Inspiration: A small part of a bigger conversation

The other day, I was watching the Charlie Rose Show online. It was an interview between Richard Serra, Eric Kandel, Oliver Sacks, Chuck Close and Ann Temkin .They were talking about creativity and where it comes from. As I was watching the interview, I hear Chuck Close say how he has always said that "inspiration is for amateurs," and that "the rest of us just get up and get to work." He proceeds to say that you can't just sit around and wait for an idea light bulb to light up because it may never happen. The point he was trying to get across was that one has to constantly work in order to excel in their craft.

While Chuck made a good point about the importance of working, I think he's only looking at a part of the picture- in terms of his views on inspiration. For to levy off inspiration as a "bolt of lightning" that randomly strikes you in the head, traps us in thinking about inspiration as being an unreliable source of creativity. Similarly to Chuck Close, I too have something that I have been saying for some time now: That there is a reason why trap and part are spelled with the same letters; that when you only see part of what something is, without a) seeing what it's connected to and b) how and why it's fits into the larger model of what it's connected to, your left unable to ever assess it for what it is; stifling you from seeing the whole picture.

This is what has happened with the word inspiration. In our society inspiration has been singled out as being a mere spark, a moment, used for firing up the creative process. This may be one of the reasons why quotes are so popular in our culture. They represent "moments" of honestly, in which a thought or insight lightning bolts out of a persons' mouth; shedding light on a situation. These "moments" are accredited as being hallmarks in the creation of new products, philosophies, and practices as well as future ideas and innovations. Yet the problem about the use of quotes lies in their tendency to be used either out of the context of their original meaning, or used in a way that fails to convey the full story. So when a reporter takes down a quote and puts it in an article- as I toke down the quote I heard from that Charlie Rose interview- it can lose it's true meaning if the person seeing the quote, and/or the person taking the quote down, does not understand the process that lead to the quote being said.

The same idea applies to inspiration. For I have come to understand inspiration as a "quote" from a larger, ongoing, inner conversation. Within this conversation lies a continuous stream of wisdom, resourcefulness, and brilliance, which rests upon the essence of who we are, and what we are collectively connected to as human beings. However, due to the many indulged upon distractions, chosen obligations, and inner conflicts that play out in our lives, this inner conversation becomes too low in volume to be heard consistently(if it's even heard at all). It's only when we really listen closely, that we catch quotes or glimpses of this constant conversation happening; which we misguidedly label as only being an "inspiration"- sectioned off from the inner conversation that houses it.

My point in mentioning all this is to offer an alternative as to what we perceive to be inspiration; to illuminate another option for creating great works; to point out an accessible power within us ,to create great works, if we only take the time to stop and listen to the ongoing conversation that is happening within us. For I believe, that allowing inspiration to be to both seen and present in the whole inner conversation, is a key to the creativity, spirituality, and the all-around vitally of our existence here on earth. For to truly live out our hearts' visions of life, we must begin living it within first.

The Movement Continues...

- Rhetorical Artz

An Uneducated Approach to Learning

What we do not call education is more precious than that which we call so
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The issues at hand

Students are graduating college with nothing but a piece of paper and a possible position for jobs that justify the uncreative mind. Mind you now that in the eyes of many students, and many people in general, that is a perfectly acceptable end. To many students, college is nothing more than a means for momentary fun and money, not a means for true joy and enrichment. This seems to be todays' version of a "rich education"; acquiring professional skills instead of purpose building ones; closing in ones mind to finding a career instead of freeing it up to finding a calling. If this is the model which entails a "rich education" then I would much rather receive an abhorrently poor education- one that cannot, in itself, enable me to make massive amounts of money or get me the justification of a job- but one that will empower me to learn valuable lessons about truly living and loving life. However, to a certain extent, I do recognize the value of a capitalistically centered education that has fueled my own inner capitalist. It is, in all honestly, a big part of what has kept me in school this long (minus the fact that much money and sacrifice has been given for me to get this education). This inner capitalist, in collaboration with my conscious, shouts out "hey Adam, lets make meaningful money! Lets profit doing something positive! Lets prosper pursuing your most authentic of passions! It is a voice that I have come to accept into the Adam Keene club as the executive director of my financial thoughts.  
For those financial thoughts never once double-crossed my core beliefs on what learning was really about. Before I continue, if I have not stated what it means to be a learner well enough in the first paragraph, allow me to state it clearly here: To be a true learner is to be a liberator of ones mind, and the mind of others, in the pursuit of a fulfilling life. This central idea has been injected and accepted into the depth of my identity(by conscious choice) in order to better build my uneducated learning life in this bitterly broken system that is our schools.

