Productivity and Creativity- what pleasure and sexuality have to do with business
Productivity and creativity are feuding siblings- similar in makeup but with completely different aims. In seeking achievement in work, most of us have our eyes set on the wrong target. We aim to produce as much as possible, in as little time as possible, creating a laser beam of efficient output. Creating environments of production that are based on efficiency and productivity are sneakily undermining their very purpose. To create things that are new, to find new ways of doing things, to be truly innovative, we need to feel safety, expansiveness, and vitality. This is when our businesses will truly thrive.
Creating spaciousness to allow for the spontaneity of generation, growth, and flourishing of new ideas and solutions to old problems allows for true creativity to surface and meaning, fulfillment, and vitality to follow. When we create environments at work that make us feel like we belong, like we are doing a good job, that we are valued because we are alive, environments that foster our joy and pleasure, this is when we are able to access the truly juicy parts of the human experience. This is when we may squeeze the sweetest of creative nectar from every human being, nurturing the most diverse, colorful, and flavorful world to follow. It is when we feel safe that we can play, and only in play can find true curiosity and, subsequently, true creativity. We begin to see the world in news ways, we see solutions to old problems we had never seen before, and we begin creating the world we truly want. We pluck ourselves out of the old monopoly game and start to build, block by block, a world that we truly want.
Where is the challenge in this? Why is it so difficult to live a life based on safety, a life oriented to pleasure?
Why is it so difficult to trust in our ability to create and be productive in an environment of safety and nurture instead of one of fear and scarcity?
Why are most of the methods we employ to make changes in our lives, work, and relationships actually clever mechanisms to cloak and dampen pleasure?
Living a pleasure-oriented life is anything but easy. It necessitates that we approach every decision with conviction, confidence, knowing of ourselves, deep respect and love for ourselves, and full trust in our power. It is, arguably, the greatest challenge we will ever face- to valiantly scrutinize every choice we make in all of its complexity, implications, difficulty, and beauty.
For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives. And this is a grave responsibility...
-Audre Lorde in Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power
With pleasure as our guide, and safety as our container, we equip ourselves to fight the beautiful lovemaking battle of vulnerability, nakedness, bone chilling honesty, and infinite possibilities a truly authentic life demands.
