The Creative Spark! – Dig Deep

Do you ever wonder what lurks behind your hidden madness? Well, the subconscious mind will bring you closer to your unbridled truths. And these truths don’t add up to logic?at least not in this crazy world. What makes sense to one era is irrational in another.

For instance, in biblical times, pagan believers sacrificed their children in fires. Children often didn’t have names for the first several years as their mortality rate was high. So, ritual sacrifices of children seemed somewhat acceptable.

Not in this era! This era has its own craziness. And our subconscious minds busily percolate these absurdities of normal life. So how do you understand your subconscious mind? One way is to crack the code of subtext. Subtext forms a big part of how actors interpret scripts. Subtext consists of subconscious drives and unstated thoughts. Subtext is often some secret that shows up in body language.

But how does subtext apply to academics? Subtexts make for deeper, more creative analyses. Subtexts dig through the clichés and norms to get to original ideas. In short, subtexts trigger breakthroughs.

Judith Weston, author of The Film Director’s Intuition connects subtext with intuition. And many authors connect intuition with creativity and originality. I offer Weston’s insights on subtext in bold below, followed by my musings.

Try to imagine another person’s experiences as a door opening to your own subconscious. Imagine a researcher reveals that her studies on sibling death originated from her own guilt over her brother’s death. Let your subconscious mind take over. In other words, let suppressed associations come to mind. For instance, did you ever rescue someone inadvertently? Did you ever plead with a friend not to fly with a drunken pilot the day before the plane crashed? And did you wonder if your pleading caused the crash? Turn your inner thoughts into subtexts.

don’t label a character with a shallow adjective like “angry” or “jealous.” Instead, look at the character’s experiences and subconscious drives. The wiser I get, the more I look at things from others? point-of-view. For instance, mom and I fight. But lately, I try to reason our conflicts from her point-of-view. When I do, forgiveness comes easily. Similarly, don’t label an author as selfish or shallow or misinformed. Instead, identify with the author’s complex inner world. Expand your perspective.

Use metaphors (“as ifs” and examples) to suggest subtext. If you don’t want to state outright an author’s subtext, then imply it?with a metaphor. If an author says a perfect being would not have created imperfect beings, suggest that the author makes this claim as if perfection comes without its own problems. In my view, the opposite of ideal perfection is human perfection?and human imperfection is closer to ideal perfection. Just ask anyone with anxiety.

Whenever you see something as unquestionable “truth,” think of its opposite as truth. If you think that people with psychosis end up in jail cells, then think of the outlier who was hired as a CIO of a bank. True story. So, fake it until you make it. Whatever you’ve failed at, the opposite may too be true.

Avoid cliché notions. Recently, the quote “fake it until you make it” seemed wildly original. Now, It’s cliché. So, use your own experience to veer away from the cliché: “Once you make it, bulletproof your fake.” Or, simply stated, “Justin Bieber it.”

Make firm subtext choices based on your personal experiences. Similarly, with the authors you cite, make firm subtext choices based on your worldview. If an author thinks optical illusions are not illusions, but relative and contextual realities, then how does that fit in with your experience?

From my experience, an optical illusion of a line with inward versus outward arrow endpoints do appear to have different lengths. Yet, measurement shows the line lengths are the same. But, from my personal experience, the Cartesian coordinate system doesn’t account for motion parallax. A grid on a window reflecting moving cars while I moved told me a surprisingly different story. In other words, I believe our measurements of the world are as stupid as robots designed to burp.

Add subtext based on your personal experiences.

Now that you know how subtext impacts your academics, unleash your intuition. As Dr. Yunus once said, “Morality is time and space bound.” What makes sense today is senseless tomorrow. A paradox? I call it a Creative Spark!