The first chapter of 'The Interpretation of Murder' by Jed Rubenfeld begins like this: "There is no mystery to happiness. Unhappy men are all alike. Some wound they suffered long ago, some wish denied, some blow to pride, some kindling spark of love put out by scorn - or worse, indifference - cleaves to them or they to it, and so they live each day with a shroud of yesterdays. The happy man does not look back. He doesn't look ahead. He lives in the present.
But there's the rub. The present can never deliver one thing, meaning. The ways of happiness and meaning are not the same. To find happiness, a man need only live in one moment; he need only live for the moment. But if he wants meaning - the meaning of his dreams, his secrets, his life - a man must inhabit his past, however dark, and live for the future, however uncertain.
Thus nature dangles happiness and meaning before us all, insisting only that we choose between them."
For me this is as much a question about creativity as it is about happiness. How much of our creativity springs from discomfort, from the exploration of our uncertainty? Its not a question I'm planning to answer here, but something to think about, to raise our awareness of and hopefully to use as a springboard into further questions and ideas.
We do not need to be unhappy to be creative, but when we find ourselves with difficult challenges and feelings, they can lead us into a greater sense of creative depth, purpose and understanding.
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