reality check

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Like anyone else, I guess, I enjoy the creative juices of my life -- having ideas, zooming around with hope, playing, and perhaps putting into action. A good conversation, ranging and open, is something I miss. Work has shifted into a kind of enforced mediocrity and it takes a lot of energy to be mediocre ... energy I would prefer to put into some excellence or best effort. Eight hours a day of enforced mediocrity ... or that's the way my zooming mind sees it.

And yet this morning I got a note from a fellow who came to the zendo once and asked if he might come again. Like all the visitors who come, his note offered a little reality check to my zoomer, creative mind. Thank God for good teachers. This small request was like a voice saying, "Yo, Adam! Serious up! Take a closer look!"

It's joyful to zoom and swoop and I love finding people who are likewise inclined ... creative, silly, honest. But the question does need to be asked -- what, precisely, is "creative?" And, how is it possible not to be creative or express your creativity?

I still wouldn't mind a fun conversation, a little delighted give-and-take, but I am grateful for the reality-checks that come along as well.
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