Doug Larson

My wife and I are opposites.  She loves to talk and I prefer to listen.  She and her sister sometimes talk simultaneously and neither seems to be listening to the other.  When my wife was interviewing people for our book, It's Okay to Cry, she discovered that she often talked while others were talking.  When she transcribed the audiotapes, she could not hear the other person because she was talking over him.  She learned a valuable lesson about listening.  I have also discovered that talking can energize me.  After giving a speech, I want to keep talking but there is no one to listen since everyone has fled.  Talking helps me to think through my problems and come to a better understanding of what is on my mind.

While talking can sometimes help us understand ourselves, listening helps us understand others. And by understanding others, we will better understand ourselves. If we listen to the words of others, they will teach us about life — both what to do and what not to do. 

When we spend our time talking, we become self-absorbed, caught up in our perceptions of the world, and unaware of those around us.  Listening allows us to step outside ourselves and see the world through the eyes of others.  Listening helps us grow and develop as compassionate individuals.

We probably learn more from the failures of others than we do from our successes. As writers, storytellers and artists, we need to understand other people — why they behave in the way they do.  What motivates them?  What drives them? The better we understand people, the more realistic and truthful our art will be.  

So take the time to listen to others and understand what makes them tick.  Your creative work will be stronger, wiser, and more engaging because of it.  

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Portrait by Jakob Schlesinger

(1831)

"Nothing great in the world was accomplished without passion." 

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

German philosopher / writer

1770 - 1831

Commentary

An old man was traveling into New York by boat.  Everyone was crowding against the rail looking at the tall buildings.  A little girl fell overboard and soon the old man was in the water.  He grabbed the little girl and people hoisted her back up on ship.  People pulled him back on ship and they began clapping.  Some shouted, "Speech!  Speech!"  The old man looked around and said, "Who pushed me?"



And that is my question for you today?  What pushes you?  What motivates you?  What excites you?  What is the passion in your life?  We all need passion.

Passion is one of the keys to success.  If you are not passionate about what you do, you will not be successful.  Creative leaders need to be passionate about what they do.  Without passion it is easy to lose sight of one's goal.  Passion helps creative leaders overcome the obstacles they face.

Are you passionate about the art you are creating?  The novel you are writing?  The sculpture you are creating?  The poems that you are writing?  The canvas you are painting?  Do you wake up excited in the morning to begin work on your creative project?  Are you obsessed with your creative work?  Do you become depressed if you are not creating new work?

Masaoka Shiki

"Take your materials from what is around you — if you see a dandelion, write about that; if it's misty, write about the mist.  The materials for poetry are all about you in profusion."

— Masaoka Shiki

Japanese Poet

1867 - 1902

Commentary

Where do you get your ideas for your writing or your painting?  Are your ideas rooted in the world in which you live?  Has that maple tree in your backyard shown up in your painting?  Has the dragonfly or the butterfly appeared in your writing?  Look around you.  The world is yours for the taking.  Be sure to incorporate it into your creative work.



Even if you paint abstract paintings or write surrealistic poetry, you can take your inspiration from the world in which you live.  Nature is full of opportunity to explore the meaning of life and other philosophical questions.  It also teaches us practical lessons that we as humans need to learn.  What can you learn from the squirrel or rabbit or deer?



Human frailties can also be a great source of inspiration whether you are painting or writing.  What are you learning from the people in your life?  How are you applying these lessons to your art?

Creative Practice

Take 10 minutes everyday and write or paint something that you normally don't write or paint.  Take your subject from what is around you.  Maybe it is a dandelion, or a squirrel, or an oak tree, or even a spider.  Or take something you normally write or paint and change your perspective.

About the Poet

Masakoa Shiki (Tsunenori), considered one of four great Japanese poets, was born into a samurai family of modest means in the castle town of Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku.  His father, Tsuneanao, was an alcoholic who died when Shiki was five years old.  His mother was the daughter of a Confucian scholar who became Shiki's first teacher.  She was forced to teach sewing to support her family.  At 15, Shiki became involved in the Freedom and People's Rights Movement and became interested in being a politician.  He moved to Tokyo in 1883 to live with an uncle. While in Tokyo, he discovered baseball and enjoyed playing.  He entered the Imperial University in 1890 where he studied literature and eventually concentrated on haiku.


When Shiki was 22, he began coughing up blood and adopted the pen name, "Shiki," the name of a bird that according to legend coughed up blood as it sang.  He dropped out of the university and began working as haiku editor for a newspaper, Nippon.  Shiki suffered fro tuberculosis the last 14 years of his life.  He went to China in 1895 as a war correspondent in the First Sino-Japanese war.  Living in filthy conditions in China, Shiki grew worse.  He became bedridden in 1897.  The illness worsened in 1901 and he began using morphine as a painkiller.  He died of TB in 1902 at the age of 35.  


Haiku by Shiki


spring rain:

browsing under an umbrella

at the picture-book store


a look backward

at the person who went by —

misted out


the nettle nuts are falling . . .

the little girls next door

don't visit me these days


ways of the world,

may he never know them,

the toad


lifting my head,

I look now and then —

the garden clover


to awaken

the hot-water bottle, barely

warm


how much longer

is my life?

a brief night . . .


a barrel full of phlegm —

even loofah water

will not avail me now


Biography  & Haiku Sources:

Beichman, Janine. Masaoka Shiki. Twayne Publishers (Boston). 1982.

Hoffmann, Yoel. Japanese Death Poems. Tuttle Publishing (Boston). 1986.

Isaacson, Harold J. Peonies Kana. Theatre Arts Books (New York). 1972.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaoka_Shiki

Quote Source:

Beichman, Janine. Masaoka Shiki. Twayne Publishers (Boston). 1982.