creativity

A Monday Confession

For all my talk of morning routines and how vital they are, can I share a secret with you? I mean, we’ve been chatting for a bit now, so I feel comfortable doling out a little nugget of what’s really behind the screen.

There’s days when I don’t want to get out of bed.

And some days, I give into that. I feed the animals (so they’ll be quiet) and then go back to bed. And it’s glorious. Another two hours of sleep, and sometimes, they’re the best two hours of the entire night. It’s everything I dreamed it would be.

Trouble is, the rest of the day doesn’t tend to go too well.

You Don’t Have To Be Shakespeare

There’s a notion going ’round that what with the lockdown / social distancing most of us are doing these days – when “Wash your hands!” and “Six feet apart” are the new “How ya doin’?” and “Good, you?” of our day – that we should really be getting a lot more done creatively. Write your novel! Take up painting! Now there’s finally time for you to study belly button lint sculpting like you’ve always wanted to!

And I suppose you could do all of those things, but I think the question is really… should you?

Expectations

Remember how I said yesterday that I didn’t want to post anything? Ah, those fond, fond, sepia-toned memories…

So yeah, today.

Today? I really don’t feel like writing anything.

So instead of venting my spleen on the interwebs for all the universe to see (which is foolish and lame and doesn’t accomplish anything positive), let’s talk about what I’m doing now that Maine is on a stay at home order and the governor has cancelled April, shall we?

Unlocking The Door

For the past two weeks, I haven’t gone out much.

Actually, I should probably clarify that a bit, because my normal work from home routine hasn’t changed nearly as drastically as most people’s has. What I should say is that I’ve gone out even less than normal. The trips back and forth to school, running to the post office, back and forth to church, random errands – all that has stopped. Even for someone who’s been a bit of a shut-in before this, the change has been drastic.

So why do I unlock our front door every morning as I head to my office?

My New List

As you might’ve guessed from some of my previous posts, I have a curiosity with time management and productivity. That’s not to say that I’m an expert at either in theory or practice, but it’s something I think about a lot and do my best to apply in my life.

Part of getting myself into a better frame of mind as we embark on Week 2 of EVERYONE Is HOME, one thing became real clear to me real quick: I needed to up my productivity. Not because work demanded it, but because it’s important to me. Making sure I got something done in the right frame of mind is important to my mental health and balance.

One Of My Greatest Hits

I came across a video by Kinga Glyk which then led me down a YouTube rabbit hole of bass-centric videos. Not a bad way to spend 9 miles if you ask me, but I found myself thinking “Man, I’m never gonna sound that good” somewhere after my second Marcus Miller video.

It’s one of my greatest hits. That’s what I call the thoughts or things I’ll say repeatedly, usually in some kind of self-deprecating way or as an excuse for something. Usually, I don’t give them much thought because they’ve become like the “ums” and “uhs” of my brain life – conversational filler that for the most part goes unnoticed because it happens so often.

But today, I actually started to think about it.

There’s more time than life.
Old Spanish saying, quoted by Dr. Ken Atchity

Time is a funny thing, and I mean that quite literally. As Alan Alda once famously said, tragedy plus time equals comedy. Even if it isn’t the punchline, I’ve heard jokes where the setup is almost as hilarious as the payoff. Which, to me, means that time is inherently funny – both in a comedic and ain’t-it-kooky sort of way.

“The problem, fundamentally, was one of control — I had too much of it, over too tiny a territory, and I wasn’t willing to surrender it. You can’t control your way out of control.”
Sam Anderson

The above quote is from an article by Sam Anderson in the New York Times Magazine back in May 2015 where he talks about something called blind contour drawing – where you draw something without looking down at the paper until you’re done. Full disclosure: I haven’t finished reading the article, but I found the quote via Austin Kleon and something about it connected a few dots for me this morning.

Leaving Room For The Unexpected

It’s safe to say that I live a pretty safe life.

It also occurs to me how odd it is to have a thought like that while standing on the surface of a planet that is hurtling through the universe, constantly a few cosmic degrees from collision with objects, a degree or two away from tipping the balance away from being habitable, terminally subject to the faulty and fantastic abilities and flaws of a dominant species that is, at this moment, treating hand washing as some kind of revolutionary movement. Like, seriously folks, it’s been around awhile. Are we all that new to this?

Endurance

Bit of a rough week adjusting to some new glasses (progressives because… age), so since my life is basically feeling like one big adjustment, I didn’t have much inclination to work on Adjustment. However, since I don’t want to leave anyone hanging (especially myself), how about a poem that I go back to from time to time called “The Secret of My Endurance” by Charles Bukowski?

Todd Regoulinsky