Twenty-one - The Eclectic Manifesto

Why do we write? It is no simple question, for at its heart is the eternal riddle of who and what we are as people, as human beings. At its heart is the implication, why do we do what we do? What makes up what we are? Where do ideas come from? Dreams, images, words… imagination.

What do they mean? It might be clearer to ask – why do we create? For myself there are two passions in my life, writing and archaeology, and both pursue this question in different ways. In terms of archaeology one of the great riddles is art. It is present in the archaeological record from the earliest times of human existence, whether in the consistent artistic record of Australian Aboriginal people which tracks 60,000 plus years in its movement, or in other examples seen throughout the world everywhere from Egypt to Mesopotamia, cave paintings in France, animal sculptures in Mesoamerica and stone circles in England. But why? Why do humans do this? Build things, create things, make and paint and shape objects? It cannot always be linked to practical use, such as shelter or burial rites, and even when buildings can be linked to such motivations it still does not answer why they are given the form they are, why they are given such complexity of design.

There is no easy answer to the riddle of why we create, but it is the question which lies at the heart of understanding who and what we are as human beings. There are a number of ways to respond to this. In archaeology the response is often to look for individual motivation. Cave painters were inspired by animals they saw in the landscape around them, or wanted to leave a record of hunting expeditions they undertook. Pharaohs wanted to control an idle work population through vast projects designed to reinforce the social order through religious doctrine. That sort of thing can be traced through both the archaeological and written records of cultures and theorized about. The problem with this is that such explanations fall into the very changeable arena of verbal meaning. Verbal meaning as a historical tool is fraught with dangers which any historian knows how to steer their path through. A document of propaganda should be read in mind of when it was written and who it was written for in order to assess the information it contains. History, they say, is written by the winner, and descriptions of wars would come out very differently if written by opposing sides. This reflects the changeable nature of verbal meaning, and while an Egyptian pharaoh might clearly state he has erected a statue in honour of one of his gods, everyone knows that it is an act motivated by clear political agendas. What we say we are doing and what we are doing are not always the same things.

In archaeology the answer is to examine the material record as an entity in its own right, a trajectory I follow in my archaeological work. But there is much to be said about the creative side of humankind in the imaginative form of writing as well. Much that I can say about my own motivations to write and how they link to the eternal riddle of why the human race is creative. Human imagination and the act of creativity appears as a major part of religions across the world. Shamans in East Asian cultures for example would make spiritual out of body journeys fueled by the inhalation of chemicals, and it was these imaginative journeys that were used to protect their tribe. New shamans were chosen based on signs of imaginative power. Indeed, to heal the sick stories of power were told to the unwell by the shaman, the power of word invoked to aid the injured. This echoes Christian mythology and the opening words of the Bible, “in the beginning there was the word and the word was God”. Suggesting that God is language, that language, as the tool with which we create as human beings, was also the tool by which the universe was created. Nick Cave discusses this in his own writings where he claims imagination as a tool for communing with the divine, quoting an example from the New Testament where Christ writes in the dust before replying to the accusations of the Pharisees. In Cave’s interpretation Christ is communing with God through the act of imagination, by writing in the dust he is summoning the divine within himself in order to give him power to undertake the task at hand. Such ideas are echoed through fiction as well, the great Christian writer and fantasist C. S. Lewis uses such imagery in ‘The Magicians Nephew’ when describing the birth of his fantasy world Narnia. J. R. R. Tolkien uses a similar approach in ‘The Silmarillion’ when describing the origins of Middle Earth, a land created by song. Alan Moore goes one step further in his comic book series Promethea, a tale about a woman who lives in the shared world of human imagination, a place known as the Immateria. She is brought into our physical world whenever someone of sufficient creative power imagines her, effectively possessing the writer or artist until their attention wavers. The premise at the heart of the story is that human imagination is not only the key to what we are, but also what we will become. The idea is posited that the next evolutionary leap for the human race will be an imaginative one rather than a physical one, that it is our destiny to become beings of pure imagination and cast off the shackles of the physical world.

