Hi y'all.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Here's to you some inspirations 'On History and Writing'. Enjoy.
If you have any questions or comments, please email me.
Until next time - Majken xx
P.S. The blog is taking a break during the winter season. I'll be back in 2024 on February 29th.
A Christmas Carol
Ever since I started my blog - in 2020 - I’ve ended the year passing on different versions of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to you. This year is no exception. I have discovered that there is a good reason why the telling about the grumpy old Scrooge and his transformation into a cheerful, well-liked fellow holds water. It simply is one of the best reminders of the importance of keeping yourself up to date with your life, to remember to lubricate the joints of your body, mind and soul, so to speak, so that you don’t turn rusty and get stuck in old views of “how the world is ugly and disgusting and how it has always been like this” and things like that. And indeed, the world is brutal in many ways - but it’s also full of wonders and pleasant meetings, grand ideas and well-meaning people if you take a good look. Here are two newer versions of Dickens' classic. Enjoy.
A Christmas Carol, narrated by B.J. Harrison (he's awesome! check him out!) - find it on Audible or here.
A Christmas Carol, animation - find it on Netflix.
Old Christmas Day
Each year, on 6 January in Labrador, Canada, the otherworldly creature, the Nalunuk, emerges from the sea ice. It’s a frightening being. It has sharp teeth and is all dressed in torn and tattered clothing, animal skins and furs.
All night, it walks from house to house and knocks on the villagers' doors. When the people let it in, the Nalunuk takes a good look at them before it rewards the well-behaved people with treats and punishes the badly behaved ones by hitting them - playfully! - with a staff.
This way of reminding people how good behaviour is rewarded and bad behaviour is punished is obviously peaking at this time of year. Although good behaviour should always be somewhere on our radar, right? Perhaps we need a monthly, or at least a half-yearly Nalunuk to come around and remind us all that treating other people well is always valued.
Anyway, the Inuk filmmaker Jennie Williams has made the movie Nalujuk Night, in which she documents how the Nalujuk creatures are touring the local neighbourhoods of the Labrador Inuit communities of Canada today. Also, she manages to take her moving pictures one step further and give you an actual feeling of the energy and message of the Nalujuit using black/white colours and adding Inuk chanting (throat singing?) as a soundtrack. It’s really well made.
On Genius
We often think of a genius as this highly gifted person who sits alone in their chamber brewing something extraordinary, which they later present to the world. But is this really how it works? The musician Brian Eno doesn’t think so. Instead, he likes to speak about what he calls “scenius”. Under this model, great ideas are often birthed by a group of creative individuals who make up an “ecology of talent.” Author and artist Austin Kleon explains the phenomena in his book Show Your Work!: If you look back closely at history, he says, many of the people who we think of as lone geniuses were actually part of “a whole scene of people who were supporting each other, looking at each other’s work, copying from each other, stealing ideas, and contributing ideas.”
The American author Elizabeth Gilbert also speaks about genius in her book Big Magic. To the Greeks and Romans, she explains, genius was not something you had; it was something outside of you that you had access to from time to time. She writes:
“…the Greeks and the Romans both believed in the idea of an external daemon of creativity - a sort of house elf, if you will, who lived within the walls of your home and who sometimes aided you in your labors. The Romans had a specific term for that helpful house elf. They called it your genius - your guardian deity, the conduit of your inspiration. Which is to say, the Romans didn’t believe that an exceptionally gifted person was a genius; they believed that and exceptionally gifted person had a genius.”
Now, whether you see a genius as someone who depends on others to be able to create - like Eno - or as something outside of you that you get access to - like the Greeks and the Romans - either way, it does take away some focus - and pressure - from the talented person.
As Gilbert puts it: “It’s a subtle but important distinction (being [a genius] vs. having [a genius]) and, I think, it’s a wise psychological construct. The idea of an external genius helps to keep the artist’s ego in check, distancing him somewhat from the burden of taking either full credit or full blame for the outcome of his work. If your work is successful, in other words, you are obliged to thank your external genius for the help, thus holding you back from total narcissism. And if your work fails, it’s not entirely your fault. You can say, “Hey, don’t look at me - my genius didn’t show up today!” Either way, the vulnerable human ego is protected. Protected from the corrupting influence of praise. Protected from the corrosive effects of shame.”
In Eno’s version the genius depending on others to succeed doesn’t take away from the achievements of the talented person. It just acknowledges that good work isn’t created in a vacuum and that creativity is always, in some sense, a collaboration resulting from a mind connected to other minds.
[Show Your Work, Austin Kleon, 2014, p. 9-12. Big Magic - Creative Living Beyond Fear, Elizabeth Gilbert, 2015, p. 67-68.]
Do something
I stumbled upon this illustration and did my own version. “When you think, the fear grows. When you act, the fear drops”, the accompanying text said. This made me think of my daily Qi Gong practice, in which my teacher often reminds us how this practice helps your life energy, your ‘chi’, to get moving. The stagnation of chi, he explains, leads to different kinds of pain. Physically as well as mentally (it’s all connected…!). The cure is to act. To do something. To move your body and thereby to move yourself - away from stuckness and fear and into a healthy, meaningful space full of life.
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‘On History and Writing’ is a blog post from me to you in which I share historically rooted real-life stories from around the world - told in exciting and creative ways - along with thoughts that circle the creative process of writing non-fiction texts. I post an email once every fortnight. If you're not already a subscriber, you are welcome to join the list. Thanks for reading! Majken xx
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