A few weeks ago, I changed the title of my blog from “Thoughts on Art and Faith” to “Creative Discontent”. “Thoughts on Art and Faith” was never intended to be the permanent title—I mean, come on, it’s a little too obviously descriptive, and while that may be what the blog is intended to be about, I’ve never wanted to make it that unimaginative. If this thing ever starts getting serious traffic (and if, somewhere down the line, I make the jump to being a professional blogger), I don’t want that to be the title I’m saddled with.

My favorite titles are short, sweet, and come from quotes or have some sort of non-obvious significance. They reflect something of the writer by being something other than “This is a Blog About My Life.”

The title I’ve used for my personal blog for several years has been “commas and ampersands,” and my blogroll/friends page title has been “they are like emeralds”. Both of those come from the song “I Hear the Bells” by Mike Doughty, and they both grabbed my imagination in very specific ways. I like the idea of describing the events of my life and the thoughts I’m mulling over as the “commas and ampersands” of my day-to-day life. It’s a way of punctuating life—finding the moments that both separate things and join them, and realizing some of the big before-and-after effects in retrospect. As for “they are like emeralds,” the phrase brings to mind the snowflake/individuality image (at least, to my mind), as well as the priceless/diamond image.

In any case, that’s the kind of thought process that goes into my blog titles, and “Thoughts on Art and Faith” was absolutely not right for me. It’s the kind of blog title that I’d skim over. I needed something else.

So I went digging for quotes. Partly, I was looking for some more to add to the quote rotator on the right-hand sidebar, but partly, I was looking for a phrase that stuck out to me. Something descriptive and enigmatic, all at the same time.

And this is what I found: “Creativity is discontent translated into arts.” — Eric Hoffer

It grabbed me immediately, but it took a little mulling over to decide whether I wanted to shape it into a blog title. Do I want to be associated with discontentment in the title of what I write? Is that the most defining factor of my trajectory as an artist and a producer?

Well, in some ways, definitely. I’ve written several posts about things in the creative world that aren’t as they should be. I write about the good I see, too—often in the same entry as what I see as needing change—and I’m constantly trying to figure out how to bring those two points closer together. A little bit at a time, I’m trying to find ways to bring “what needs to change” closer to “what’s being done well.”

I think there are two primary places for this discontent, at least artistically speaking. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of aesthetic and opinion, and I try to keep that in perspective. How is my aesthetic changing and growing? Who am I learning from? Why do I or don’t I like what I see, and can I articulate my opinions clearly and intelligently? In that case, my discontent needs to be with the threat of my own artistic stagnation, and the creativity coming out of it is personal. Individual. Tied to my own reading, writing, and art-making.

The second is a discontent with external engagement with the arts. All arts. Any arts. The ones I like and the ones I don’t. In that case, the creativity stemming from my discontent needs to be a way to discover ways to educate, engage, and lead. If I’m not content with the way the public perceives, interacts with, or respects the arts, what creative means can I use to change that? It’s not as much about my own artistic growth, but more about the ways in which the artistic community can become more exciting, relevant to, and respected by the general public. When people don’t know how to behave as an audience member, how can I channel my discontent with their behavior into a way of teaching them what’s appropriate?

Still, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be building an online presence as someone who is perpetually discontent, until I found the following quote:

Constructive discontent is a positive, enthusiastic discontent, reflecting the thought, “Hey, I know a way to make that better.”

Constructive discontent is necessary for creative people. Simply because if as a creative person you are happy how things are, you won’t want to change anything. And only when are you unhappy or discontent with something will you want to solve the problem, improve the situation and change it for the better.

—From Innovation to Profit, J.P. Roelofse

That seems to be an oft-quoted paragraph that I’ve seen on numerous blogs and websites, all reflecting the same idea: Discontent, when channeled into creativity and innovation, is far from being a bad thing. That kind of discontentment is a very different beast than a bad attitude exacerbated by whining and complaining.

This is the kind of discontent that leads to the paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer that lets us read “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” as “Change the world that is into the world that ought to be.” It’s the kind of discontent that recognizes that on every level, from the grand scale of the world that God intended us to live in, down to the annoyances of the arts not being appreciated enough, things are not as they should be. This is the heart-cry that we respond to when we create.

More than simply creative problem-solving, like the second quote alludes to, I want my creativity to be that response from the heart to a world that is not yet what it ought to be. How do I respond to that; how do I change that?

And in so doing, if I’m consistently discontent, so be it.