At the beginning of each year there are a handful of books I like to revisit because I seem to find new meaning in them every time. One of these is THE COURAGE TO CREATE, by Rollo May. I thought I'd share a few of his thoughts :
...courage is not the absence of despair; rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.
...if you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also you will have betrayed our community in failing to make your contribution to the whole.
...a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them.
It is (a) seeming contradiction that we must be fully committed, but we must also be aware at the same time that we might possibly be wrong.
Creative courage...is the discovering of new forms, new symbols, new patterns on which a new society can be built. Every profession can and does require some creative courage.
....(the) alternation of the market place and the mountain requires the capacity for the constructive use of solitude. It requires that we be able to retire from a world that is "too much with us," that we be able to be quiet, that we let the solitude work for us and in us.
...the artist and poet and saint must fight the actual (as contrasted to the ideal) gods of our society--the god of conformism as well as the gods of apathy, material success, and exploitative power.
...the essence of being human is that, in the brief moment we exist on this spinning planet, we can love some persons and some things, in spite of the fact that time and death will ultimately claim us all.
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He has a lot more to say--if the notions above appeal to you, I recommend you buy the book.
