RE: muses

[permetaform]

th_nightengale mentioned muse-independant v. muse-dependant creation of artwork, and wondered about the possible demographics of creators who might or might not work with a muse.

[Poll #480760]
Personally, I work independant of a muse but keep on hearing about them occasionally in that other people use them. musesfool helped me clarify the idea of a muse in that the way I'm addressing them here is specifically as a separate individual entity.

If you do work with a muse, what form do they take and/or look like? Do you know what they look like? Do they change depending on your project?

Also, could this be at all culturally motivated? ie. more of an emphasis from western cultures who have a tradition (from the Greeks) of muses? OR could it be more prominent from cultures who do not like to accept the idea that inspiration/creativitiy/intelligence comes from oneself? (versus a higher being? or an alternate being?)

[edit] This also brings up interesting issues around sources of inspiration, and faith; can/should/could inspiration be attributed to outside sources? Common western psychological thought is that outside voices are simply hallucinations. But other lines of argument argue that creativity is simply a perception of more levels of possibility than those that occur in our current realm of existence...

[interesting threads]
- here (started by karose)
- here (started by sorchafyre)
- here (started by karotsamused)
- here (started by ranalore)
- here (started by aliaswestgate)
- here (started by billradish)
- here (started by th_nightengale)

[interesting followup post]
Muses and Friends - a poll and some discussion about a possible link between muses and the use of imaginary friends

[NOTE] The purpose of this post is to present a friendly forum for discussion. Please keep the discussion friendly and open? Concern is valid, so is criticism; but please keep an open mind. ::hugs flist:: Cool beans?

Comments

(frozen)

[arboretum]

quite honestly, unless someone's really hearing voices in their head from some entity other than him/herself trying to dictate the flow and shape of a story or piece of artwork... I think the muse business is just a load of bs XD

to me, it seems like a large majority of people who claim to have muses are just being trendy, because dude, wtf, surely 99% of you can't actually be hearing voices and I'm just missing out on it? 8D

that said, when writing, characters do have a tendency to do what they'd like to do, but I would attribute this more to a carefulness in remembering characterization than having an actual Entity representing that character being like... a muse? I dunno. I'm sure museness was great when the ancient greeks did it, especially since they're dead now and all. When the 13 year-old ficcers and roleplayers do it, I'm just kind of ehhhhhhhh. Sometimes it just seems like a convenient excuse to blame crack-headed ideas somewhere else -- and I'm just like, dude, crack is fine. just acknowledge that it's your crack, and not Muse's.

*cough* but maybe I am just missing out on hearing voices. who knows! :D

(frozen)

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

While I'm sure there are those who claim "muses" just to be trendy, it's already been explained in this discussion that many of us simply use the term as a shorthand for the various ways our brains direct the flow of creativity. That may not be the way you personally define or use the term, but as has been established, we're not using your definition. Given the content of your own comment here, I'm under the impression that you didn't quite grasp that part.

(frozen)

[arboretum]

hello, was just responding to permetaform's post with a drive-by comment, so no, I didn't read all the other comments as I wasn't actually responding to them -- just leaving a thought for permetaform, who wanted opinions. no need to be so snippy, am sorry if I offended you.

(frozen)

[permetaform]

dude. m'dear, I love ya and all, but please be careful how you're stating your ideas.

If you look at it, your comment is completely designed to shut down discussion, and to create discussion is the entire point of this post.

Please keep the discussion friendly?

::hugs:: Put yourself in the other person's shoes; try imaginging explaining fandom to someone who Just Don't Get It...it's about the same amount of suckitude.

I'm freezing this thread, fyi. totally email me (kanzeyori@yahoo.com) or call me if you are going "buh?"

::hugs again::

(frozen)

[permetaform]

::headdesk:: sorry for part of the tone of the prior comment, I'd mixed your screenname up with one of my rl friends who'd recently told me their lj handle.

however, I'm still keeping this whole thing frozen, for the same reasons as previously stated.