in undergrad i got intoxicated on the high of insight and free-association, saw and felt in ways i hadn't before, and there were all these dramatic oscillations as though i was at war or sex with myself and with the world -- so many new ideas destabilizing what i had known, and the thrill of piecing it all together just to blow it up and piece it together a different way.
my desire to know -- my epistemic, cognitive, imaginative, infrastructure -- had at least two components in productive contradiction- the free-associative insightful-manic who wants to build the web, the machine, as big as possible as fast as possible, and the insistence from the critical - sober responsible and rigorous side that anything the maniac builds needs to be strained through the finest of meshes before any of it can be let out to play. and i sifted a lot of real diamonds that way, the two of them got really far on their spaceship. and they each understood the other as having a meaningful role to play.
but the reason they worked is the same reason a resentment built. the maniac resented the critic for banning most of what the maniac enjoyed from ever reaching the outside world (others' judgement, says the critic) and the maniac always felt stifled by the demand that it all be sacrificed at the altar of rigor before it could really take off, get anywhere cool. and the maniac thought it was a shame the critic couldn't let go and have fun. The maniac knew that their practice was in touch with something deep and wonderful and special and really cool and the maniac's practice was the real engine of creation. And... The maniac felt that all the critic did was destroy most of the creations.
the critic OTOH felt the maniac was too comfortable playing with fire and too focused on the littlw universe of their toys to consider for long what the implications could be if let loose upon the world, and more importantly on the life they were trying to build together. the maniac could seriously hurt somebody, themself, derail their life into blind alleys, get scammed, or otherwise dissipate the potential they had worked so hard for on frivolities or irresponsibilities. the critic resented the irresponsibility of the maniac and the lack of perspective -- the maniac would get really sad when they tried to let some of these hothouse-grown toys into the world -- they would die like a beloved pet on a highway. the critic resented the notion that the maniac was right, the maniac had more fun, but that the critic had to hold the line to protect then both, and the critic couldn't get lost in it like the maniac could because the critic was who was keeping them safe, couldn't the maniac see that? so the critic couldn't let go, couldn't join in, and couldn't let the maniac wiggle out of the censored gate they were keeping.
both felt that they had a broader perspective than the other. Both felt like they had insight that other just couldn't see. Both felt that they were doing something important that wasn't appreciated by the other. Both felt that the other's existence threatened what they cared about most. Both of them had low awareness of this dynamic and the history of this dynamic. both couldn't see how they needed each other. but this tension was what made it work. and this tension is how i was able to explore while feeling safe and distinguish what to attach to.
I think in various times in my life this dynamic has become unbalanced one way or the other. and I think that's a very useful way to think of it. usually what would happen was that one or the other would accumulate more power -- the critic would get more control than the maniac and the maniac's world would get crushed and the capacity for agency and change and creativity would get locked down and forgotten. then, the maniac would build fantastic contraptions in their cell, to escape into fantasy or fight back and take control, and overpower the critic temporarily at which time the maniac would act out externally, say all kinds of things and act in a dysregulated manner, which could be very creatively productive, but it could also be dangerous when interacting with close relations, and with institutions and authority figures. and the maniac would tend to be fairly flippant with necessary life infrastructure, like food and sleep and personal relationships. sometimes to intentionally get back at the critic. and then the critic would reactivate hard to curtail the maniac and clamped down on all the gates from anything new from getting out and quarantine the maniac completely while the critic attempted to repair the damage that had been done.
and Every time this happened resentment increased. They would both forget. Why had these things happened? Why was it like this? The maniac wouldn't get why the critic wasn't letting anything through. The critic wouldn't understand why the maniac felt it was okay to do any of that at all. And on and on it would go.
And I think my creative block can be also in a way thought of as a period of time in which the critic has been very tight-fisted in control of the gates because the critic knows how important it is to have whatever comes out of those gates validated by the institution. and the critic is willing to wait until what's at the gate is perfectly unassailable before they let it out. And the maniac is feeling the pressure behind the gate and is just upping the ante to challenge the critic. they're just doing more and more free association and... attempting to validate the critic's unreasonably high bar by just accumulating more and more insight.
there's a lack of awareness there, and they don't see each other clearly, and they don't see the structure of the pattern that's going on. And maybe the deeper problem is their resentment. each time the... The dynamic gets dysregulated and they aren't able to communicate properly about how to work together, the resentment builds, they turn the cold shoulder and the dynamic becomes more hostile and antagonistic rather than collaborative...
And now I've articulated it like that, and I've never ever articulated it like that at all before. how interesting.
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