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?

Energy for the day

I gave up coffee for four days because I was convinced there would be huge benefits. Instead my life just got more boring and difficult. Each morning felt like it was on half powered batteries. My sleep was no better or worse. Abstinence Shmabstinence.

It got me thinking though – for creativity and good work to happen, energy is the number one component that needs to be checked off. Don’t try and write a novel on a half empty stomach, or record an album on 3 hours sleep. Go to the gym or for a walk. Being energetic in other areas will probably flow over into your work too. That’s my theory anyways – take it or leave it 🙂

And in case you were wondering, from my limited experience coffee is a very good thing. Don’t deny yourself the good things.

Telling ourselves stories

By definition, creativity is required to make art. To write something interesting needs a creative process behind it. This fact has led to some of the most seductive thinking of the modern era. Specifically, we tell ourselves stories that not everyone is able to be creative, therefore not everyone is able to make art. Many believe that the artist’s life is only available to a select few, that the left brain needs to over-rule the right for optimal creative conditions. The story bends even further. Even when optimal conditions are met and a person is ‘an artist’, their output can be slowed by external factors too – writer’s block sets in.

We would have ourselves believe that most, if not all of the creative process is out of our control. As I have written before, I don’t believe this at all. Unfortunately life is not so simple. Although creativity shows up in the brain in certain ways, “contrary to the “left-brain, right-brain” myth, creativity doesn’t just involve a single brain region or even a single side of the brain. Instead, the creative process draws on the whole brain. It’s a dynamic interplay of many different brain regions, emotions, and our unconscious and conscious processing systems”(quoted from an interesting article on the brain and creativity which can be found here).

Rather than the ‘artist’s life’ only being available to a select few, the truth is that we decide our fate. And how do we do that? Why, with our memories of course.

Events in our lives are either held onto as memories which become narratives affecting our behaviour, or they are forgotten.

For a crude example: Twin girls are told to write a story for homework. The one gets frustrated during the writing and gets a bad mark. She decides she is never going to try hard to write again. She blocks it from her brain. The other also gets frustrated and gets a bad mark, but decides she is creative and will find a way to improve the mark next time. These decisions lead to chains of other decisions which reinforce our own narratives. From that moment on the first girl focusses on science, the other on literature. Two different lives are born.

The kicker in all of this is that you can decide which memories to hold on to and which to let go of. Which memories will become a narrative and which fade to black? You can tell yourself a different story and you can become more creative.

People want to do good work

I believe that this is true. I also believe people are capable of doing good work. Every single person on the planet could make something great if they really set their mind to it.

Why then are so many people in dead end jobs, paid as little as possible and then DOING as little as possible as a result?

Fear is a big factor – fear that if they went for it on their own and tried to make something great then there is only themselves to blame.

The ironic thing is that when we are under the spotlight and when we fail – this is when we learn and improve. It is a necessary condition for good work.

Speaking of which – my science fiction writing has trailed off due to fear. I am scared of having to find a solution to the situation that the characters have found themselves in! I am scared of the hard work and I am scared of messing it up, but I must get over it.

Wishing you all productive, fearless work today.

The opposite of voting

…is abstaining. If you abstain, you no longer have a valid opinion on the outcome of the election.

In creativity terms, abstaining occurs often. People have a knack for not bothering to show up each day to try to make something great. Too many times I have seen someone claim to have a creative streak, or to be a creative person when really they just talk about acting, or singing or writing a book which never sees the light of day. If you say you are a musician when in fact you haven’t touched a guitar in 3 months…you’re abstaining. You’re not creative.

I think this happens quite often, particularly if you USED to be creative at one point, but then lost your mojo. Abstaining from creativity and harking back to a time when you bothered is an easy, convenient excuse. But it’s still just an excuse.

The good news is that all it takes is a decision to try, and hey presto you are creative once again.

And so I write this blog. And I am a valid part of the creativity conversation once again. It’s not much, but then again that’s all it takes to get the mojo back again.

Go, create something. And if you are American, go vote.

Play

Little children play in various ways.Due to the broad nature of play in childhood, it has proved notoriously difficult to define and empirically explore. Scientific studies of creativity have basically concluded that it can’t be taught, as it is a “facility” rather than a learned skill. Putting it very crudely, creativity is the ability to play. And, to be able to turn that facility on and off when necessary.

I consider myself creative, playful and prone to fantasy. I know others who are not like this, and probably never could be and therefore the scientific studies and their results make a lot of sense to me.

To think of writing as ‘playing with words’ sometimes frees me up in the creative process. The pressure to produce and ship something is lessened when I think that all I have to do is start playing and poking around, and eventually something will come up that is mildly interesting, inspiring and then publishable.

If you get stuck on a project, start playing with all the boundaries and assumptions you make on that project. Just to play with it all might free you up.

Attitude

A pickup full of men is getting ready to leave the car park of the local grocery. They are ready to go to work. A vehicle that should hold no more than four is crammed to the rim with ten in the back and four in the cabin. Sardines in a tin with no roof, they are pressed up against each other in the back. In the front it is the same, except the roof is on. They are shouting and joking and sipping tea to warm up in the morning before hard labour begins.

A lady with jewels and fine clothing is walking to her luxurious car in the same parking lot. She looks disdainfully at the crammed pickup and mutters something about safety. She is white and the car is all black. She disapproves. The pickup falls silent, movement reduced to steam floating out of the teacups. A negative moment so early in the morning. She definitely will not have to work as hard as the pickup full of men today.

Walking to my own car I saw this unfolding and decided to try to counteract the negative vibes. I lifted my leg over the edge and pretended to launch myself into the pickup – much laughter and the men tried to drag me in with them. After we settled down, I asked them where they were going – a building site down the road. One man from the cabin of the pickup says I should come along. I explained that I had to get home to my daughter.

Less judgement, more interaction, more communication, more positivity. It really made a difference to the situation.

Have a nice day.

Superfluous

superfluous

suːˈpəːflʊəs,sjuː-/

adjective

unnecessary, especially through being more than enough.

“the purchaser should avoid asking for superfluous information”

synonyms: surplus, redundant, unneeded, not required, excess, extra, spare, to spare, remaining,unused, left over; More

Blocking out the superfluous. Effective filtration of crap. This is the biggest battle in most of our lives, and of course it isn’t just about finding time to write – it is about our psychological state, life on the internet, and creating any art.

I am into creating something from nothing. It’s the most important thing to be creative rather than destructive, and yet it takes time and that means it takes away from something else that may be easier for your brain to handle. Facebook? Exercise? TV? Socialising?

The thing is (there’s always a thing, isn’t there?) that most of the time, the other stuff has plenty of time….certainly enough time…. allocated in your day anyways. The other stuff is mostly (in my case anyways) the path of least resistance. To give yourself one hour a day to just create something from nothing is not going to bring the world to its knees. Quite the opposite.

And so I made myself write this post, and I make myself block out the superfluous stuff from my calendar more and more. Funnily enough, it also applies to the living space: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/02/17/effects-of-clutter_n_9255032.html