Douglas Eby’s last blog post..Andrew Solomon on depression and hope

It’s not necessarily about simply going in or out but the ability to hold one’s self in a state of grace – to draw in and of all that is, and see possibility in ‘unlikely’ places.

Catatonic Kid’s last blog post..Stick Insects, Resilience and the Weight of Deception – Why France is signing-up to combat Anorexia.

I think a creative idea has a form. If it has no form yet I suspect it of being a feeling or sensation.

If the ‘idea’ was then ‘expressed’ the medium would be a matter of indifference. But this I think unlikely for both the maker and the object made.

I’d like to hear more about your own and others creative process. I think this is a very important topic for the process and outcome of therapy (a full life needs creativity I think).

Evan’s last blog post..Finding a Free-er Place

you say, “i don’t think buddhism can have it both ways. if there is no self, then there is nothing to go inside.”

to this, i imagine the buddha saying, “there is no self. there is no no-self.”

there’s much more to say about this, and i will make an attempt to do that in the next few weeks.

aah, and then, “a writers’ work is not an idea that is transferred into writing.” – sounds very marshal mcluhan-ish

i think that experience is different for each writer, and perhaps with some writers, even different between one writing experience and another. for some, writing is a vehicle by which to tell stories or propagate ideas. for others, it is a way to “get stuff out”. for others, it is about the word, the language.

hm, come to think of it – writers’ blocks are probably different for these different kinds of writers … what do you think?

(i have to confess that in over 40 years of writing, i have never [yet?] suffered from writers block).

and @therapydoc – wow, coming from you, that’s a big compliment! thanks!

is there a connection with the post on wrestling with the church? hm, probably in some sense – but then there are quite a few posts on spirituality here on this blog …

re mother teresa: you might find this post interesting, where i make a slightly different suggestion regarding the possible source of mother teresa’s difficulties. however, like you, i (and others) have certainly wondered whether she was dealing with depression.

therapydoc’s last blog post..When the wedding comes at the wrong time

I don’t think Buddhism can have it both ways. If there is no self, then there is nothing to go inside. The language needs to be refined here.

I’m not sure Mr Sanders language is very helpful either. A writers work is not an idea that is transferred into writing. Every ‘idea’ is already embodied. Phrases and words and sentences and structures in the case of a writer. Creativity always involves working with a medium (or media). Sometimes our ideas aren’t clear, sometimes we have competing ideas. These are often sorted out through working with the medium. We try something out and see if it works sometimes.

The emphasis and de-emphasis of the ego are the same process: re-engaging with the medium. Which could bring us back to Buddhism I think, but I don’t know much about that.

Evan’s last blog post..A Glitch and an Update

I really liked the John Tavener quote.

Everyone’s experience is different, so there is no universal remedy for “spiritual emptiness”. (I.e., this is one reason we have counselors.) However, we shouldn’t assume that this emptiness is “abnormal” or that there is always a cure — especially not an easy cure.

An article in Time on Mother Theresa (sorry, I don’t have the link, but a Google search should find it) “quoted in a letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, that is only now being made public, she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. ‘Jesus has a very special love for you,’ she assured Van der Peet. ‘[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak … I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand.’”

I’ll leave it to Isabella to tell us if this might have been a sign of treatable depression.

The point I would like to make is that Mother Theresa is remembered as a “saint” because of her work with the poor — which she apparently accomplished in spite of a spiritual emptiness not unlike what has been described here.

Maybe, considering the suffering she witnessed daily, it would not have been ‘normal’ if she wasn’t depressed. And maybe that is true of some of us, also. But again, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek professional help, and it doesn’t mean that we can’t make significant changes in our lives and the lives of those around us.