The Below and the Above of Creative Inwardness: The Human Life-World in its Essential New Perspective

Abstract

The nature, source, and conditions of the creative process have always appeared mysterious; creativity is a phenomenon of life, seemingly unpredictable; its existential status as a specific human manifestation is particularly fragile and uncertain. Compared with other human functions which introduce specifically human significance into “Nature” but use man’s physical resources as instruments to work directly upon its raw “material,” the creative process lacks the solidity of activities like cultivating the soil, ploughing, sowing seed, watering the plants, grafting, and gathering the ripe fruit. It also lacks the concreteness of the processes related to raising cattle, constructing a table, carving a spoon from wood or building a house. These process-like activities have already passed the threshold which differentiates the human functioning that unfolds strictly in accordance with life’s scheme. These and many other human “primary” activities stem from man’s desire to transform nature according to his vital needs and comfort which themselves are expressions of nature.