Was feeling a bit like this song by War today…like I couldn’t see exactly where I was going with this particular client. For me to be able to function I MUST always have a framework – a point of reference and I had none. I was slowly slipping into darkness so of course I decided to write about it AND Google the song 🙂 and this is what I found:

“This song is about trying not to slip off that other side, the deep end. War drummer and founding member Harold Brown told us: “Howard (Scott, War guitarist) was working on some lyrics and he had this concept, thinking of how one could slip into darkness. Your mind could just go on, and you just go off to the left – you have to be careful, you have to say, ‘Don’t go there.’ It’s like that wall between sane and insane. We all figure we’re sane, and once in a while we look past that wall, our head pops over and we look and we say, ‘Here’s Johnny.’ I always like that. You look over there and you see certain things, and some of us have been known to go over there and stay, and there’s some that pop their heads right back. Because that’s just right on that borderline of sane, insane, and really close to being a genius.

You get in that moment of creation and you start seeing things different than the way a lot of other people are seeing it. Most of the stuff we’re seeing, it’s accessible to all of us, but then we go and take these different words or materials. It’s how you rearrange it that makes it different and it presents itself. Like a tree. I look at a tree, and I say, Okay I could do a couple of things with that tree. We can let it stay there, it’s beautiful, I can cut it down, make firewood, or I can make furniture with it but rearrange it. You have to watch that balance. That’s when guys start getting all blown out on drugs and stuff, and become crazy. You find out the people that have the highest amount of creativity, there’s a fine line between them being sane and insane. They’re the ones I find, guys that are really out there. You got to have a certain way to talk to them, you got to know their moods. You got to know those events, those episodes, when you’re dealing with them.”

Whenever I’m feeling blind it’s usually because I have too much going on – too many ways to ‘look at the tree’ – too much creativity – forcing me to descend rapidly into a state of absolute confusion and not-knowing-ness.

If this happens remind yourself very quickly that “There is a way, and though not obvious right now, you are intent on finding it!” Next laugh at yourself and like me you might just find more depth to a song you once just knew the words to but now understand the meaning of and finally know that there is light beyond slipping unless you decide to stay on the other side of the wall – which I know you’re not going to do – because your creative spirit simply would not allow it. There’s too much work to be done, this side of the fence!

Illustration from http://www.lauraest.deviantart.com