Work harder at making the familiar strange. Walk or drive a different route than your daily routine; work away from your desk; read something flamboyantly irrelevant; call someone you don’t need to call; look up at the sky instead of the concrete. When you turn back to your routine, it will feel freshened.*
Jason Zweig

The natural state of the mind is often for it to bounce gently around, usually remaining only loosely focused and receptive to new stimuli, the state sometimes known as ‘open awareness,’ which neuroscientific research has shown is associated with incubating creativity.**
Oliver Burkeman

We often find ourselves acting as if good work is keeping
our foot to the pedal of concentration, but
the best work often arrives through playing within the rhythm
of focusing and unfocusing, concentrating and relaxing, fast and slow –
Each of these requires different kinds of effort, and perhaps
we find the unfocused and relaxed and slow the hardest.

*Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing newsletter: Hi, Resolution;
**Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations For Mortals.

Say “I don’t know” at least 10 times a day. That will disqualify you for a career in politics but make you a better person.*
Jason Zweig

We become prisoners of our paradigms. Stepping outside the walls, however, permits a new vantage point. We don’t have new information, we have a new perspective.**
Matthew Syed

One way to see differently and
understand more is to
ask another what they see and
deeply listen to their reply.

*Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing newsletter: Hi, Resolution;
**Matthew Syed’s Rebel Ideas.

For years I have taught that we steal because we do not believe we can create.*
Erwin McManus

Studies have shown that negative self-talk, doubt, and disparagement go quiet when we’re engaged in creative work.**
Todd Herman

There isn’t a list,
You get to invent your own creativeness – you don’t have to
copy someone else, you can be
the first you –
For sure, there are broad categories of creativity, but the more
you try out the things that matter to you, the more
bespoke will be your originality and artistry;
The only thing I’d ask you to promise yourself? –
To leave the world better than you found it.

*Erwin McManus’ The Genius of Jesus;
**Todd Herman’s The Alter Ego Effect.

In the Extraordinary world, your “orientation” has been set to “positive.”*
Todd Herman

The extraordinary world** is the place we enter as
our alter ego – think Beyonce’s
Sasha Fierce, Superman’s
Clark Kent,^ your
?;
It’s the essential you comprising
talents, energies, and values, making it possible
for you to overcome obstacles and
embody these powers for others in the ordinary world.

*Todd Herman’s The Alter Ego Effect;
**The extraordinary world sounds very much like the special world of the Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, a place where we discover our powers, returning to the ordinary world in a new way.
^Todd Herman suggests Clark Kent is the alter ego of Superman, helping him to connect with humans.

This is what they want from you, that mysterious, momentous thing. The unwild want consistency. They want you to be exactly the same today as you were yesterday.*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

But I need to change,
I want to grow.

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves.

Picasso painted with passion, Mozart composed with it. A child plays with it all day long.*
Steven Pressfield

You may wonder where
your passion went;
It is close by, waiting
for you to come out to play.

*Steven Pressfield’s Do the Work.

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless.”*

The Teacher begins gloomily but
goes on to show
how we are
meaning-making machines.

*Ecclesiastes 1:1

Pursue clarity instead.
In the pursuit of clarity, style reveals itself.
Your clarity will differ from everyone else’s without your intention to
make it differ.*
Verlyn Klinkenborg

Sorting and choosing. One is more important than the other … getting the piles right is the hard part … We need to spend less time choosing and more time sorting.**
Seth Godin

When we gain clarity, everything else
follows –
Name your talents,
Notice your energies,
Identify your values,
Weave these into your myth or story, and
you will know what to do next;
It’s important to make our choices with
the right things before us –
It may take longer, but we’ll
be thankful for this in the long run.

Writing is not for sprinters, but for long-distance runners. All creativity takes discipline … Write in a genre you love … The Story should be your kind of story.^

*Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Sorting and choosing;
^Robert McKee‘s newsletter: You Must Write What You Love; as in, writing out our stories and myths.

Happy, smart, and useful.*
Derek Sivers

Three words to sum up what you hope for your life?

Derek Sivers’ reminded me of my three words –
a response to the question:
What does it mean to you to be human?

Creativity, generosity, and enjoyment: to create stuff,
To give this to others, and this to provide
a life with joy.

I’ve just calculated that I’ve had these words for
sixteen or seventeen years, and they
still sum it up for me, though I’m stilly trying to embody them better.

Back to your three words?

*Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah or No.