Suspend: to defer or delay.
Judgement: an opinion or conclusion.
I’ve talked about Sus-J (suspended judgement) before in a few posts, but I want to expand on what exactly it means to me in terms of creativity. I was first introduced to the idea by my old music composition/theory prof. Gordon Nicholson. In class one day, he wrote in huge letters ‘Sus-J’ in the corner of the room where we would always see it. It served as a reminder when we would be writing, and that reminder was of course to refrain from being judgmental when it comes to the creative process as it worked among us.
We all would go about creating in different ways, but what was important was to not let our own doubts, fears, internal conflicts etc., about our tasks get in the way of actually doing what it was we wanted to do. You had to learn to free yourself from these internal/external processes that impeded your creativity …if you couldn’t, things would be tempered or tainted, and the result is an incomplete representation of who you are as a person creatively.
I’ve always struggled with doubt …and it’s helpful to remind myself once in a while that I need to let go of those nagging questions ….stuff like “What if no one likes it?” What if this idea is completely pointless?” What if I get in trouble somehow?” “What if someone sees what it is I see?” “What if I’ve put too much of myself out on display?” “What if this is wrong?” etc… When these types of questions get in the way, you end up second-guessing yourself …and creativity takes the hit. And so, I’ve decided (again) to put the ’sus-j’ mark in a prominent place on my blog to remind myself to …well, essentially just be myself!
That’s about the short of it.
And so, aside from the nifty new header, I’ll be making a few other changes that I’ve been putting off for quite some time. So if something seems weird or out of place for some reason, try back a little later and things should be good. If they’re not, call the blog cops. Knowing them though, they’ll probably be at the local cyberspace donut shop. Eating tim-’bits’ I suppose. Get it …bits? Like digital bits? …but still like ‘timbits‘. Anyone? Anyone???
