How one creator turns on the flow
I find it easiest to think when I’m bored.
~ Stephen Hansen
Here’s how one artist gets the electricity crackling. He sits in the same chair every day — facing the same view. Though I didn’t ask he likely does it at nearly the same time or times each day too, as so many other habitual creators do.
He finds creative thought is stirred by relaxing into a kind of receptive boredom.
Others might call this emptying the mind. Twyla Tharp calls it a ritual of preparation: What you do unfailingly to initiate the creative process.
Sitting down in one’s thinking chair is the same as settling into your meditation spot or your prayer pose. Your entire system is activated for one purpose. It’s a flip of the systemic switch.
Like when I pick up a fork. My body knows driving or wooing or swimming — other common activities of mine, thank you very much — are not muscle memories to be called upon then.
What is irrelevant to the purpose powers down out of sweet habit. Also out of habit, only what applies to the purpose at hand is powered up.
To add a space for thought then, in a favorite thinking chair, by not bringing anything else with you but your mind and pen and paper . . . yeah, you could call it boredom but really it’s foreplay.
Note: This is part of the What creators do series, where I look to people who are creating something meaningful in the world for inspiration and tips — and pass them along to you.
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