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Where Do the Words/Images/Ideas Come From?
Spoiler alert – there is no One True Answer. Welcome to arts philosophy.
Creativity comes in many sizes, shapes, and forms. The creative process goes into making every form of art. Whether it’s paint, clay, words, or some other medium, there’s a procedure on the part of the creator.
There is never One True Way. The process I employ for writing is not the same process any other writer uses. They might have similarities, but they’re not the same. That’s in part because we’re not the same.
I am the only one in my head, heart, and soul. There’s nobody else in here with me thinking my thoughts, feeling my feelings, holding my intentions, considering the positivity or negativity of my approach, or taking my actions for me. It’s me, and me alone.
Yet somehow, ideas come into my head featuring characters who only exist in my head, situations they face, adventures they have, and fantastical places that don’t exist in this reality. Before long, the words are finding their way from my mind to the screen and page.
The question is, where do the words/images/ideas come from?
A philosophical question
As a twenty-first-century philosopher, I am a student of many things. Learning is a constant in my experience, and I love to explore fascinating questions with difficult, improbable, and seemingly impossible answers.
While I’ve developed my own unique philosophy (see Pathwalking for more details), I also enjoy exploring questions that others have pondered. And one is, where do the words/images/ideas in art come from?
There is no One True Answer, of course. But the overarching idea tends to be broken down into 2 distinct categories.
The words/images/ideas come from within. Imagination is an amazing thing. As children, feeling less judged and competitive, we’re open to all sorts of flights of fancy. I can’t tell you how many sticks in my backyard became laser pistols or swords, how my swingset transformed into a starship, or where my imaginary foes I did space combat with originated from.
Imagination is how impractical wonders become everyday items. It’s no coincidence that early flip-phone mobile phones looked like communicators, and the iPad and other tablets look a hell of a lot like the PADD, from various iterations of Star Trek.
Channeling from another source. The other idea is that creators are channeling their ideas from somewhere other. The other takes many forms, be it the ethers, unseen deities, universal energies, the collective consciousness, or some combination thereof. In this notion, the idea of the Muse inspiring until someone makes the idea manifest comes into being.
This, some argue, explains why all of a sudden there are 2 different takes on an historical fiction on TV, or two asteroid-threatens-life-on-earth movies coming out in the same year. The words/images/ideas come from without, but from within the heart, mind, and soul of the artist, they are made manifest.
Where do the words/images/ideas come from?
Lots of wiser, better-established creators, philosophers, and teachers have explored this. What I believe is that it’s a combination of both imagination and channeling from another source.
Those who identify as artists have accepted that creativity drives them. You don’t put on that hat if you don’t take pains to create things and explore creative avenues. I know that some creators stick to 1 venue, but I explore several. I’m a writer, first and foremost, but I’m also a voice artist, singer, woodworker, and occasional actor, among other things.
Whatever I’m creating, my imagination opens the way for me to see potential and possibility. Whether it’s an idea for a character and adventures that character has, such as Jace, the clone at the center of the Forgotten Fodder sci-fi series, or turning wood into a buckler for fencing, a box, or a table, something is being created from a blank template.
But not from nothing. There is the blank screen, awaiting words; or uncut wood, awaiting shape and form. Yet the idea that comes through the open door of my imagination might be coming from somewhere beyond me, beyond what is known.
Hence, maybe in some distant time and place, perhaps another dimension we’re incapable of otherwise reaching, those clones and characters are real. Perhaps beyond human consciousness, the elves, dwarves, and humans in the Savagespace sci-fi series are having the adventures my imagination opened me to share.
This is why I recognize that both primary ideas for where the words/images/ideas come from might be true. Then again, it might be something else entirely.
It’s all about potential and possibility
Wherever the words/images/ideas come from, they require the artist, the creator, to be made manifest. That might come across as overly high-minded and philosophical, but I think it’s fun to consider and explore.
The arts give the world form, color, light, and other avenues of potential and possibility to explore. Words, images, ideas, and all else made manifest by creatives provide proof that nothing is written in stone, change can lead to incredible, magical things, and good can exist amid lousy, undesirable times.
If you are a creator, an artist, and there are words/images/ideas you feel compelled to share, please share them. Even during crazy, insane, bizarre times like now, the arts are necessary and important. Don’t deprive the world of what you might bring into it creatively.
Thanks for reading. As I share my creative journey with you every week, please consider this: How are you inspired and empowered to be your own creator, whatever form that takes?
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