Avoiding just getting….
This morning, I found a blog posting by one of my favorite bloggers, Christine Kane. She also happens to be an amazing singer/songwriter. But, I feel that her blog is a place of eternal wisdom and inspiration. Today, she wrote about the difference between “getting” and “creating,” and I wanted to touch base with you a little about what she said before we push forward towards the final project for the semester.
The basic breakdown of her post today was that we live in a world full of talking about what you “get” instead of what you create. You get the classes you want instead of creating the perfect schedule. Getting is an idea that we talk about all the time in our lives. And, as she explains, it is very easy in our culture to fall into the “getting” mode of living. But, what she really does in this short passage is help you consider what it would be like if you could create your world. What would your day-to-day life look like if you were creating instead of just getting things done? I know mine would completely change.
We are about to move into the roughest part of the semester. You are going to have more to do than feels comfortable, and it is easy to fall into the get-it-done attitude that plagues us all at this time of year. But, how different would the energy around this place feel if we all took a creating mentality instead. It is from this mindset that I would like you to think about the final project in this course. I created this project for you as a way for you to show me what you have learned this semester in both a more academic way and as a creative outlet.
What I am here to tell you now is that you can create the experience you want out of this class and the final project. This may be a hard concept to grasp, as it is not the popular way to do things right now. You might believe that it is too touchy feely for you if you are just in get-it-done mode already, but even if just for a moment, consider the possibility. Instead of me focusing on the work involved with getting things back to you and you concentrating on just getting things turned in, I would like to instead as a group decide that we are going to focus on what we can create together.
It is from this place that I think that you can show me what you have learned in this course the best, as literature is really all about creating. If any of this resonates for you, then just imagine what the rest of your classes would look like if you decided that your college experience was about more than getting the right job or getting the right degree. What if you came here because you wanted to create the opportunity to learn for yourself? Or, what if you are working here to create new possibilities in your life after you graduate? What would that decision unlock for you?
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