Mary Oliver's 'Upstream' Explores the Creative 'Third Self'

What Oliver Reveals About Creative Work Mary Oliver’s “Upstream” presents a compelling framework for understanding the unique demands of creative work. Oliver identifies what she terms the “third self” - neither the social self that interacts with others nor the practical self that handles daily responsibilities, but the creative consciousness that emerges during deep artistic engagement. Oliver writes: “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.