This being creative is a guest house
Stories of strangers and friends: Part Two
As a young man in his twenties, writer Will Buckingham found himself in the middle of a tea shop in a bazaar in Pakistan, being entertained by a stranger. Recounting this meeting in his book Hello Stranger, Buckingham’s retrospective account is full of regret; he describes his youthful lack of understanding of the codes of cross-cultural hosting. I imagine him—tense and terrified, surrounded by the bustle and clamour of the bazaar, the bright colours, the throng of people—‘quivering’, as he described, ‘with mistrust’ at the fear (sold to him by others) that in this unfamiliar country he might be drugged and robbed.
The parting was an awkward one. After the host insisted on paying, Buckingham left ‘blazing with anger at this stranger’s kindness.’
All the host had wanted was to sit down and take tea, and talk to Buckingham about his life, his worldview, his experience. Why be so triggered by this act of kindness? For Buckingham, the answer was clear: he hated the obligation of being in debt; he hated the feeling of not being free.
I love and admire the vulnerability with which Buckingham tells this story. I have certainly had similar experiences myself—and it feels important to express the discomfort of such experiences. In this case, for Buckingham (as he acknowledges in his book), it might have gone differently had he approached things with an alternative mindset.
It is this anecdote, in part, that inspired this previous post on risking the kindness of strangers, because, as Buckingham writes:
It takes courage to face up to our dependency upon strangers. And this courage is not always rewarded … Strangers always present us with risks. They are hard to know. They are hard to understand. It is difficult to be sure what they are going to do next.
We’re all, at times, choked by fear at the prospect of new and unfamiliar encounters. Yet if we take a risk, we create capacity within ourselves to open to an expansiveness that forges connection, empathy and understanding.
Our relationship to creativity can be like this: like warily approaching a stranger, weighing up whether it is safe or not to open up, to allow in, to befriend.
We celebrate, perhaps even crave, the lightness and joy that creative expression brings.
Yet, in our minds at least, creativity can be a complex thing: like a stranger, bringing new experiences, new ways of looking at the world. It can prompt in us a sense of vulnerability and risk, anger and frustration. It requires deep trust in what we cannot know or see. And we have a choice whether or not to accept.
What happens if we abandon our trust in the unknown and stay only in the realm of the comfortable?
Either we have a reduced understanding of ‘strangeness’ or difference and diversity, which closes down connection—or, we prevent ourselves from extending to that connection in the first place. In both cases, we limit our choice and freedom, reducing the range of what we can experience and encounter; the awe-inspiring breadth of who we can be.
In the arena of my own creativity, the aspects of ‘stranger’—the ones with the loudest voices of resistance—often show up when I’m writing. They express themselves as personas: amplified parts of my being that are as ridiculous, sometimes, as caricatures. There’s the bored, sulky teenager being forced to do her homework; the glamorous diva who believes she is above any kind of dirty work; the wounded artist, convinced that no-one else could possibly understand her predicament, suffering too much pain to be able to work at all.
It can be helpful to recognise these personas, give them names, make space for them in the realm of our creativity. After all, they are there for a purpose. The trick to being more comfortable with these strangers is to recognise that higher purpose.
Which personas or qualities show up in the realm of your creativity?
I’m reminded of Rumi’s poem, ‘The Guest House.’ Through its central metaphor, it explores the breadth of humanity: the human being as a guest house, in which we never know, each morning, who will come to stay—which moods, which sides of ourselves, which entities. We consist of multiple parts, like guests: some joyful, some depressed, some mean. Rumi instructs us to welcome and entertain them all:
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
This ‘clearing out’—of the guest house, of the creative context, of the self—is crucial if we are to experience true fullness: of experiences, of expression, of the full gamut of our emotions.
In essence, it means inviting a stranger to be a friend, and to recognise that the stranger simply wants to talk and take tea; to be seen and heard. To recognise themselves in our face, as in a mirror.
The process of weathering challenges, difficult emotions and uncomfortable feelings brings with it self-exploration, which is a precious gift. It is a clearing out of self, which makes space for the new, for manifold selves, for the exciting potential of our vision and what we could create. Each guest, each stranger, has been sent, as Rumi acknowledges at the end of his poem, ‘as a guide from beyond.’
How might we welcome ‘strangers’ to our creative guest house as though they were friends?
And what rituals might we find to extend them a welcome, so that we can, in honouring them, also extend ourselves?
I like thinking about these strangers in relation to creativity. I would like my strangers all to be good cooks! :-)