40.) In the condition which is used for the analysis of
dreams and pathological ideas, this activity is purposely and
arbitrarily dispensed with, and the psychic energy thus saved, or a part
of it, is used for the attentive following of the undesired thoughts now
coming to the surface, which retain their identity as ideas (this is the
difference from the condition of falling asleep). “Undesired ideas” are
thus changed into “desired” ones.
The suspension thus required of the critique for these apparently
“freely rising” ideas, which is here demanded and which is usually
exercised on them, is not easy for some persons. The “undesired ideas”
are in the habit of starting the most violent resistance, which seeks to
prevent them from coming to the surface. But if we may credit our great
poet-philosopher Friedrich Schiller, a very similar tolerance must be
the condition of poetic production. At a point in his correspondence
with Koerner, for the noting of which we are indebted to Mr. Otto Rank,
Schiller answers a friend who complains of his lack of creativeness in
the following words: “The reason for your complaint lies, it seems to
me, in the constraint which your intelligence imposes upon your
imagination. I must here make an observation and illustrate it by an
allegory. It does not seem beneficial, and it is harmful for the
creative work of the mind, if the intelligence inspects too closely the
ideas already pouring in, as it were, at the gates. Regarded by itself,
an idea may be very trifling and very adventurous, but it perhaps
becomes important on account of one which follows it; perhaps in a
certain connection with others, which may seem equally absurd, it is
capable of forming a very useful construction. The intelligence cannot
judge all these things if it does not hold them steadily long enough to
see them in connection with the others. In the case of a creative mind,
however, the intelligence has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, the
ideas rush in pell-mell, and it is only then that the great heap is
looked over and critically examined. Messrs. Critics, or whatever else
you may call yourselves, you are ashamed or afraid of the momentary and
transitory madness which is found in all creators, and whose longer or
shorter duration distinguishes the thinking artist from the dreamer.
Hence your complaints about barrenness, for you reject too soon and
discriminate too severely” (Letter of December 1, 1788).
And yet, “such a withdrawal of the watchers from the gates of
intelligence,” as Schiller calls it, such a shifting into the condition
of uncritical self-observation, is in no way difficult.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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