I recently stumbled upon "Artists Way a Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity" and really resonate with a practice it puts forward: "morning pages" and "artist dates." The exact nomenclature isn't important, but the idea of a "signal and response" pattern is, in my opinion, spot on. Like meditation, it's one of those things that sounds far fetched but that you can try for yourself -- and the results will speak for themselves.
He felt 'creatively dead', then harnessed the power of boredom
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Re: He felt 'creatively dead', then harnessed the power of boredom
#32> I would set everything else aside. I wouldn't look at my emails. I wouldn't have any meetings. I wouldn't do anything for the podcast. Just music. It allowed some space for my brain to get bored. I feel creatively dead, but mostly only at work. Never have enough time/space to let things just settle down, it seems like. This might be why I still resist management stuff: I dislike accepting responsibility for the pro…
I thought I must have written that myself in some kind of fugue state. I'm in the same boat.
What I find strange about it, is that I'm the opposite outside of work. Life life is just great, I'm improving at sports and learning new things in my side projects.
But at work I feel like I've got writers block. Any progress is super hard earned.
Re: He felt 'creatively dead', then harnessed the power of boredom
#33Meta: Why are there fads like this? Like do people not see this? Everyone's suddenly so interested in how great boredom is, before this it was some other crap, then something else. I don't have a point but I just find it mildly irritating for some reason. It does make sense to collectively research things and exchange ideas but at the same time there's something off about it when it comes to mass media, like it's laz…
Herd mentality. We all have it to some extent, even when actively trying to suppress it (me for example). It made human society what it is, and most probably was a great survival advantage early on. Now it makes masses susceptible to populists, but wasn't it always the case? Just that masses before were even more meaningless and powerless without things like voting rights.
+1 for suppressing herd mentality.
If I find myself in agreement with a majority of people, I usually don't have a long distance to travel to work out where I've gone wrong.
Re: He felt 'creatively dead', then harnessed the power of boredom
#34Meta: Why are there fads like this? Like do people not see this? Everyone's suddenly so interested in how great boredom is, before this it was some other crap, then something else. I don't have a point but I just find it mildly irritating for some reason. It does make sense to collectively research things and exchange ideas but at the same time there's something off about it when it comes to mass media, like it's laz…
Stumble on a well, pump it dry, keep on stumblin'
Re: He felt 'creatively dead', then harnessed the power of boredom
#35Creativity rests on two pillars:
1. Not wasting your energy on irrelevant things, that is temperance. Everyone knows what those things are. It seems obvious that without this inner energy, you can't turn any of the creative ideas into reality. At most you'd be a passive observer of those ideas.
2. Not cluttering your mind with rubbish. This is poetically called the inner peace, and it's often confused with boredom. It's not necessary to retreat into a cabin in the mountains, as the inner peace comes from within. Once that state is reached, you can start seeing reflections of the stars in the sky - the higher ideas that inspire creativity.
Creativity, in essense, is the need to express yourself. It's the reason behind the desire to live or any existence at all. Even savages are driven by this need, they just find different outlets for self expression. It's also what gives such power to the need for pro-creation.
Re: He felt 'creatively dead', then harnessed the power of boredom
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any long time with yourself will do: walking for days in the mountains, isolating youself in a cabin in the wood to write, a meditation retreat... It's hard to have your own thoughts when the entire world is constantly inputting its own in your psyche. After long periods of silence, you start emptying and the mind fills the void. Ideas come in. With practice, it will stop filling the void. But this isn't necessary if…
Road trips are my (not so) secret sauce to boredom and, as pointed out, ultimately my more creative ideas.
Same. I've had a lot of game design ideas while driving on the road.
Doesn't work for me if I have music with lyrics on, though. Sometimes podcasts work, because something they say might spark an idea, but songs with lyrics don't work at all.
Re: He felt 'creatively dead', then harnessed the power of boredom
#37What’s the actionable take away from this?
I don’t believe it’s the goal of Enlighten Me to produce actionable takeaways.
Re: He felt 'creatively dead', then harnessed the power of boredom
#38> I would set everything else aside. I wouldn't look at my emails. I wouldn't have any meetings. I wouldn't do anything for the podcast. Just music. It allowed some space for my brain to get bored. I feel creatively dead, but mostly only at work. Never have enough time/space to let things just settle down, it seems like. This might be why I still resist management stuff: I dislike accepting responsibility for the pro…
My 2c—I went ahead and took the pay increase and added responsibility, then used it as an excuse to only do the most impactful thing possible at any given time. Leads to telling people “no” a lot, but also less stress.
Re: He felt 'creatively dead', then harnessed the power of boredom
#39I recently stumbled upon "Artists Way a Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity" and really resonate with a practice it puts forward: "morning pages" and "artist dates." The exact nomenclature isn't important, but the idea of a "signal and response" pattern is, in my opinion, spot on. Like meditation, it's one of those things that sounds far fetched but that you can try for yourself -- and the results will speak for them…
Dude I'm on week 5 of this book rn, the morning pages really are quite something.
The artist dates were harder to incorporate at first but I think I got the hang of it.
Re: He felt 'creatively dead', then harnessed the power of boredom
#40I never know when I have boredom vs dopamine starvation. Having lots of possible things to do but not finding them motivating.
How would you distinguish them semantically?