Are you a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive?

[Encephalon]

I was going to post this in the "Any writers?" thread but I thought it would be interesting to see how many of you identify with this character type, and see it as an asset (or a hindrance?) to your cultivation practice. Is there a commonality between cultivators and artists? (leading question!) This is Habit #1 of successful screenwriters, but it applies to artists of all stripes.

 

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From The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters by Karl Iglesias

 

 

1. BEING CREATIVE AND ORIGINAL

 

Imagination is being able to think of things that havent appeared on TV yet. Henry Beard

 

It may seem unnecessary to include this trait, because most people know creativity is an essential part of the writers makeup, especially in screenwriting. Ive included it, however, because many beginning writers dont understand how important it is to be original. Reading hundreds of scripts and listening to thousands of pitches showed me how most of them were derivative of other movies, with familiar characters, uninteresting ideas, and clichéd plot twists. Beginning writers tend to develop the easiest idea that comes to mind, rather than working hard to generate original ones.

 

Our mentors are highly imaginative and can make creative connections between seemingly unrelated events. Theyre able to daydream about situations, characters, bits of dialogue, and get immediate answers to what if situations. As Pearl Buck eloquently puts it:

 

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, just pour out creating. By some strange, inward urgency, he is not really alive unless he is creating.

 

No one can tell you what this mysterious creative energy really is. Its not a formula. You cannot control it, but you can certainly develop a relationships to it so that it will open itself to your more often than not.

 

Tom Schulman: Screenwriters need a determination to be original and an unwillingness to accept clichés. Most writers I know dont hesitate to change, or at least add something special as soon as they sense what they wrote has been done before.

 

edited for Tai Po

Edited December 14, 2011 by Encephalon

[Jetsun]

I wouldn't say I am that creative but I am quite sensitive, so I don't think the two necessarily go hand in hand, although maybe my creativity is just blocked at the moment. But for me so far my sensitivity has been a curse in my life as the world in general is so insensitive.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Jetsun

[Informer]

A highly sensitive person (HSP) is a person having the innate trait of high psychological sensitivity (or innate sensitiveness as Carl Jung originally coined it). According to Elaine N. Aron and colleagues as well as other researchers, highly sensitive people, who comprise about a fifth of the population, may process sensory data much more deeply and thoroughly due to a biological difference in their nervous systems.[1]

 

This is a specific trait with key consequences that in the past has often been confused with innate shyness, social anxiety problems, inhibitedness, or even social phobia and innate fearfulness, introversion, and so on.[2] The existence of the trait of innate sensitivity was demonstrated using a test that was shown to have both internal and external validity.[3] Although the term is primarily used to describe humans, the trait is present in nearly all higher animals[citation needed].

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_sensitive_person

 

How do we really know that we are highly sensitive rather than others have been desensitized?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ErszfSTdas

[thelerner]

I don't know if its I was born inhumanly sensitive, but as a child I was probably more sensitive then most. For better or worse I see the trait in my boys too (not so much in daughter). My emotional state can be overwhelmed at movies or large events, if I don't keep cynical control. An overly developed sense of justice and empathy can lead to problems of melancholy, depression and general unhappiness.

 

For better or worse I've desensitized myself. Mostly through reading the newspaper. Slough through the paper day by day and you can read through murder, rape and starvation without batting an eye.

 

If I stay away from the news for a few weeks, the same paper is incredibly evil tome of heart breaking proportions.

[Encephalon]

According to Elaine N. Aron and colleagues as well as other researchers, highly sensitive people, who comprise about a fifth of the population, may process sensory data much more deeply and thoroughly due to a biological difference in their nervous systems.[1]

 

That's interesting. I wonder if that might account for differences in aptitude for nei kung practices.

 

"But for me so far my sensitivity has been a curse in my life as the world in general is so insensitive."

I think this is true for almost everyone who wasn't the high school quarterback getting pawed by the cheerleading squad, but I'd Like to believe that sensitivity toward one's own nervous system can enable us to get on with the alchemical reactions necessary we need for growth and healing.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Encephalon

[Creation]

 

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create – so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, just pour out creating. By some strange, inward urgency, he is not really alive unless he is creating.”

This describes me to a T. That is the very reason I chose the screen name Creation. I must say that for me, discovering goes hand in hand with creating, and in fact I have often found the link between the two blurred.

 

As for the bearing of being inhumanly sensitive on cultivation, I would say that cultivation requires you to face your own experience head on. The more sensitive you are, the more unpleasant this will be, especially if you have endured trauma. I have been trying to avoid feeling things my whole life, and now that I am cultivating, I find that whenever I try to go into a meditative state, my senses are flooded with what I can only describe as noise. The accumulated noise of repressing my experiences my whole life. It is quite overwhelming, and for the most part horribly unpleasant. It makes practice seem like masochism. Little by little I'm getting used to it thought.

Edited December 16, 2011 by Creation

[Pu-erh]

That's me, alright I'm also an INFP and a 4 on the Enneagram.

[Walker]