Life seems to have got a little out of control.
Go-slow lanes have disappeared, there’s no fallow time in the year, fruit and veges are always in season, our homes and lives are never-endingly lit (by the eerie pixel light of small and large screens), our circadian rhythms don’t know when to sleep and the short periods of darkness that are left seem only momentary – too short to hibernate.
Then we’re promoting, liking, tweeting, blogging, networking, podcasting and videoing as fast as we can, all in the name of gaining as much attention as we can.
And paradoxically this is all happening in a society that is widely suffering from attention-disappearing disorder.
We need to stop. We need to think. We need to create.
It’s widely accepted the mind (and body) needs time to rest, recuperate and recharge, but in a world seemingly now devoid of time-zones; where 24/7 still isn’t enough to get it all done and achieve what we think we need to do….how is that possible?
Perhaps we need to take the time to rethink our priorities and re-establish new ground rules.
We need to make better use of our time. Busy doesn’t equal productive.
Do the important things; not the urgent things.
All sorts of problems can be solved and amazing things created with just large pieces of paper, coloured pencils and time to doodle.
Although not an ‘alternative family’, my kids were able to entertain themselves with ‘a paper bag, some rubber bands and a pencil’ and the word bored was a forbidden one. It certainly doesn’t seem to have stifled their creative juices; in fact it’s encouraged them, given what they produce as digital natives.
But if changing your approach causes your linear ‘doing’ thoughts to stall, try taking the roundabout.
A circle has no beginning and no end. It faces all directions equally.
Symbolically it’s probably no accident that wells were fashioned in a circular shape. Throughout the ages, the one enduring image that has come to represent the cyclical, never-ending nature of life is the circle.
Wells provide water, the sustenance of our life. And of all geometric shapes, a well’s container (being a circle), contains the greatest amount of area within a given perimeter.
A well is emptied and it refills. So should our lives.
Researchers have found the up and down fluctuations of cyclical behaviour in fields as diverse as animal population and stock market prices.
Our lives should follow a cycle; it’s the natural course of action through time. We need to stop and take time to find (or re-find) our purpose, passion and promise to our creative self.
Take the time to refill your creative well
How’s your creative well going?
