DELUSIONS

"Artists and scientists realize that no solution is ever final, but that each new creative step points the way to the next artistic or scientific problem. In contrast, those who embrace religious revelations and delusional systems tend to see them as unshakable and permanent"
Anthony Storr

It is the beauty of thought that it is an open system. When I begin work on a project, I always have some ideas about what I expect to happen. If I am drawing a landscape design, I know the dimension and topography of the site with which I am working. If I am writing, I have thought over different ideas until something rough has started to coalesce in my mind. Even the beginning is the creative result of a series of decisions for inclusion and exclusion. But when I start everything can change in seismic ways because my mind makes connections and sees patterns that I could not see before. Often, I will follow a line of development only to hit an end or a branching off that is irrelevant to what I think I am doing. However, many times that branching off becomes the main pursuit. Sometimes I'll discover something unexpected which sends me scrambling to do further exploration before I can continue. The thinking is itself creating (or some might say uncovering creation). All along I am making choices and changes which are working toward a whole, but at the same time I know that whole piece is itself unfinished. At the end I have a plethora of ideas and thoughts which I didn't have before. I have left numerous things unanswered and unaddressed. Raising questions and leaving things open lets us enter into dialogue with the world and gives us the gift of curiosity. In contrast, something "unshakable and permanent" is closed and unable to evolve. It puts people in untenable situations by giving "TRUTH", an answer which can't be questioned. This negates the whole process of thought and creativity. This negates our humanity by falsely making doubt a failure rather than a natural strength.

Can we point to anything that is the "same as it ever was"? Or is permanency the ultimate delusion?