Creation: RH'L5

The Story so Far

The Primal Quest for Pleasure-RH'L1 is self-centric. It demands the discovery of what gives pleasure.

The Primal Quest for Meaning-RH'L2 is socio-centric. It demands development of purposes and projects that feel personally worthwhile.

The Primal Quest for Enlightenment-RH'L3 is self-centric. It demands the discovery of reality in a way that benefits others who take heed.

The Primal Quest for Salvation-RH'L4 is socio-centric. It demands the development of sensitive ways to rescue and aid someone in dire need.
In this regard:

Buddha captured the spirit: "Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others."
Dag Hammarskjold was an arch-realist: "It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual, than to labour diligently for the salvation of the masses.
St. Augustine turned it upside down: "There is no salvation outside the church."

If the pattern holds, the next Quest-RH'L5 will be self-centric and involve discovery.

Creation: The Generative Quest

Function: To bring something original and valuable into existence.
i.e. happiness depends on the use of the will to produce something valuable despite uncertainties and obstacles.

So: The purpose of life is «to take on challenges that stretch you». 

Creation as a Primal Quest leads to a repeated search for challenges. These challenges should provide opportunities to work «in flow» as often as possible. This Quest is probably the source of the «producer mentality», identified in relation to earning a living (but not understood then). The Creation Quest may, however, be present with such a passionate intensity that everything else in the person's life pales into insignificance. Extreme risk-taking and supreme courage are then defining features of personal existence.

All personal endeavour involves more than just mechanically doing or making something. Creativity and challenges are intrinsic to satisfying work. So the Creation Quest must be distinguished from normal universal creativity. «Normal creativity» operates in the service of current reality: whether commercial, governmental, based in voluntary work, or personal initiative. Those who pursue the Creation Quest are always trying to do more. They continually strive to reach beyond current reality and bring back something new. It is this specific Quest that we are now examining.

NOTE: The two higher Quests can also be described as providing for Creation, but they do not see happiness/meaning as rooted in making something new.

Why is Creation a Quest?  

Any creative endeavour must come to an end, whether in a day, a week, a month, or a year or more. As the end approaches, the inevitable question arises unbidden "what do I do next?"; "where can I channel my creative urge?" No matter how magnificent the creation and how great the social admiration and appreciation, the sense of satisfaction is only temporary. The impulsion, perhaps compulsion, to create persists. Unless satisfied, it can lead to misery or even depression.

Correspondence to Root Hierarchy: All psychosocial reality is created and sustained by communication. The ancients knew this, because they wrote that God created the earth by «sayings» e.g. starting with "Let there be light and there was light". In personal endeavour, it was evident that the crucial actualizing step, following a willingness-RL7 to pursue a goal-RL6, involved communication-RL5. The elements of Communication-PH5—stimuli, signals, signs, symbols, references, terms, meanings—permeate any creative activity. Whether we think of our endeavours, or of conventional creative activity like crafts, music, sculpture or science, expression is intrinsic to coming into social existence. If there is no communication, then something may have been brought into existence empirically—but it does not work as a creation in psychosocial terms.

• Jump to how the Creation Quest works in practice.

---

• Move on to the next Quest: Obedience.

Originally posted:  8-Jun-2012.