Individual Matters

July 29, 2015

On Saturday last, the teens of Youth to Youth performed on a basketball court at the Rita end of Majuro.  I wandered about the gathered audience snapping pictures and watching as individual youth members both played and played with the audience.  In scene after scene, individual after individual rose to the challenge of sharpening and improving their performances. The night belonged to them.

On Tuesday, the small group of interested writers and I dived into a four day workshop together in a museum in Fagatogo, exploring ways to capture individual experiences through story.  At regular intervals during the day we paired up to discuss ideas, initial pieces of writing and personal tales of life.

In a week, I will step into a series of 4th grade classes on Oahu, engaging the students in a virtual experience of the first people to step foot on Hawaii’s shores.  Casting them in roles of imagined islanders from long before written history appeared in the Pacific, the individual students will contribute to ongoing debates about trials and challenges that might have faced those early islanders.

35 young Marshallese rehearsing in a hot, tin-roofed building.  A dozen plus local folk of all ages, sitting together in an historical museum in downtown Samoa.  Scads of 4th graders creatively exploring together in open air school buildings.

What do they have in common?

Each scenario triumphs the individual.  Each experience exists to creatively engage each participant, encouraging their involvement and artistic growth.  In each case, the individual matters.  The events succeed or fail based on those individual experiences.

As I sat with the group in Samoa today, I watched as they comfortably participated, exchanging ideas, sharing thoughts about each other’s work and relating stories to each other as they explored possibilities for their own writing.  Their individual voices mattered in the room and they responded in kind.  The woman who introduced herself as ‘just a housewife who cannot write,’ says she enjoys getting to know the other people in the room.  The avowed writer says, ‘I write alone. But here it is more rewarding, sharing with the others.’ The older gentleman jokes about the generational gap with the young participants in the room, but in the same breathe expresses how wonderful it is to have such a variety of people conversing together.  Nearly all of them have said they like sharing together.  Makes them more comfortable and makes the process more personal.

There’s the commonality between the programs I described earlier.  Each and every one cultivates individual voice.  The creative experiences encourage each individual to discover and expand their personal artistry.  Not to learn what I think creativity is, but to realize their own sense of art and to revel in that discovery.

I am never happier than when the room is full of conversation. I get to listen, as they get enthused.  I get to watch, as their creativity grows. I get to witness the growth of individuals discovering their voice and sharing it with partners, fellow participants and the world.  I get to learn by honoring each individual.  And that is true no matter where I visit.