Chaos and Creation
The necessity of junk piles.
Growing up on the farm, we called them junk piles.
Our dad called them “iron piles,” because to him they were not eyesores, they were resources. If you needed something, likely you could go rummaging in the iron pile and at least find the raw materials for it.
They were perfect places for forts as a kid. No one cared that you made a “mess,” and there was so much stuff to work with: old tractors, milkweed, pieces of roofing, quack grass, rusty pipes, pieces of wire, catnip, giant metal beams, ragweed, a giant tanker barrel, an old stainless steel sink, yellow jacket nests, old fencing, and penny grass. The juxtaposition of so many materials and shapes was the spark for boundless creativity.
Of course, there was always the impulse to clean it up and make it look nice, but my dad, who is a tremendously creative individual, steadfastly refused. He needed his iron pile, he said.
As a young teen, I didn't get it. It was so ugly! Surely we could at least organize it!
Actually, though, my dad was right.
Creativity takes stuff and it's usually born out of chaos.
Don't believe me?
Look up the study about messy rooms. Half the subjects filled out a questionnaire in a messy room and half in a neat room. The ones in the messy room were less likely to choose healthy snacks or donate to charities. But in a follow up, they were also more likely to come up with novel and creative uses for a tennis ball and to try new things.
Even the creation story of Genesis insists on chaos first.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and empty and darkness was on the face of the deep.”
All the “stuff” of creation was made, but it was completely disorganized. Then God starts to organize it.
Maybe this is why dreams can be so helpful.
They take everything we are confused about and a whole lot we aren't and mix it all in a big chaotic mess.
Then when we try to talk about it, we have to try to make a story out of things that really aren't related. Often we are able to create solutions that were impossible to see in the neat and organized categories we had set up before.
And , of course, learning of all sorts requires a messy, chaotic time before mastery occurs.
If you wonder why you aren't creative, or why you are stuck somewhere, maybe you should look at your beliefs about chaos.
Chaos is not creative in and of itself. But it's often a necessary prerequisite. If you are allergic to chaos, you probably won't be super creative. You'll probably spend more time then necessary stuck.
Thankfully, there are some built in guarantees of chaos in our lives. Growth, relationship conflict, people, loss. A lot of times we don't think too kindly of these things. But maybe they are needed to help us see new possibilities.
Personally, one of my favorite creativiy generators is kids. Not only do they find completely novel ways to recombine elements, they make our lives a bit more challenging and chaotic. All while being adorable and cute.
(This much cannot be said for most other people.)
You can fight it or you can use it as a platform for creativity.
They are also happiest while being creative. If you want kids to be entertained, give them prepackaged entertainment.
If you want them to be happy, give them a space where they are allowed to create as much chaos and order as they like and watch what they do.
Or don't watch. They won't care.
I think about this when I drive by many houses, with manicured lawns, and little play spaces carefully outlined.
Where are the weeds? Where are the crates? Where are the pipes and the boards and forts and the wired-together contraptions? What are kids allowed to make and do on their own without needing to be neat and orderly? Or useful?
No wonder kids hate being outdoors. No wonder they retreat into the web where they can be creative or at least entertained.
Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote:
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
I agree.
We all need some weedy corners and chaos.
We all need junk piles.