One thing that continues to amaze me is that despite echoes within all the major religions of the world, there is no religious movement centred around the creative impulse. It seems intrinsically valid to me that imagination is the key to something, whether that be universal or divine understanding or an understanding of who and what we are, both as individuals and members of the human race. The echoes of this idea are everywhere, yet religions instead focus on doctrines of faith and belief in unchangeable texts. In my experience too much imagination is frowned upon by many religious practitioners, who demand faith and belief above and beyond questions, creativity and the exploration of new ideas. The cultural nature of religion may go some way toward explaining this. Imagination and creativity are very personal and individual things. Religion is something designed to appeal to masses of people, it provides security and comfort through belief in its stories rather than encouraging its followers to create stories of their own. Any religion of the imagination must, by its very nature, be a religion of anarchy. Onus is put upon the individual practitioner to plot their own path, their own journey, to be fully in charge of and responsible for their own spiritual life. Rather than being told what to do and believe, they must chart the troubled waters of their own psyche and map a very personal path. This is not the comforting routine of religious belief that tells a believer that everything will be alright so long as they follow the rules. Like a sneeze in a monsoon, it can easily be lost, but just as easily it can echo out like a butterfly’s wings inciting a tornado. Whatever way you look at it, imagination is not a religion for the masses, but instead a path for the individual.

My own response to the question of why we as human beings create is two-fold. Through my archaeological work I seek to map the physical material that human beings have created, looking for patterns laid out through time and space in scales that defy individual life spans and bypass verbal explanation. Through my creative writing work I take the opposite trajectory. I seek to access understanding through the creative act itself, to commune with the divine, to plot the course of human imagination through the development of my own work. I write in order to understand the creative impulse. This is seen through the themes I pursue in my writing, themes dealing with the power of the imagination. ‘Tales of Stranggore: The Suitor’s Hand’ is one example, detailing a storytelling contest where the characters from the stories are literally brought to life by the act of telling their tale. ‘Never’, cowritten with Rocco Bosco, has similar themes as evidenced by Liam, the central character, who has the power to bring his imaginary friends into the real world through the very act of imagining them. The dark side of this is also explored when these fictional characters are seen to wage a war of the imagination inside his head, fighting to try and take control of their creator. Such ideas explore the very notion of what creativity is and what it can do, they also echo the traditions of the hero tale. Heroic stories are the oldest form known, stretching back to the adventures of Gilgamesh, also seen in the oral tradition of Homer and even the tale of Beowulf. Joseph Campbell’s book ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ examines the similarities within all hero myths, looking for commonalities to explain why such stories are essential to human society and culture from prehistoric to contemporary times. The model he posits is that it is the hero’s role to journey outside the bounds of his or her society to an unknown world, there to undergo tests or battles in order to gain insight and wisdom. It is then the hero’s task to return to their own society and impart the knowledge they have gained upon their own people. In many ways this model, the role of the mythological hero, is the path of the writer. To journey into worlds of the imagination and gain insight and wisdom, then to impart what knowledge is inherent within by telling the story to others. I talk mainly of writing since that is my chosen form, but the same can be said of music, painting, sculpture or any other form of creativity. Creativity is the key to understanding what we are, and it has the power to inspire others to take the same journey themselves. And it is important that each journey is individual. Herman Hesse looks at the search for enlightenment in his novel ‘Siddhartha’ which tells the story of the prince who becomes Buddha. At one point in the story Siddhartha encounters a religious teacher who has obviously found enlightenment and is teaching his followers about what he has learnt. Siddhartha is forced to recognize that this truly is an enlightened man, but that his teachings are not the blueprint for others to find enlightenment themselves. His achievements are inspirational, but each journey must be individual, each path must be unique and solitary. We must take responsibility for our own spiritual awareness rather than seeking comfort in the wisdom of others. In the end the onus is on each of us to find our own understanding.

Create and understand. Seek and who knows what you might find. That is why I write. That might even be the answer to that great riddle of why human beings create. Our imagination is an essential part of who and what we are. It is also the key to unlocking the answers of who and what we are, why we are here and why we do what we do. But the answers must be sought individually. Creativity is a religion of individuality, not a religion of the masses. Follow the path of anarchy, take responsibility for yourself. Follow the path of the hero and seek enlightenment.

 Maybe one day you’ll find it.