Sheep Aren’t Creative. Don’t Let Them Make You One.

I received a letter today from some mysterious medical company saying that my doctor has chosen to work with them.

Which doctor? When? And if you say nothing is changing in my Medicare, and I won’t even notice the change, why are you sending this to me?

I grew suspicious. Usually overly-reassuring health insurance letters like this come just before a spike in premiums or a reduction in services. So notes went off to my doctors to see who this was talking about — and what this might mean for my ability to get proper health care.

As I did that, I realized how much time I now spend suspicious of almost everything and everybody I don’t know personally.

That’s what our country has become. I especially noticed it when I read about how Australia has had a miniscule number of fatalities from COVID compared to us because everybody Down Under works toward the common good — whereas Americans are all “I get what I want and I get to control YOU and screw you if you try to stifle MY RIGHTS.”

And often that threat is followed up with gleeful violence — as small as a Karen tantrum in a store, and as large as January 6.

Being suspicious and fearful now saturates the American DNA. It’s in the lifeblood. It’s what the Right Wing wants, because fearful sheep are easier to herd — and slaughter.

And what does that do to creativity?

Deep creativity asks you for time to center yourself. To think outside the box. To let your shields down to reach for different places. And if you are constantly suspicious and fearful, that puts rust in the gears and it’s so, so much harder to reach that creativity place.

Yet without creativity, we ALL die. We all fade. We exist; we don’t live.

So I’m going to make a point, every day, of remembering who I was before the fear and suspicion infected my country.

I am still going to dream the way I used to, even if I may never see that country in reality again.

I am still going to write. And publish.

They may work on taking many of your freedoms, those MAGA types. But they can’t take your creativity if you don’t let them infest your soul.