Well it’s been a long time…. Sorry about that I have just had so much going on in my life over the last 6 months… what with dissertations, exams, graduation, buying a flat, starting at a new university and clinical medicine.
Sometimes I get inspired to write a blog entry and I find loads ideas filling my mind but then they go away again. It’s interesting that often to keep ideas that you have had in your mind long enough to act on them is the hardest thing.
Well here I am at Edinburgh University sitting in my flat listing to a new hed kandi CD having had a busy day so I think I will give writing a go…
This morning I went to a workshop entitled “Build a Brain”, it was an attempt to get people to see how science and art can work together to inspire and enable deeper understanding. I built my brain which started off very scientific and logical but then as I got into it I started to be more adventurous. Sometimes you just need to put your mind into in a neutral or a different place.
I certainly feel less artistic now that I am at Edinburgh and working in a hospital all day compared with last year at St Andrews. I don’t know if that is just as a result of not being with arts students all day or that clinical medicine forces you back into a scientific way of thinking and away from the deeper/artistic issues. Probably it’s just me, as I don’t make enough time for it…. However the multiple choice culture of medicine does seem to limit your creative side… which writing essays all day does bring out in you.
I don’t know if you reading this have ever watched the movie “Wit” but it is great for illustrating how the art and science of medicine can work together. “Simple human truths vs. uncompromising scholarly standards”… is one of the key messages that come from the film.
This last weekend I went to visit one of my medical friends who is very creative… When I am with her it make me want to be creative as well. It makes me wonder what makes somebody creative or scientific. When I was at school I used to not be very good at art but then good at science. I think the art teacher used to despair. But then is art something that can be taught? I think that I have come to be more creative as I have got older and it something that I have found for myself. I also have found that writing is now something that I enjoy much more than I used to… when I was at school I hated writing, I could think of nothing worse. I think it often it is the experiences you have in life that make you creative and the environment that you are exposed to.
In my personal life I quite like structure and logic and I get satisfaction from knowing that things are organised and sorted (in a kind of perfectionist way)… but then I also like the excitement of just doing things spontaneously and being a bit more random. I don’t know… at the end of the day I think it is important to just have a good balance.
In concluding I will leave you with this statement that I heard once and I think is true… “Happy people don’t make art”…. What do you think??
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