Surround yourself with good stuff

The reality of becoming focused and creative is that you have to push other things to the side and stay attached to the important task at hand.

A big part of this is choosing what and who you listen to and stopping what doesn’t work.

For me, what works is podcasts and newsletters from interesting, creative people. For me, what works is stopping social networks from using me, and starting to use them for my own purposes instead (I really had to think about this and make a strategy – basically I only engage with Facebook, and I curate this actively every time I log on. I use Twitter as purely a feed for this blog. I use Linkedin purey as a CV for my day job. No other social networking for me.) I need good music in my life and I need to look forward to things that inspire me like family and friends and home.

Lastly and most importantly, I need to use time available to me. Life fill up the hours without much effort. When I get time to write, I take it actively. Adequate time spent writing, and adequate repetition of the writing process will make me a good writer.

What do you need to surround yourself with to become creative?

Sci-Fi @home – Bitcoin

I have a little bit of money invested in Bitcoin, using BitX as my exchange. It’s a bit of an investment in a possible future.

Today i got a note from BitX telling me about all the stores in South Africa accepting Bitcoin.

The fact that I can trade in a virtual currency and not use a bank is amazing to me. All these options online for me to use the Bitcoin – It’s sci-fi come to life.

Africa is adopting new technologies quickly and will likely leapfrog some older infrastructures as new developments take hold. That is what happened in Kenya with MPesa. It is happening in Rwanda with drones. Maybe it will happen with Bitcoin too.

Just a little more

It’s strange how some things stick and others fall by the wayside. Creativity is hampered by the half-baked efforts which lead nowhere.

If the end goal of a perfect novel or song is not reached from the start we can lose confidence.

If space is not made for creative efforts, we will never have the time.

However, if we can be patient, and have faith and keep trying for just a little more each day, doing something creative over and over, we will get better. I have seen it happen with my own eyes with an artist friend of mine. We will get confident and we will get creative and we will get good.

Any problem you have…

…is probably fixable.

Think about it. Humans have cured polio. We discovered bacteria. We put people on the moon. We have cell phones which are as sci-fi as you can imagine. They let me talk to someone in China…if I so choose. So progress happens if we want it to, but it is not automatic.

In my personal experience, I am learning that there are two key components of creativity and progress.

First, I have to accept that progress will bring with it unintended consequences. These can be positive: For example back in the day we learned about atmospheric pressure which allowed us to create vacuums which allowed us to create combustion engines to push trains down a track. But they can also be negative: those combustion engines spit out pollution of all sorts. Personally, to become more creative has led me to quit unsatisfactory jobs, to learn about publishing, marketing and blogging. However it has also led me to become super self-critical. This is good sometimes in a work context, but it can impact other areas of my life. I never expected this as a side-effect.

The key for me is that progress is always better than the alternative, which is stagnation. It is a truth which I have had to get my head around. Stagnation is easier but far more destructive to my life. I think this applies universally to our race.

Next, for progress to occur, there needs to be focus. This may be internal – are you sure of what you are trying to achieve? Are you putting in the time and work? Or it may be a matter of collaboration. Do you have another person who will help you progress? I am learning that focus essentially means aligning of habits and habitual behaviour. Mine were all out of whack before I chose to be more creative.

I find it comforting that there are broad rules and conditions for progress. It helps my creativity and keeps pushing me on to fix problems each day. What helps you make progress?

De La ChimpWithCans

To those of you who don’t know, I’m a chimp who likes to listen to music while I write. The Bantam civilisation implanted a chip into my brain when they invaded Old Earth. The chip allows us animals to understand human language. While I still can’t talk with the humans (as some of the other animals are able to do) I can understand what they say. This means I have to listen to people as they quibble and argue all over the place. It also means that a huge back catalogue of human music is now accessible to me. A regular old chimp with modifications, I am now a blogger and a music junkie.

On the cans this morning is the De La Soul album from 2016. This is a wonderful sound. Beats to jump up and down to, guest appearances all over the place to make me screech and grin my wide chimpanzee grin. I love a good album and the fact that this was funded in part by a Kickstarter campaign makes it even more satisfying for some reason.

Variety of voices from Usher to David Byrne keeps this album interesting. Lyrics and rhymes mixed with audio scenery give it depth.

A most pleasant listening experience for this chimp. Now it’s time for me to find some bananas for breakfast.

Neophiliacs and commoditisation

Today i have run out of time for writing, so i share two interesting links that I think readers of this blog will be able to relate to.

First is a breakdown of neophilia from 2006. (It is funny to see those old movies and songs). Of course the message is still very relevant. http://www.medialifemagazine.com/the-disorder-of-these-times-neophilia/

Second is Fred Wilson’s analysis of his new phone – which seems remarkably similar to his last phone: http://avc.com/2016/11/google-pixel-xl/

Sci-Fi @home

I see how great sci-fi books take inspiration from everyday events. It’s a whacky world we live in.

Take this alien looking plant for example. From a few saggy leaves it is now in bloom and has pods exploding every few days:

photo-on-2016-11-25-at-5-31-am-2

Expect a public service announcement that the invasion has started. Started in my kitchen.

Tribal Inspirations

I heard a New York Times podcast yesterday all about A Tribe Called Quest’s latest album. Interviews with the band revealed a nugget of creativity wisdom. A kernel of truthiness to get the creative juices-a-flowing, a rough rock from where you may extract sparkling creative jewels, a …you get the point.

Q Tip – philosopher that he is – offered something along the lines of the following statement: “An idea inside your head is just a thought until you act on it.”

I like this. Ideas are fantastic, important, a vital starting point for creating something. But until some sort of action (writing, painting, dancing, rapping) occurs – there is no art, and it’s just a ghost in your head. Nobody would know about it. Nobody cares. Nothing happens.

So we must do. And that is the scary part because it means others may bear witness to the doing. And others may not like the doing.

On the other hand, they may like it very much. It might just work.

Kickstarter payback

I just received my reward of an anthology of short Sci-Fi stories for backing a project on Kickstarter.

Added to my list once I am through with Dune, which is amazing, political, enthralling, and leaves me feeling thirsty when I am done reading a chapter!

I would encourage anyone to find a cool project to back on Kickstarter. It’s satisfying to reap the rewards for a price you decide upfront.

Undermined

On any given day, the number of forces which can undermine your creative efforts is vast.

A woman’s day can be made miserable by a sore back.

A friend can spoil your mood.

A previous engagement can fill your time so that nothing else is possible.

A baby can keep you awake all night.

Politics and news headlines can depress you right back into bed.

Most of these however, are fixable. Investing time and money and effort into steering your life towards a creative space requires a bit of a plan. A plan that is repeated and refined eventually becomes the norm. Norms eventually become bulletproof to interruption. (That’s my plan anyways…in a nutshell).

Van Gogh managed a masterpiece with one ear missing – how bad can your obstruction of creativity really be?