Balance the Canoe - Creativity

The first blog posting (Maiden Voyage, 13Jan2011) was a metaphorical excursion to the edge of the earth—an overview of my personal views of life. This posting uses a more basic metaphor for navigating life—the canoe, which requires balance. 

The intent of this posting is to continue developing our understanding of creative expression. To save space and time, you can read the premise on my website and the previous blog posting for background to my perspective.

My career includes 12 years at a major health care institution—where I learned that creative expression is a viable clinical therapy. Research indicates that not only is creative expression therapy for existing maladies—but preventative as well.

Carl Jung (1875-1961)—a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker, and the founder of analytical psychology—even used creative expression diagnostically. He was able to make accurate medical diagnoses based on the drawings of his patients.

In the previous blog posting, we provided our take on the two essential components of us humans—the physical and the soul. The physical, or ego, is comprised of what we acquire from our lineage (DNA) and what we learn from our environment—and is constrained by time and space. Soul is the enlivening energy shared by the living—and transcends the empirical universe.

We humans are inclined to identify with the physical, or ego—after all, we were absolutely taught this at an early age. I am not you—it‘s empirically valid. The nature of the ego is based on separateness. The physical component is empirical and explained by science.

The soul, however, is the essence of life—and singularly boundless.


We humans have effectively overlooked the significance of this transcendent component of our being. Our exposure to concepts of soul have been provided to most of us by religion—which all point in the direction of truth, but break down when religious texts are interpreted literally. So what is observable in terms of the soul and creative expression?

It seems that creative expression is the transcendent soul’s way of manifesting in our physical existence—with the fingerprint of ego. 

When cancer patients are asked to draw pictures expressing their feelings and views relating to their illnesses, subconscious images emerge in the drawings—images defensively suppressed by ego. Research suggests that suppressed emotions can accumulate and contribute to eventual disease—if not the primary cause. Soul seems to illuminate the destructive, survivalist nature of ego. That which ego finds threatening to its identity of separateness is defensively suppressed into the subconscious—and can eventually contribute to illness.

There is also research correlating the emergence of historically new styles of art with subsequent leaps in science and technology. It appears the soul paves the way for intellectual progress.

Everything we have consciously learned emanates from within us as we express ourselves creatively. I believe the combination of soul and ego is involved—one not greater than the other; rather, a collaboration of our two essential components.

I’ve heard it espoused that ego is evil, or a delusion—to be subjugated and minimized. Christianity proposes the mortification of the flesh—Buddhism, the no self. I suggest that the only way for soul to manifest empirically is in collaboration with ego—i.e., creative expression.

We humans do seem to identify predominately with ego, but perhaps it’s a healthier approach to balance our identification with soul and ego—a union of sorts. Soul transcends our empirical universe, but only in conjunction with ego can something previously unrevealed be made manifest in the empirical universe. This is to say that soul can only come into play when we humans accept ego and soul as essential components of our existence.

I know this blog is being visited. Why not provide your thoughts. Dialogue—the exchange of ideas—is the primary purpose of this site.