• “Some twenty years ago, I purposefully began a journey to understand the world into which I was born. I began by reading the works of C.S. Lewis, Iain McGilchrist, A.W. Tozer, Jordan Peterson, Thomas Merton, and others. I learned to enjoy the creative work of journaling and the art of photography…and engaging in fellowship with brilliant minds exploring the culture we inhabit, allowing the necessary shifts to understand what is happening to the human race. I decided to post the content I had been writing in my journals to a blog site, to establish a digital record of my journey. I generally will say that I am writing for myself, adding to my worldview as I go, but if what I am sharing is helpful for someone to make sense of their life, we are all the better for it.”

    Charles

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Charles Hoffman Charles Hoffman

Ontology?

Ontology was a term used by Thomas Merton to describe man’s nature and this blog is designed to explore our Ontology

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Charles Hoffman Charles Hoffman

Places I will Go

I want to experience life as a free man. I want to grieve well the losses along the way. (tough work) I want to be the man known by God before I was formed in my mother's womb. Ya has known me for a long time. I want to be a fine art photographer that galleries clamor to represent.

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Charles Hoffman Charles Hoffman

Culture Creators

We currently live in a culture referred to as Western Civilization or the Western World. Something or something has been directing traffic since the beginning of time, and culture is created for us to assimilate and live in.

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Charles Hoffman Charles Hoffman

A Free Man

I am connecting something that Julia Cameron talks about with the poetic work of the Spanish priest grilling Christ in the literature. They are speaking of the same thing: freedom or slavery, our choice. The Grand Inquisitor and Julia Cameron in The Artist Way takes a lot of time discussing the elements in our life that hinder our creativity. Nicholas Berdyaev writes volumes about what creativity is and isn't. And in Dostoevsky's writing, he goes straight to the core of the problem.

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Charles Hoffman Charles Hoffman

A Lost Art

Creativity is an exciting subject and a difficult one to learn. Creativity, as it works out, is a very elusive gift.

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Charles Hoffman Charles Hoffman

A Road Rarely Traveled

Recent reading made it clear that there are gatekeepers at work, minding the work of the creative. They are the ones that get to say if it is valuable work or not. They are the ones that will tell you “good luck with that”. They are that gatekeepers that determine who is accepted to the MFA programs in this country. They screen your application for the hint of your politics and paradigm leanings. It’s a fact! There, I had my rant!

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Charles Hoffman Charles Hoffman

Just Getting Warmed Up

"Creativity is the cultural equivalent of the process of genetic changes that result in biological evolution, where random variations take place in the chemistry of our chromosomes, below the threshold of consciousness."

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Charles Hoffman Charles Hoffman

A Rabbit Hole

My desire in the months ahead is to attempt to discover what is in the writings of old and new, the best definition of creativity I can find. Then I hope to be able to connect the dots of the best descriptions, formulas, theories, and philosophies about the creative process I can find.

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