🌜 TREE 462: Creativity comes (nearly) last

Throwback Wednesday – TREE 61

If you have a family and/or a job, you probably don’t get to wake up in the morning, do a perfect routine and then devote the peak part of the day to the creative project of your choice.

Fortunately, you don’t need to. You don’t have to Transform Your Life In 30 Days™ or be Benjamin Hardy. And if you try, you’ll likely make yourself miserable.

If you can set aside some time three or four days each week to work on your creative thing, it’s enough. Even if it’s only 15 minutes after everyone is in bed. If you are really doing it for those 15 minutes, it’s enough.

One example: Stephen King wrote Carrie evenings and weekends while he worked as a high school English teacher.

Creativity doesn’t need to come first. It just needs to come before zoning out in front of a screen. And it needs to happen consistently.

I don’t know how he does it – maybe it’s because he’s an actual coelacanth? – but Kyle is the only person I’ve ever met who can say he enjoys painting en plein air without sounding like a complete nob.

Yes, the woman-sings-slowed-down-cover-of-megahit category is overflowing. Yes, Tori Amos already did a brilliant slowed down cover of this song. But we’re listening to this one anyway because it’s wonderfully disconcerting. If you are a musician and want to leave a comment explaining what’s going on musically from 1:46–2:04 and why it feels so weird, I would welcome the enlightenment. (Spotify)

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And if you are one of those people who gets up early and does all the things while the rest of us are in bed, good on you! We’ll catch up once you’ve gone to bed tonight.

Grow slowly
Jeff