Tales of the Uneducated Learner

Now if this was an action-adventure movie, this would be the scene where an angry army of academics, administrators, and security sheep(these being some, but not all, of the parents, students, professors, and professionals that were crafted within academia) storm into the base of the insurgents, demanding them to surrender their inventory of insights on the issue of education or else. The insurgents would promptly refuse, and all be hanged...or would they? For just as they are about to be put to death...BAM! In comes the special insurgent forces to set the caged captives free once more. But how will they escape the treacherous School city? The answer is that they don't...well not immediately anyway. Instead, they temporarily integrate themselves into School city as citizens, binding their time and building their resources for when the time comes to strike out against its reign of tyranny.

The United State of Our Society

But in doing so, the insurgents discover that School city is only a servant to an even bigger system failure known as the United State of Our Society. When gazing upon this bigger Goliath, the problems in our school system only reflects a even larger problem in society today. For our society has made a shift in focus from true substance and scholarship( note: I am using the definition of scholarship defined as the process of learning and gaining knowledge received by studying) to truly superficial and stagnating standards of living. This shift can be seen in the news, entertainment (two subjects that seems to now be synonymous with one another), and education which I shall now return back to through the fiction framed battles of the Uneducated Learner.

Back to the battles of the Uneducated Learner

With the true menace revealed, the insurgent forces quickly realize that they will not be able to fight these dark forces alone. In order to have a fighting chance against this gigantic foe, the insurgent forces would need the help of the very education system that they were trying to change. So they began to look for people and programs within the system who shared a similar desire in liberating minds to pursuing a fulfilling life. As they sought these people and programs out, the insurgent forces soon discovered that their was indeed a voice of these individuals and initiatives. In fact many of these individuals and initiatives were ones that the school system had willingly allowed in to promote such a cause. 
This was just what the insurgents were looking for. They started seeking a way to become one of these initiatives that the school system allowed in to liberate minds in a way that certain wiring(And bureaucratic red tape) within educational hardware had stalled. But to maintain their presence and growing influence in the schools, they needed to be registered in the system as something that wouldn't raise suspicion. Thus, no longer would they hold the hostile position of insurgent rebels. Instead, they would rise up as a phantom-like force known as the Uneducated Learners. With a new identity in place, the Uneducated Learners were then able to use that positioning as a foothold to form a quiet uprising through the citizens of School city who shared or sympathized with their cause.

Bringing the battle back to a reality

So what is the moral to this little tall tale? For me it is that as much as I have seen school fall short of the core ideas that are supposed to drive it(As all organizations do to a degree), I recognize that I also have needed school-and will still need the support within the school system- in order to become a full fledged vessel for social change in the society that surrounds us. So what I have decided to do over my many years of schooling is to become an uneducated learner amongst the education system. 

Educated learner vs. Uneducated learner

Yet in making this decision I have taken notice to the tension that lies between uneducated learners and more educated ones. The educated learner stands as those people in the system that benefit from it working the way it does. They do not wish to change the system(despite any claim to want to), but in fact wish for/contribute to making the system run more efficiently and effectively. 
Now before I continue on, I must make something clear. Being an uneducated learner does not mean wishing for the system to be destroyed and dismantled to the point of degrading the educated learner. It only means changing the system so it can support both types of learners, and in doing so acknowledging there differences.
For there are many differences between the educated and uneducated learner. Differences that the school system,and our larger society for that matter, currently are not doing a good enough job in acknowledging/serving with equal respect. In this instance, the difference being highlighted that distinguishes the educated and uneducated learner lies in how they are informed and uninformed about what it means to live a fulfilling life. To fully explain this, I need to first briefly talk about the relationship between society and the school system.

