Awhile back, several articles about the relationship we have with our minds drew my attention.
1. Sion Dayson, who some of you will remember from her Kerouac House residency and “Getting Unstuck” workshop there, wrote a beautiful piece about her stay at Kerouac House.
“My writing practice, so fraught and strained, needed to reconnect with play. It’s a requirement for creativity, and an antidote to doubt when facing down the page.”
2. Leo Babauta on learning to believe in yourself by experiencing failure, rejection and making mistakes:
“I learned it’s completely fine to try and fail, to put yourself out there and not be perfect, to say hello to someone and have them not instantly love you, to create something and have people judge you.”
3. I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways people (including me) avoid being in tune with their deeper selves. According to a study reported in The Atlantic, apparently we humans are so afraid of introspection we’d rather inflict physical pain on ourselves.
“In the most, ahem, shocking study, subjects were wired up and given the chance to shock themselves during the thinking period if they desired. They’d all had a chance to try out the device to see how painful it was. And yet, even among those who said they would pay money not to feel the shock again, a quarter of the women and two thirds of the men gave themselves a zap when left with their own thoughts. (One outlier pressed the button 190 times in the 15 minutes.)”
Sion Dayson
Thanks so much for including a link to my essay, Mary Ann! I am endlessly fascinated by the creative process, our minds, and how we do (and do not) engage with the work and ourselves. I am so happy to have met you during my time at the Kerouac House (and for having the chance to lead a workshop for MAD about Words!). I love receiving your Monday Muse newsletters with all the interesting snippets , advice, and inspiration.