by Naomi | Oct 9, 2017 | Creative Life
How do you know if something is a waste of time?
A common definition of “waste” is “to use or expend carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose. “ Synonyms for waste include squander, misspend, misuse, fritter away, or throw away. No one wants to squander or fritter away time.
But, ask a creative person how she spends her time, and if she’s being honest, she’ll describe work sessions punctuated by time spent in activities which are more difficult to define. Oddly, this time outside work sessions often creates a leap-frogging effect, vaulting work forward in a way that doesn’t happen when one is sitting down at a computer or with pencil and paper.
Unfortunately, the effect doesn’t work if you cut out the work sessions altogether. I’m not arguing that one should wander rather than work. But, there is something to the art of letting go and wandering.
For me, the wandering is literal.
I need to walk around in interesting environments. I need to touch contrasting textures of fabric and smell a variety of loose leaf teas. I need to see interesting patterns and shapes, and listen for contrasting tones of laughter. From the outside, I’m sure this wandering looks like a supreme waste of time. Why am I walking aimlessly, poking into stores, looking through baskets of random antiques, and heading home without buying anything?
I’m collecting. I’m filling up my sensory toolkit so that when I sit down to write, I have words and images and access to the feel of things. Too much time spent at my desk, and my senses dull. Fog settles over my brain and I might stare at my computer screen for ten minutes before coming up with a lackluster sentence. After puzzling over this fog, and how it showed up every now and then, I started to see the pattern.
And I started getting intentional about wandering.
What might speak to your senses?
[Tweet “Where might you wander to collect sights, smells and sounds to infuse your writing with life?”]
Don’t be afraid to carve out time to wander. If you need more encouragement, you’ll definitely enjoy Keri Smith’s intriguing invitation to the art of wandering: The Wander Society.
I’d love to know where you choose to wander! Share your ideas below, or tag me on Twitter or Facebook and let me know what you’re up to. I’m always collecting new ideas for where to wander next.
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by Naomi | Oct 5, 2017 | Creative Life
Too often
On my morning run
The neighborhood blurs
My mind far away
I stumble over
Unseen cracks in the sidewalk
Run straight into
Low-hanging branches
My mind circles
Rehearsing how I’ll do what’s next
Or reviewing what I did before
I’m in a tug of war—
Pulled forward
Tugged back
Or, my mind tumbles from request to request
Commitment to commitment
The way it was at summer camp
With campers in costumes
Set pieces scattered across the stage
Everyone calling, “Naomi, Naomi, Naomi!”
Between the words of one response
Another question is shoved
I can’t hear myself think
And no one gets their hoped for answer
We’re reminded about Deep Work
About The One Thing
About deleting, delegating and automating
But too often these spaces of clear and calm
Feel as impossible to reach as the Island of Long Ago and Far Away
Rather than a possible reality in the here and now
What keeps us from paying attention?
Our hearts.
They’re lured and captured and ransomed
By ideas of who we should be
Of what we feel responsible for
And where we wish we could be
(Anywhere but here)
In order to take back our attention
We have to take back our hearts
And hold them gently
Whispering the story
Of who we are
Untangling the true story
From the knots of should and ought to
Until we’re free
by Naomi | Oct 2, 2017 | Creative Life
“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.”
– Pablo Picasso
“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
– Dorothea Lange
“Every human is an artist. And this is the main art that we have: the creation of our story.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz
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by Naomi | Sep 29, 2017 | Creative Life
I find it interesting that when we speak about the art of paying attention, we use financial words: paying attention, spending time.
What is your time worth?
This question often sends us down the road of calculation. How much do we make annually? How much does that work out to as an hourly wage? These are helpful time-management questions, but they fall short when it comes to attention management. Here’s another question for you.
How do we make our time count?
Again, this is a quantitative question. The line of thinking sends me down the rabbit hole of a “quantified life.” How many hours did I spend writing? How many minutes running? How about working? Playing? Commuting? Suddenly, I feel like a bean counter in my own life. My attention is spent on counting, not on being present.
Articles like this one explain that negative experiences imprint more deeply on our minds than positive ones do. Understanding this tendency is important not only for mental health, but also as insight into the art of paying attention. What if we were able to treasure each moment as the pearl it truly is, rather than counting or weighing or measuring it?
- How might we notice our lives more fully?
- How might we open, unlock, unleash our attention?
- What might be possible if we noticed just ten percent more of the world around us?
Paying attention isn’t a separate activity.
Like most creative habits, it’s more a way of being than an item on a to-do list. No matter what we’re physically doing—eating, working, playing—our life’s moment can be treasures, or they can blur past, lost in fog. It’s a practice, a muscle we can build, and though it seems simple and possibly even unimportant in the larger scheme of life, the fact is, it IS life.
Your day awaits. How might you bring your attention more fully into its moments?
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by Naomi | Jun 12, 2017 | Creative Life
[clickToTweet tweet=”Inspiration to keep learning from Julia Child – ‘You’ll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.”” quote=”“You’ll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.” ― Julia Child”]
“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.”
― Abigail Adams
“The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.”
― B.B. King
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