Staring at a screen, sifting ideas, sprinting through half-hour productivity stretches - I have deadlined, structured, and made my creative work accountable, but…
I’ve nevertheless spent most of this year short on creative direction. I’ve been diligently consuming my Grape NutsTM but my footing has felt far from sure.
Cycles of work, create, query - news, response, worry, haven’t so much paved a road to success as to a kind of burnout that no amount of escapist detouring can quite allay.
Yes, we’re all here for the Long Game, but sometimes a creative life is just so much more work than wonder.
Are you keeping your head above water? Am I?
Creative work is hard, however magical the snapshots may look: sitting in PJs with a mug of tea; gazing through windows awaiting inspiration; long walks; reading; playing with color, sounds, words. Sparks may fly ‘til you’re flush with ideas, but inevitably the clock ticks onward, interruptions divert attention, the work takes a direction of its own, and life just keeps happening. The struggle to sustain forward progress is constant.
I write more about the journey of creativity than about the moments, because it takes further flung perspective to square today’s mental blocks or emotional blahs with the actual long term truth. Creativity bursts sometimes. Often it simmers, slow and low, bubbling up to something, but not quite getting there. And waiting is just plain tiring.
Still, every one of us can look back and see what we missed during treading water moments - synapses firing, ideas connecting, a lot of seemingly nothing slowly coalescing into something. Every time we keep on keeping on, we offer ourselves to the unknown. Even fallow times have purpose.
As Sarah Bessey says, “We are all a constantly emptying well in need of filling.”
Yep. That resonates. And leaves me wondering, what magic do I need this time?
I may be swimming in more than enough advice from productivity thinkers:
"To be truly effective, your daily activity must align with your long-term vision, strategies, and tactics."— The 12 Week Year. Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington
"In theory, consistency is about being disciplined, determined, and unwavering. In practice, consistency is about being adaptable.” — Atomic Habits, James Clear
Sure, planning helps; Yes, an action-based system for will produce more and better outcomes than a wishful non-system. I know the ability to change is key equipment for the journey. But productivity thinking belies the idea of time as big and sweeping, made up of ever-crashing waves of change, constraint, love, loss, circularity. Efficiency-fueled recommendations don’t address burnout.
Slow ticking, creative-minded process involves waiting, wandering, failing, coping, playing, pondering, starting over. Time chunking doesn’t make sense with these different rhythms. They are harder to slot into strategic routine. But they might just hold a necessary magic. And so, the real discipline, too often buried under to-do lists and intentional calendaring, is this:
“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” — E.B. White
Wonder caught me twice this month. Walking in unfamiliar towns, I encountered labyrinths by the side of two different roads. The first, outlined in roses, welcomed visitors with an invitation to explore. The second, paved in stone, beckoned with a water view. Twice I detoured from my expected path to walk and wonder. Twice, I found my thoughts settling, mind re-focusing.
I’m a sucker for the mash-up of mystery, ritual, slowing down, and staying open that labyrinths represent. They have a long history of connection to meditation and ritual. They are determinedly NOT about productivity, achievement, strategy, or success.
In this season of more work than wonder, these labyrinth appearances offered magic to my soul, suggesting a measured pace, and the rhythm of process: step, turn, stop. Look ahead, then back again, breathe. One of them had a small sign inviting me to “Be open; Be still; Be grateful.”
Labyrinth walking helped to shake up my fixation with straight-line progress and dependence on predictability for consistency. Instead, twists and turns were the point - exhortations to something like smelling a rose, or turning toward new perspective.
Escondido, CA
Orcas Island, Washington
In creating, as in life, surprise curve balls will spin you around. Unconscious pauses turn into overlong dry spells. For every step Up, there’s a Down. Or an interruption. The rhythm of the labyrinth asks, as does Audacious Women, Creative Lives Substacker Anne Boyd, “Can I be content with life, as it is, right now?” Or should I walk another way?
We don’t need magical labyrinths to escape every prison of overwhelm, any one-way thinking trap, or each project that seems to be going nowhere. We do need to walk with a new rhythm once in a while.
My writing teacher/coach Jolie Stekly just this week reminded readers to recognize that our minds, bodies, and stories are constantly shifting. When we feel off balance:
“Pause. Stop. Breathe. Get Quiet. And Listen.
And Poet Maggie Smith, completes the thought:
“Accept that you are a work in progress, both a revision and a draft: you are better and more complete than earlier versions of yourself, but you also have work to do. Be open to change. Allow yourself to be revised.”
I’ll be working on it…You too?
I highly recommend The Isolation Journals Substack community and The Book of Alchemy. Both are the brainchild of @suleikajouad and both offer essays and prompts to get your mojo going.