Society and School= Husband and Wife Stereotype

In an old-fashion stereotypical marriage, the wife is subservient to her husband. She takes care of the kids, maintains the house, and prepares the food so that when her husband comes home from work, he has a peaceful environment to return to after a long day out in the "real world." This is the relationship between Society and School. Societies wife(School) raises her kids(students) to be good little boys and girls for Society to deal with. They are raised to "do as they are told" and to "not talk back to your mother, or else daddy will give you a spanking(a degrading, doubt-filled, penniless life) when he gets home." The house is kept nice and tidy to support a stable environment for Society and his kids, so they can live "happy and content lives". 
I'll break away from this allegory now and give it to you straight: the big problem with the education systems lies in how strongly and subserviently they shift to the whims of societies current state. In other words, because our society works largely under a 9 to 5 structure, that is what schools largely educate students about; because society is polluted with the promotion of fear, that is what schools largely talk about; because society set it's citizens up to finding a place in it, instead of making a place in it, this is what schools largely encourage people to do. This is not to say that those are the only things that school does(if it did, I would honestly have already dropped out, don't care how much money I would be wasting). But I would venture to say that this is one of the loudest voices in the school space today(knowingly or not). It may not be said out loud, but 93 percent of communication is conveyed through what is NOT said verbally(As a communication studies major, I have been well informed about this).

The Difference: educated vs. uneducated learners

What someone listens to and how someone listens to it ultimately determines what's actually learned. And here is where we make our difference between the educated and uneducated learners in society. For the Educated Learner is informed by what they are told. They listen to what society says, and shape what they've learned/heard from their schooling to fit into societies image of them. In doing so, they risk compromising their creatively (aka the ability to make a life for themselves) and allow society to create a life for them in the same way that a chameleon compromises it true colors to match it's environment. They are literate in the language of losing your authentic self to better drive society onward. You can find the Educated Learner saying something like "that's just how the world works, so you better learn to work with it." They graduate college with all the basic knowledge needed to survive as a pawn in societies game of chess. Some of those pawns even make it over onto the other side of societies chessboard and- after "having" to stomp on any chess pieces that get in their way- evolve to become societies knights, queens, rooks, or bishops.
The Uneducated Learner, on the other hand, takes what is being told and uses it to advance their imagination- the ability to create essential and personal ideals into concrete realities- while refusing to compromise their identity. By doing this, the Uneducated Learner opens up doors into a life directed by a divine consciousness. This often drives the Uneducated Learner to pursuing timelessly valuable meaning over money, branding money as a by-product of moving in infinitely meaningful pathways, instead of the opposite being the case. In taking this route, there is no need to step on anyone else to get what you want because that fails to produce anything meaningful (beyond possibly a temporary period of false bliss). This route often fills the Uneducated Learners' path with bumps, twists, turns, and one unexpected event after the next. Yet it is within the unexpected, the unknown, and the uncertain that the Uneducated Learner both consciously and honestly lives life. 
However society, specifically the Educated Learner, tends not to look very highly on Uneducated Learner for this. To them, how the Uneducated Learner lives ought not to exist. For society has only taught the Educated Learner how to live linearly. Therefore, the non-linear lifestyle of the uneducated learner- that doesn't have a well defined step-by-step method to moving towards fulfillment- is viewed as an anomaly, or even a glitch in the matrix. In fact for the Educated Learner, who has been taught since elementary school that everything has a beginning and an end, the path of the Uneducated Learner may even appear to them not as a pathway but as a mere fantasy, or a lofty dream.

End of the Uneducated Learners Journey?

