the ego and creativity

I have been thinking a lot about art and creativity. Eckhart Tolle talks a lot about the human ego and how the ego makes us behave in negative ways but I have found myself wondering what would happen to our creativity if we lost the ego. Isn't it the ego that drives us to be creative - to produce, art, theatre, music etc? Obviously some of the arts are more ego-led than others and similarly some artists make their egos the sole focus of their work (Tacey Emin is an example that springs to mind and Antony Gormley). But would we still have the drive to create if we were ego-less, existing only in the present moment?

What I'm Listening to Right Now...

So I haven't blogged here for a bit and thought it might be time for a top ten tracks of the moment. My listening style seems to be somewhat erratic at the moment which is not necessarily a bad thing. so here goes - ten track and in no particular preferential order:

1) You Overdid it Doll - The Courteeners
2) Naive - The Kooks
3) Tenderoni - Kele
4) Crossfire - Brandon Flowers
5) Papillon - The Editors
6) Death - White Lies
7) Ghosts - The Lightning Seeds
8) King and Country - Seth Lakeman
9) Another Nail in my Heart - Squeeze
10) Radioactive - The Kings of Leon

Change and Evolve

I was watching Mary Queen of Shops tonight, and what became evident to me at about seven minutes into the programme was, that to survive we need to evolve. This rule especially applies to business - the woman that Mary was trying to help was especially resistant to change and because she wasn't allowing her business to change and evolve with the times her business was going down the pan. But this rule can be applied to most things. Even in poetry and art one needs to change and evolve otherwise the work becomes boring and stagnant.

The day from hell

Term started this morning and I found myself feeling exhausted by mid afternoon. What exhausted me even more though was the thought of the horrendously busy day that I have in store tomorrow.

The plan for tomorrow:

7 a.m. wake up tired and wish I'd gone to bed earlier.

followed by bath/breakfast/hair/make-up/packing books etc.

9 a.m. (ish ) take a bus to uni.

9.30 a.m. pick up a form from office on second floor of arts building, fill it in and take it to another office in the basement.

10 a.m. Meeting about UEA Creative Writing Anthology.

11 a.m. Publishing class (2hrs).

1.30 a.m. Poetry tutorial.

2 p.m. grab coffee and maybe some lunch.

2.30 p.m. take books back to library and get some more books out, if there is time work on editing poetry on laptop.

4 p.m. head home.

5 p.m. Make sure Natty is fed so he can get to his band rehearsal.

6 p.m. think about going out to a poetry gig, wash up dishes.

7 p.m. collapse in exhausted heap with a glass of wine and feel guilty about not going to poetry gig.

7.30 p.m. Switch laptop on to do work. Look at emails and play around on Facebook.

9.30 p.m. wait anxiously for Natty to get back from band practice safely.

10 p.m. watch some rubbish telly.

12.30 a.m. go to bed too late again!

Go Do

If you haven't already done so I would highly recommend listening to the new album Go by Icelandic singer Jonsi. Jonsi, you might remember, is best known for being the singer of the popular band Sigur Ros. His solo album is similar in style to Sigur Ros but is much more upbeat and uplifting, he also sings some of the tracks in English - aiming, I would hazard a guess, at attaining a larger worldwide audience. You can listen to the album in its entirety at Jonsi's website here. You might think that enabling fans to listen to the whole album for free was a silly move, but i think it's incredibly smart. You don't know how long it will be on there for for a start and after I had listened to it on Facebook it made me want to buy it. I am more likely to buy an album after hearing it properly than from somewhere like i-tunes where you hear such a tiny snippet of each track that you are left with no clue as to whether it is actually good or not.

Jonsi is playing at the Latitude Festival in Suffolk later this year.

Must hear track - GO DO.

Money Versus Creativity

I am having a bit of a dilemma at the moment about what I should do next year when I finish my MA. I have applied to do a teaching course, which would enable me to teach at the local college. The course is full on and full time and would not leave me any time for creative work. However, I have been doing some voluntary work on the creative writing access course which I have really enjoyed. The second option is that I could apply for a job at the art school library. The job is eighteen hours per week and would leave me plenty of time for writing and would also enable me to apply for the Cafe Writers Norfolk Commission which I was runner up for last year. This is the only year that I have the chance to apply for it again and if I was lucky enough to win I would get a published book so it is a great opportunity...you see the dilemma - I guess comes down to money versus creativity. There is, of course, no guarantee that I would get offered a job at City College once I had trained and ideally I would like to teach Creative Writing if I teach at all and they are steering me more towards art, and there is no guarantee that I would get the job at the Art School either - maybe i should just apply for it and see what happens!