Take this, people who say we're too into our Sims and stories!

In Praise of Positive Obsessions

Err - I have no other comments, lol. Other than it's nice to get validation that I'm not crazy and I don't need help.

Oh wow - reading it now (yeah, okay, I made this thread before I even read past the first paragraph) and dang.

You can post four paragraphs as an excerpt of things, right? I heard that rule somewhere.

What is a creator to do? The long answer requires more space than I have here, but the short answer is that he must take himself more seriously in the realm of meaning.

He must reconvince himself--or convince himself for the first time--that his creative efforts matter, not cosmically and not as mere ego massage but as a primary way that he will make personal meaning during his time on earth.

If he will not “force life to mean,” as the German novelist Herman Hesse expressed it, positive obsessions will stay assiduously away.

For a contemporary intelligent, sensitive person, it may well make more sense to opt for a life of positive obsessions that flow from personal choices about the meanings of life than to attempt to live a more modest and less satisfying normal-looking life that produces dissatisfaction and boredom.

Never did get why people thought it was weird that I was so into my story. What, was I supposed to watch TV eight hours a day instead because that would somehow be more psychologically healthy?

Anyway - thoughts? Anyone else feeling totally validated?

[celebkiriedhel]

Not everyone is willing to embrace their obsessions. Not everyone is creative. Those who've never experienced it won't understand it except on a superficial level. It's like death or childbirth - nobody really knows what its like until they go through it themselves.

But there are plenty of reasons why people will avoid or surpress their creativity. I know for me - it's about fitting in with my family - their world paradigm which is not mine. Family is more important to me than self-fulfillment so I've squashed it until it won't let me get away with it anymore.

But I also know the time I feel most alive, and most myself is when I'm in the arms of a story that flows from the fingers into the page (or keyboard). Then I dream it, I wake up with it, and go to bed with it. It distracts me from my paid work, and obligations. It's my curse and my blessing and I don't know who I am without it.

Do I feel validated? Kind of. It's great that a psychologist acknowledges it. I just wish the rest of them would as well.

[mdpthatsme]

Hmm, I like my other world and the characters within them. (Now that didn't sound crazy at all)

I would say to people who have a problem with my creativity to get a hobby because evidently they don't have one if they have time to sit there a complain about my madness.

[thelunarfox]

Sept 23, 2010 3:24:47 GMT -5 @celebkiriedhel said:

But I also know the time I feel most alive, and most myself is when I'm in the arms of a story that flows from the fingers into the page (or keyboard). Then I dream it, I wake up with it, and go to bed with it. It distracts me from my paid work, and obligations. It's my curse and my blessing and I don't know who I am without it.

Same here. I feel on edge when I'm not working on something or when it comes out with difficulty.


But I don't worry about validation. I just know how I am. When I get into something, I get into it. What's the point of doing something if you're not into it, right?