Tag: Beauty

Creative Beings

We are all naturally creative beings.

I believe strongly that each person possesses this innate creativity; it is a part of the deepest realization of self. Whether or not we recognize this creativity has no bearing on its presence within us. As created beings, we necessarily have a share in this creative power that inspired us into existence.

I think the problem is that many of us don’t know how to access our creativity. I frequently hear people rejecting a “creative” label, saying things like, “I’m just not very creative” or “I’m not very good at creative things.” However, at this preliminary step of self-labelling, we block our natural capacity for creativity. Why do we reduce the value of a creative act to external judgements of “good” or “bad”? Is the purpose in expressing creativity merely to display said creativity, and to gain objective approval?

No. In fact, when we define creativity by these terms, we transform it into a kind of utilitarianism. Creative acts become valued for the end or for a purely practical purpose, and the joy and beauty of the creative process is lost as a result. Creating with such a goal in mind does not channel our true creativity but instead stifles what is good about the creative act. It does so through our attempts to control and manipulate the thing we are creating, rather than giving it the freedom it needs and deserves (similar to the freedom with which we were imbued at creation).

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Beauty

I never want to forget about beauty.

I never want to forget about light- any kind of light… the way it gleams through cracks in doorways and glistens through the blinds. Colours dancing on the walls, and soft and peaceful shades. I don’t want complacency to keep me seated and sure in things in which I have found nothing before.

Even when joy flickers on my eyelids, I blink and only darkness. Only for a second. But I let the evil enter. I listen. I let it shade my solitude, allow it access to my thoughts. I want to control or to ignore it. Control is fleeting, because I cannot attain it, though I try with endless run-throughs and sickly waves of guilt. Ignorance is no better, for it smothers my joy, holds her back just a little. It puts restrictions on my freedom, imposes limits on my peace.

This is not the life I want. This is not the choice I want to make.

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Perspective

How the world sees you:

  1. You are beautiful, because you take the time to hide your imperfections.
  2. You matter because of the things you do.
  3. You are loved, because you do not show the sides of which you are ashamed.
  4. You don’t need help.
  5. You will be successful only if you take control of your life.
  6. Your value depends on the way others view you.
How God sees you:
  1. You are beautiful.
  2. You matter.
  3. You are loved exactly as you are.
  4. You don’t have to do this alone.
  5. You will be happy only if you let go of control.
  6. You are invaluable.
How do you see yourself?
 

Daily Beauty

If there’s something I’ve been learning this summer, it’s that there is a lot of beauty in the quiet moments. After all, most of life is made up of them. No one can exist entirely at the pinnacle of excitement and adventure. Life consists mainly of the “routine” daily happenings. What we make of them is what matters.

I find that some people strive to certain goals or aspirations simply to say they have done them. What is the point of that? Doing something just for the sake of doing it… It seems to me that such a pursuit merely involves reaching for a title… nothing more. But perhaps to some, life is just a long list of titles: of conquests and shallow triumphs.

I don’t want to feel I need to do something simply to check it off a universal list. In fact, I don’t think there is a universal list. I have my own path, as we all do, and I want to follow where it leads me. Not every moment is remarkable. But even those unrepeated stories do not fade.

Letters to Myself: Words or Wisdom

You’ll never be happy if you keep comparing yourself to others.

I know that you know that. But it’s so hard to live, isn’t it? It’s so hard to escape from the mindset that being different equals inadequacy, that not doing what the world says you should do means you are wrong and misguided.

Stop listening to the voices. Stop listening to the pressures that speak in the night, the ones that tell you that you are not enough, that you are a failure who has chosen poorly. You are forging your own path. No one else can come there with you, because they are not you. But there is a reason, a reason for every step. Please believe me.

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The Vision

What would a life look like without fear?

I don’t pretend to have the answer.

I have frequently fallen victim to fear, disarmed by its silent attacks, a prisoner of the worries it spins out of empty air. I have been tentative, tiptoeing around the fears I have buried, anticipating shadows surely lurking in wait. Fear is a presence I know well, the kind of enemy that, once eradicated, never stays away for long.

No. I’m not entirely sure what a life looks like without fear.

But I know that I want to find out.

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