creativeness
using what is not
thirty spokes converge at one hub;
what is not there makes the wheel useful.
clay is shaped to form a vessel;
what is not there makes the vessel useful.
doors and windows are cut to form a room;
what is not there makes the room useful.
therefore, take advantage of what is there,
by making use of what is not.
Lao Tzu
Creativity does not mean so much making things happen as well as letting things happen, appreciating the flow. As we expand our knowledge ever more and learn about the secrets of the physical universe, we are at the same time creating obstacles. We are blocking ourselves by the one-sidedness of our intellect and the coldness of our hearts. We may thus be actually impeding creativity.
We seem to have forgotten how to let things happen. We have the idea and want it at any cost, today.
Creativity means walking in the middle of the way: not being stopped by the past and not hurry towards the future. Being aware of the pictures from the left (the outer world) and from right (the inner world) and being there at the living magical moment that these forces meet. At those rare moments when all counterforces meet, the light and the dark, the good and the bad, the mind and the soul, the body and the mind, the rational and the imagination, mature wisdom and a childlike sense of wonder, there is creativity.
Lao Tzu's favorite metaphor was the vacuum, the emptiness. For the space that is created in the emptiness creates opportunities. Vacuum makes everything possible as it can contain everything. Creativity is being a bowl, what is not there makes me useful.
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