There is no end for the Uneducated Learner. For to be the Uneducated Learner means to continually look out at life with an air of undying thirst for adventure. Thus what the Educated Learner makes out to be an unseen end, the Uneducated Learner envisions into a beauty beginning, and a new revolutionary road to ride upon. 
Through this road isn't easy, that is the path that I have chosen. I will enter the next stage of my life, after gaining my undergraduate degree, with a sense excitement, adventurousness, and an uneducated spirit of freedom. Because true freedom happens when one makes a conscious choice to walk amongst the world untamed by it's teaching, unhampered by it's horror stories, and uneducated by it's standards. So continues the exciting tales of the Uneducated Learner, where only life will tell, what will happen next.

The Movement Continues...

- Rhetorical Artz

Expanding the Essence of my Art

I came to recognize something about where my storytelling craft currently stands and where it is moving towards. Throughout the day, as I began looking through a lot of the content in my spoken word and hip hop music, I noticed not only that a lot of the messages are mirror images of one another but that even the approach the content takes to getting to the meat of their message is the same. I think this has to do a lot with where I have been both mentally and spiritually in my life.

For a long time now I have been on this quest to identify myself, and my relationship to the world(A quest that I don't see ending anytime soon). That quest, for the past couple of years, has taken a large focus on what it means to make(as well as how to make) the decision to stand as being authentically yourself(on the inside and outside) in both this society and the larger world(whether you really know yourself or not). A by-product of this focus has been that I have come to find and explore my own voice, which may sound weird to some. But there has been more moments then I can count when something beyond me speaks through my voice. When that happens, although I know it's not me speaking, it produces this refreshing feeling of hearing my own voice speak for the first time. It's similar to the feeling that you get after holding your breath underwater for a long time and finally surfacing to grasp for air, or the feeling you get when you step out of an incredibly hot car after being in it for hours on end.

Yet, the Spirit seems(throughout this year) to have moved my craft into a new terrain. In this terrain, I have been walking on the road of authenticity in my everyday life, instead of in the surreal or abstract sense that derives from my everyday life. As I've been on this path, I've noticed a slow but steady shift(through pieces like TV Empowers Me to the most recent piece I've done titled Oppositional Attitude) towards writing out of the current real life experience. That's not to say that I won't be producing those surreal and abstract type of pieces anymore, but that even those pieces(because of how they are beginning to walk into my day to day reality) are changing, as they are being put into the whole experience of life. The reason why I often wrote and will continues to write with such fantasy was because for a time period I didn't know how to mentally deal with much of this reality without looking at it from a lens of pure imagination. It was(and still is) my way of taking the world out of it's actual setting and putting it into a fictional setting that makes the world easier to reach out to and understand.

But that is beginning to gradually change. For the world that I used to mostly only reach out to before, I now see within the presence of what's happening in my life right now. I am living the path that I would only dream or idealize about being on before. And as this living has been happening. I am more freely able to see the connection between the day to day recognition and deeper rooted insights, which gives more a grounded breath to the stories told through me.

This might be a better way to explain this. In Speak Life Storytellers(The storytelling performance group I am in) we have three types of stories that we address:

Truly Fantastic: Stories which are not necessary true/non-fiction in terms of it's literal presentation but in the core of the message/theme that it's conveying.

Fantastically True: Stories that seem so incredible that they seem unreal even through they are.

True Stories: The straightforward, honest (yet still both imaginative and creative expressed) stories of life.

The stories that I have been telling have been at large both Fantastically True and Truly Fantastic, but have been less True Stories. Yet it is the True Stories that bridge the Fantastically True with the Truly Fantastic, or at least that is what the Spirit seems to have been saying to me. So like what I have always fallen back to doing, I will follow that voice of the Spirit. It's should be interesting to see what shall be forming out of this ongoing shift in the stories being presented through my spoken word and rap. Whatever it is, it shall always remain a channel for Love and Honestly. That is something that will never change.

The Movement Continues...

- Rhetorical Artz

BE free

If you want to be mental free than just be. I'm NOT talking about being like someone else, or BEcoming the person you think you should be now. I am talking about building from who you are in the present. For to build away from the person you presently are is like building a house while falling down from a cliff. Even if you finish it, it will only hit the ground and crash into little pieces. In short, if you want to be mentally free than just be.
The Movement Continues...
- Rhetorical Artz