Perhaps there are really no new ideas. Perhaps new paradigm is simply a restatement or connecting the dots of what already exists but has not been seen together before. Perhaps in that seeing we arrive at a new understanding of why we are here on earth and how we might live in a more elegant way that serves and cooperates with the whole rather than attempting to control parts of it. Perhaps for once, we can let go of our contracted view of the world and the stories that crowd and distract our minds from media, politicians and entertainment in their myriad forms. Perhaps in looking beyond our small selves, we can discover a world mostly hidden but there nevertheless. A world that provides our souls with real nourishment in the forms of beauty, truth and justice. In the following piece from Brain Pickings which is a wonderful resource for great ideas, we learn that original ideas all have a genesis that is often overlooked in a world of celebrity. If we connect with the past when we see the present, we are most likely to appreciate the whole rather than glorifying the part. The wholeness and oneness in which we live are sacred gifts. May we remember them always.

“The kernel, the soul – let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances – is plagiarism.”

The combinatorial nature of creativity is something I think about a great deal, so this 1903 letter Mark Twain wrote to his friend Helen Keller, found in Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 2 of 2, makes me nod with the manic indefatigability of a dashboard bobble-head dog. In this excerpt, Twain addresses some plagiarism charges that had been made against Keller some 11 years prior, when her short story “The Frost King” was found to be strikingly similar to Margaret Canby’s “Frost Fairies.” Heller was acquitted after an investigation, but the incident stuck with Twain and prompted him to pen the following passionate words more than a decade later, which articulate just about everything I believe to be true of combinatorial creativity and the myth of originality:

Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that ‘plagiarism’ farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul – let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances – is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men – but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington’s battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a telephone or any other important thing – and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite – that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.

Steve Jobs, of course, knew this when he famously proclaimed that “creativity is just connecting things” – and Kirby Ferguson reminds us that Jobs didn’t technically invent any of the things that made him into a cultural icon, he merely perfected them to a point of genius. Still, this fear of unoriginality – and, at its extreme, plagiarism – plagues the creative ego like no other malady. No one has countered this paradox more eloquently and succinctly than Salvador Dalí:

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

This is a 6 week on-line course available from Catherine Ann Jones. We will email you when your new lesson is available and you will be able to login and read each lesson on-line or print as they become available. Your first lesson will be available immediately after you enroll.
Are you merely surviving or are you living creatively?

Survival has become a dominant theme in today’s world – both personally and collectively.

One of the down sides of being locked into survival mode is that surviving sometimes takes over altogether – and the quality of living lessens or even ends. In order to live, and not merely survive, a sense of creative living must return. Creativity tends the mind and soul while survival focuses only on the body. Both are necessary for a full life.

Can one expand and no longer live solely a linear existence yet also embrace a creative journey? If so, how to step back from literal life and its daily demands, and see beyond? Can one view relationships not as possessions, but as life markers on the journey, as opportunities for the growth of the soul?

Might we discover alternative ways of creating and sustaining new forms of community which nurture our essential humanity? What are some ways of connecting us to ourselves, to each other, to the earth, and to the greater mysterious reality that is the source of all we know?

Exercises are designed to serve as catalysts in re-discovering a creative life beyond survival. This course invites you to explore within and discover a creative solution for the often overpowering problems of today. Beyond Survival is a way to return home, an invitation to the muse, a bridge back to creativity and to Self. For more info www.wayofstory.com

TOPICS COVERED
• Survival versus Living
• Letting Go Conditioned Patterns – both inherited and learned
• Accepting Dharma: Your Inner Calling
• The Many Names of Wealth
• Life as Relationship
• Create Your Life at Each Moment

“Beyond Survival is a gem! You seemed really in the flow, and the flow carries us into effortless inspiration. You took the time to give us many fascinating exercises, each one a doorway for the soul”.
- Dianne Skafte, Ph.D, Listening to the Oracle

“Catherine showed me how to write my way out of the darkness and into the Light”.
- Beth T., Athens, GA

“A spiritual experience as well as practical.”
- Gard J., Boulder City, NV

ABOUT CATHERINE ANN JONES
Catherine Ann Jones holds a graduate degree in Depth Psychology and Archetypal Mythology from Pacifica Graduate Institute where she has also taught. After playing major roles in over fifty plays, she wrote a play about Virginia Woolf (On the Edge) about her struggle with madness in a world gone mad, i.e., WWII. The play won a National Endowment for the Arts Award. Ten of her plays, including Calamity Jane (both play and musical) and The Women of Cedar Creek, have won multiple awards and are produced both in and out of New York. Her films include The Christmas Wife (Jason Robards & Julie Harris), Unlikely Angel (Dolly Parton), and the popular TV series, Touched by an Angel.

A Fulbright Research Scholar to India studying shamanism, she has taught at The New School University, University of Southern California, Pacifica Graduate Institute, and the Esalen and the Omega Institutes. Her book, The Way of Story: the craft & soul of writing, is used in many schools, including New York University writing programs. Ms. Jones lives in Ojai, California, and leads The Way of Story and Heal Yourself with Writing workshops throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Beyond Survival is her third online course for www.dailyom.com. Or go to www.wayofstory.com

Catherine will be a speaker at GATE 2 this weekend.

Thrive: to grow vigorously : flourish, to progress toward or realize a goal despite or because of circumstances.

Thanks to Foster Gamble, the socially responsible scion of the Proctor and Gamble family, a powerful and exciting film will be arriving 11-11-11. Foster is a shining example of consciousness, creativity and intelligence in the service of life and has been passionately producing this catalytic film for years. Thrive connects the dots of the old and new paradigms and presents actions humanity can and is taking to save itself from itself. As biologist Francisco Varela suggested, if a system is sick connect more of itself to itself. Thrive appears to offer useful information about our world condition, the players and solutions that may help us put the brakes on the ecocide we find ourselves in the midst of. Each of us holds a piece of the puzzle that is self-assembling to co-create a world that works for everyone.

I am delighted to present the trailer here and urge you to be an evolutionary catalyst, herald the good news, and consider hosting a Thrive screening in your home town if you like what you see. Until we actually view the complete film and enter its field, we will not know for certain if the film wil live up to it’s promise but its certainly worth a viewing.

Visit the website and sign on to the movement for updates. http://thrivemovement.com