Listen To Tadpoles

Some Thoughts on Good Ideas

Jack Tangel

I’d like to say a lightbulb went off, but I’m not supposed to do that. It wouldn’t be true anyway. If I could say one thing, here, at the beginning, it would be this: I don’t believe my ideas come from me— I am not the source. I may have (sorry) “lightbulb moments”, but always, they feel more like gifts rather than ideas I worked up in my head. I am receiving, not making. If they come from inside of me, these good ideas, then they come from a place so deep that even (especially?) I cannot reach it. A place so deep that, surely, it pushes past the boundaries of my body— excluding the self, myself, from any possible credit. It is my belief that if I could explore it, if I could know this place of originality to which I owe much gratitude, I would find a secret or two about life that we have obviously been made not to know, at least not in any sense that word means to us today. Therefore, I have learned that to be creative is not necessarily a state of action. It does not consist of me, filled with caffeine, or maybe a beer, heading to my desk, dimming the lights around me, shutting my curtains, and diving deep into the only brain I’ve ever known— pulling out the unique humanness inherent to us all. I can try to do that, and I often do, for I am not as patient as I’d like to be, but always, I am left disappointed. The process does not involve as much intrinsic talent as I once believed. It is not like training a muscle nor learning my times tables. It is not like fixing cars. I can’t train to be the best. A certain level of dedication is needed, but unlike other pursuits, dedication alone won’t “push me past the finish line” (sorry). 

You can imagine how frustrating this is. 

There is skill, of course, as with everything, but the skill is not what I had thought… or wanted. The skill is a passive one. It is the skill of waiting perhaps— though take this lightly. I am not suggesting to do nothing, that I do nothing. I do not mean to say that there is no action involved in writing, in creation (there is, of course). I am not suggesting I go to that same dark room, void of ambition, sit crisscross applesauce, thumbs on middle fingers, eyes closed, breathe and wait. Believe me, this too I have tried— no avail. The skill is waiting plus listening, and this, I’d say, is the hard part. “Listening to what?” you may rightfully ask. To your query I would answer this: 

Listen to tadpoles — bear with me. 

I’ve not made contact with what I am to be listening to. Though, they (or it) have made contact with me. Little tadpoles of thought come swimming from a depth so deep, so dark, with messages, tiny slips of intangible paper that read like fortune cookies. There is one sentence, maybe two. The sentence may not be complete. It may not even be words, just an idea not yet given words. It may be a sentence that goes directly into my poem, my story, my play. A sentence that starts me off or finishes my work. Once I have read that, grasped it, the rest is up to me.

This is where the action begins.

This is where I must shed my practice of waiting, of listening and begin my practice of writing— and this moment is crucial. For, just as easily, just as altruistically, just as quickly as this idea, this slip of paper floated into my conscious mind (it can happen at any moment), it can (and will, and does) disappear— and I will forever have lost it to the ether. Unfortunately, these tadpoles that swim up to my brain have no sense of “business hours” or “personal breaks”. They come to me on vacation, they come to me when I am driving, at the grocery store, laundromat, and especially the moment I turn my lights out for sleep. This creates a bit of a problem— these pesky little tadpoles. I say to them “hang on a bit, stick around, I promise I’ll get back to you. I just need to do something real quick and then I can write you out.” To this, they always reply affirmatively. They smile slightly as if they already know— “Yes, of course, Jack. We will wait for you.” 

They can be very patronizing, you see. 

But they do. They stick around— for a bit, at least. Unfortunately, after I leave the laundromat, I have to put gas in my car then I really need to eat because I haven’t since early this morning when my eggo toaster waffles left a sticky residue of maple syrup on the plate I haven’t washed yet which is piled on the dishes from last night and my dad asked me to help him move a couch (he isn’t as physically able since the diagnosis) and I also have to revise that paper because I’m teetering on the edge of an A and I didn’t sleep much all week so I really must get to bed on time and work needs me in the morning and it’s probably time I used that gym membership I pay monthly for and when was the last time I called my grandmother? and shit I need to eat again and more dishes and … you get the idea. By the time I am ready to write, the tadpole has left— mastering the art of the Irish goodbye. I never think of it again.

