Creative Self-Destruction

If we're lucky, we experience periods when we bring all that has been certain and reassuring into question. Many things that have remained beyond our comfort zone suddenly seem like real possibilities. The simplest name for this openness to change is "growth." You don't get it for free, though.

One of the greatest costs will come in your relationships with those around you. They had a vested interest in you as you were. Unless they're the catalyst for your growth and are experiencing it with you, they're likely to be puzzled, offended, or even repulsed by the changes. They don't want to have to reimagine you. You're leaving them behind. It may even appear that you've come unhinged. As far as they're concerned, you might just as well show up with a Mohawk one morning as change any of the basic patterns of your life.

I think we all have aspects of ourselves that we'd be better off without. Outside intervention alone could never destroy them. There has to be an intense inner desire to become a fuller person. In essence, we decide to take on the task of destroying ourselves, not as an act of suicide but of preparing for a renaissance. As long as the behavioral changes are not physically harmful to oneself (drugs or booze, for example) or others (abuse, criminal behavior, etc.), then those of us seeing our friend move through the process would do well to stand aside, watch, and offer to help if it gets too hard to handle.

For our friend is going through an act of creative self-destruction, to play off the economic concept of Joseph Schumpeter and others. It takes a certain courage, even if born of desperation, to begin this journey. Success is highly uncertain. But when remaining stagnant is no longer an option, when either a slow fade-out or a quick flame-out is all that awaits, you've got to grab the wrecking ball when it appears and let it have a go. As Forrest's mom said, you don't know what you're going to get -- other than a chance to learn from pushing past boundaries and making mistakes, and to be more fully alive.

The cinema's greatest recent example of
creative self-destruction: Kip Dynamite