We are making a table. When the hammer bangs a nail into the wood, we do not contemplate the hammer, nail or wood. We are only thinking of the future table. When the wood splinters, when the nail bends, when the hammer shatters, then we experience a moment of thinking. What do I do now? Why has this happened?
Most importantly we have to consider our task again, we have to think deeper into the nature of the tools we are using and what we are trying to make with them.
So this is when we start thinking properly. This is when we get some understanding.
Our task was self-evident to begin with. We had a plan (to build a table). We had a technique (hammering, sawing, measuring). We had the tools (hammer, nail, wood, hand). Then the contingency of our lives, our projects, made itself known. A random, unexpected event made us think again.
Suddenly we don't know the nail as we thought we did. We have to re-consider it. Suddenly, the nail becomes beautifully present to us, suddenly we enquire into its nature. It is more than a length of iron; obedient, reliable, predictable. It suddenly has a personality! We discover something. Or rather, we uncover something. It was always there, this personality, this contingency, but somehow we convinced ourselves that we knew everything about it. No, we only knew it within the confines of our project, our purpose, our idea to build a table.
How we limit ourselves and the tools we use!
The nail bends, it does not drive into the wood, or the wood resists, or the hammer breaks. Failure is what drives creativity.
Psychoanalysis would say that loss drives creativity. There is a gap somewhere that we must fill. Or, more ontologically – “there is something missing in the world for me, therefore I must create it.” The author Toni Morrison said that if you search a bookstore for a novel and do not find the novel you want to read, then you must write it, you must add your voice, your experience to that library.
So instead of loss, lack, something missing, let us rephrase: creativity happens from a failure, a breakage, a disappointment. Which means that creativity is a response, not to a loss, but to a inadequacy. So to fail is good, to break is good, to disappoint is good.
We'll only understand the body when it fails, when it breaks, when it disappoints. Then, and only then will we get some understanding, and be able to share that understanding.
The clown enjoys these three words more than any other artist I know of. And somehow she makes a success out of failure, breakage and disappointment. She grows.
To read John Paul's contribution to the Lab in Spring 2011 click here