I can’t tell you how many best-selling novels I have lost this way (quite a frustrating thing for someone who’s never sold a single novel).

  Far from being lost from the world, however, it is my suspicion that the tadpole takes a new form, whenever it does leave— going back under from whence it came, floating the dark rivers of its birth leftwards or rightwards, forward or back, until pushing itself upwards into someone else’s mind. Another writer perhaps, a painter, or yes, possibly even a politician (creativity is found everywhere— one need look no further than the tale of Reaganomics to know that). Here, I suppose it begins a similar process, this tadpole (or whatever form it takes in the new beholder). Now, this new person, this new creator, is tasked with the responsibility of bringing it to the light, to battle with the oncoming onslaught of life’s million little micro-responsibilities like I failed to do.

Of course, all of this says a good deal more about our connection as a whole than it does about creativity, about “good ideas”, about tadpoles.

My point (if I have one) is this: good ideas come from some level of shared human experience. Literature, art, writing, and reading is our attempt at making sense of our shared struggle, our shared joy, hurt, grief, delight, boredom and excitement. It is our attempt of making sense of something that has no sense (or possesses no qualities for us to sense what sense it makes), something we all know it is there, this humanness— looming over us at every bus stop and funeral wake, nauseously bubbling up in our stomachs some random Tuesday afternoon when we suddenly, randomly come into a deeper understanding of our own mortality. Since creation is about this shared human experience, it follows that ideas must come from some shared, underground, deep level of connection (the form of which I have described above but in no way claim to know) to which we are all tied. If I wake up one day and decide my uniqueness trumps this chaotic-togetherness, if I decide that today is the day I will begin my best selling novel, and I know that my idea is so unique, so profoundly beautiful it will live forever on the “classics” shelf of whatever bookstore dominates the barren-wasteland that is America’s future, what I write that day will be oh-so-utterly shit. The tadpoles will make sure of it. 

This, I know from experience, and many of my friends, family members, and writing teachers can attest to the poor quality of writing that comes from this ambition.

Sometimes, however, I am lucky, and the tadpoles who visit me come at the perfect time— when I begin to write. And although their random popping-ups far outnumber the amount of times they come conveniently, on the page is by far the most common place I notice them— swimming through the words begging for me to catch them. So, alas, the skill of creation seems an active one once again— if only we were so lucky. In these circumstances, I must be weary. Now in a mode of action, it can be easy for me to push myself into the way of our shared experience I had opened myself up to originally.  To write words that crash heavily onto the electron-like tadpoles who move around and pop up sporadically on the screen, smushing them into oblivion, clutching their ideas, bringing all they have offered, all that I have ignored, with them— but, if I am careful, if I choose to be in sync with the tadpoles, if I avoid the idea that “I know what I am doing”, something really great takes shape. When I finish a piece in this manner, my initial readthrough feels like a new piece of literature I have discovered… exactly suited to my taste. To me, this is the most pleasurable feeling in the world.

----------------------------

The funny thing is, I don’t know if anything I wrote above is true. I just know my best ideas come randomly, and that these ideas always make up my best work. 

I also know this: when I am writing something worthy, I lose myself for a bit. I don’t know where I go. Perhaps, it is the underground rivers of connection I described above. Perhaps, it is simply a place within my mind I’ve long neglected. Wherever it is, I love it. I’d like to spend as much time there as possible. 

There is a certain joy, a pleasurable rebellion, in the process of pursuing an artform— dedicating copious time and energy to something outside of profit motive. The anti-capitalist in me sings in delight each time I sit down to write, the little boy in me cries at overdue recognition. When I started writing, still tainted by the influences and demands of 21st century capitalism, there was a supreme sense of urgency in my writing. I believed I must “get going now”, that nothing would ever wait for me. Now, I simply hold a solid commitment to write for the rest of my life— not caring where it leads me. 

After all, it is all just for fun and nothing else matters.