Precious C.K
DAY TWO: Remind Yourself
This is a 30-Day Exploration of Creativity.
“Create with your heart, build with your mind.”
CRISS JAMI, Author and Poet
In the scene in the Lion King (original fan here, not even seen the remake on principle alone!) where Simba sees Mufasa in the clouds saying, “Remember who you are”, we see something happen to Simba. Our boy, up to that moment, had been playing around with his buddies, Timon and Pumbaa, and had successfully put the whole miserable incident with his Dad and his Uncle Scar behind him. Then a blast-from-the-past appears, Nala, and she bursts his bubble and then the weird monkey-witch appears, Rafiki, and triggers the experience in which Simba talks to his dad who appears in the sky.
So, what happens to Simba when he sees his dad? He sort-of comes to himself, like he had been absent for a long time, practising the feel-good Hakuna Matata escapism offered by Timon & Pumbaa. Sound familiar? We’ve all done it in one way or the other, especially if there is some horrible self-truth we are running away from and in the same way the three friends feasted on bugs with no restraints, some of us have taken to alcohol and other mind-altering substances to forget some truths. Thing is, the truth Simba was running away from was actually a distorted view of himself and his actions, and it was only after facing the very truth he had been running away from for years was he was able to readjust his own understanding of himself and go on to live as his true authentic self, having made peace with his past actions.
When Simba encountered the memory of his dad in the sky, he allowed the memory to remind him of himself. In the transition from childhood to adulthood, at least in my case, there have been events, situations, relationships that I would much rather forget. Many of these scenarios left lingering guilt and shame that, I have come to realise, caused me to want to run. As a matter of fact, I have been running away from the memory of these things for a while but, in order to reclaim the childlike joy of my own creativity and to find myself again, I have to get past these memories. Like Simba, I am being reminded of myself by blasts-from-the-past and such. Sometimes, we have to be stopped in our tracks by people or scenarios in order to be reminded of who we truly are. That is what happened to Simba and he finally made the decision to return to the Pride and reclaim his place as King. The truth was always in his heart although his mind distorted it a little. Once he reconnected with his heart, his mind was readjusted and he knew the path he needed to take.
Some Thoughts to Think
What do I need to remind myself of?:
- That I am inherently creative. No one had to teach me to write poetry or stories, I just picked up a pen and started writing poetry from a very young age. It came and comes directly from my heart (and from mum, of course – shout out!).
- There were no promises of a reward. The reward was the ability to express my inner thoughts especially when I learned that I had no one to share them with because I was not close to my parents or any of my siblings.
- That guilt and shame are usually the result of a distortion of events in my mind. Yes, that thing might have happened in the same way that the stampede that killed Mufasa happened. However, if I simply run from it, I might never understand the truth of what happened. I might never find the forgiveness and acceptance I seem to desperately need from others but mainly from myself.
- This Remembrance needs to lead back to being able to reclaim the joy of the craft in the same way that Simba’s reminder of who he actually was led to him reclaiming that which was rightfully his and stepping into his destiny.
- The distortions are always in the mind. By reconnecting with my heart, I can overcome the obstacles to creativity in my mind yet still engage the discipline of my mind after training it in the ways of uprooting roadblocks.
Understand that it doesn’t need to be an either/or situation where you work either for money or for joy! If you can learn the power of reminding yourself by revisiting the place of joy whenever you create, you’ll never have to lose your joy again even when you are working hard to pay bills or even when you start earning the big bucks that can take you away from your first love of the craft.
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