Answer: These are things that lead us to meaning. Question: What are questions?

SECOND IN A SERIES
A Guest Essay by Jerry LaMartina, Freelance Journalist and Editor

DR. WALTER MURRISH WAS A KIND AND INSIGHTFUL SOUL. I owe my choice of a major in college in large part to him.

He taught the introductory class in Communication Studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City the summer I took it. I’d been searching for a major — English? Psychology? Philosophy? — I didn’t know. I was interested in them all but fully seized by none of them.

Dr. Murrish was at the time an emeritus professor of Communication Studies at UMKC. He was of medium height and slight build, with a dark complexion and angular face, with neatly oiled, parted and combed hair, and he smoked like an asphalt truck in the hall during breaks. He described physical body types and the typically connoted perceptions of them — the roundish nurturer, the muscular extrovert — and when he came to the whip-thin dastard, he narrowed his eyes, knitted his brow and scowled, but then a grin pulled up the corners of his mouth, and he continued his lecture.

He cited a scholar in the field who’d said:

“We know ourselves to the degree we disclose ourselves to others.”

I sat straighter in my chair. He repeated it: “We know ourselves to the degree we disclose ourselves to others.” I knew instantly that this was my chosen major — or maybe it chose me.

Questioning myself

I’d spent a few years in my early 20s searching the stacks in self-help psychology sections (despite George Carlin’s later observation in “Complaints and Grievances” that, if you’re looking in a book for help, it’s not really self-help), combing for clues to quell my anxiety, to navigate the jumble in my head about who I really was, what I really thought, what I really valued and wanted, how I could better reach out to others to offer and receive strength, and how I could stop the ever-critical voice in my head and find a real friend there instead. So, I’d been cogitating about what it meant to know myself, to open up and connect with others in an honest, meaningful way — however imperfectly. I’d concluded that courage and risk, the sting of betrayal and indifference, and the power and joy of reciprocated trust were all in the primer.

Knowing yourself means disclosing the truth of yourself — good and bad — to others. Then they have choices: Respond in kind (can lead to real friendship, if the chemistry’s right), close off in some measure (pleasant acquaintanceship or not much of anything can result) or attack exposed weakness (lifelong enemies can result).

Why all the fear? Jesuit priest and author John Powell said it well in “Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?” from the 1960s. The author’s answer: I’m afraid to tell you who I am because, if I tell you who I am and you don’t like it, then that’s all that I have to offer. (Sadly, I see on checking to confirm the spelling of Powell’s name that he’s in the news in the past year or so and earlier, the object of three lawsuits since 2003 charging him with repeated sexual abuse of children and young adults whom he’d counseled and taught. Powell is in his mid-80s and reportedly infirm. It doesn’t diminish for me the truth of his message in the book I cite, but it certainly envelops it in irony. If the allegations are true, then I feel for his victims, first, but also for him.)

So, this process is rooted in fear, coupled with the need to know yourself and connect meaningfully with others. This process, I find, generates about an 80-90 percent success rate (not a scientifically valid survey; riddled with anecdotal evidence). Facing my fear, opening up to others based on trust and disclosing myself to them most often yields, at least, pleasant acquaintances in work and other relationships, and at best leads to real friendship. I get burned sometimes, and I suppose I sometimes do the burning, but overall, I find it’s worth the risk. It’s a choice.

Questioning others

For me, this all is part of communication generally, and journalism specifically: I have to know myself; I have to come to know my subjects —  ideas, things and people; I come to this knowledge through questions and an exploration of answers. Through this process comes meaning.

Not bad work, if you can get it.

— Jerry LaMartina

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JERRY LAMARTINA IS A FREELANCE REPORTER AND EDITOR in the Kansas City area. He has been a journalist for 22 years, including stints as Web editor for the Kansas City Business Journal, an editor for Web-only publishing companies BizSpace Inc. and IndustryClick Corp. and an electronic media editor for The Kansas City Star. He has a B.A. in Communication Studies — Mass Media from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He’s married to Argentine native Maria Meli LaMartina. They have two children: Gianfranco (Gianni), age 11, and Hope, age 9. You can follow Jerry on Twitter and Facebook.

Jerry and I are former roommates and classmates, college newspaper colleagues, and close friends and conversationalists. I have always been inspired by his thinking and writing. He is a seeker of truth and an excellent journalist with rigorous regard for respect, ethics, dilligence and clarity. When I write, I frequently imagine I’m writing to Jerry. Doing so keeps my language precise and my facts more surely tied to the hitching post of honesty. (Lest they run away with the bandits of literary license.) I think his thoughts on self-knowledge, questions and overcoming fear are integral to the creative process and communications.

What do you think?

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BEST 3 OUT OF 5: QUESTIONS FOR CREATIVES

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I asked Jerry the same five questions I ask each guest contributor to my “Other Boxes” series:

How do you define creativity?

When did you first think of yourself as “creative”?

What’s the most recent thing you’ve experienced that struck you as especially creative?

What amazes, confuses, or frustrates you about the creative process?

Who personifies living a “life of ideas” for you?

Each guest gets to choose their favorite three to answer. Here are Jerry’s responses, his best three out of five:

How do you define creativity?

It’s the process of taking existing elements and ideas and combining them in surprising ways that work to express something meaningful — or whimsical.

When did you first think of yourself as “creative”?

When I started mimicking my classmates and teachers in grade school and got great laughs.

What amazes, confuses, or frustrates you about the creative process?

I’m amazed that I can gather information, immerse myself in it, sift it, ponder it, rearrange it and come up with something surprising that works. And I’m amazed at the creative things other people come up with. 

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© 2009 John Armato