A Starting Line Perspective - Again

Have you ever hit a mental wall that seemed to just knock your brains out? Unlike colliding with a physical wall that jars your body with pain and lingering aches, a collision with a mental wall tends to sap your energy and passion. Here is a short list of some symptoms that you may have hit a mental wall:

Sleeplessness. This might be self induced as you stay up late watching television, plunking on a keyboard, or some other mindless occupier of time. It might also come as the result of a change of diet. Sugar or caffeine highs that buzz through your brain to steal the rest needed for mental recovery.

Loss of Passion. The reality phenom Survivor is in its twentieth season. One recurring challenge is the variation on the endurance game. Competitors that press on to the end are driven to do by either a drive for the prize or fear that without immunity they will be the next victim tribal counsel. Do you feel a loss of passion of late? Can't seem to force yourself to get back to that script? Art work? Technical writing or white paper? Dude, you hit a mental wall.

Powerlessness. King Solomon is attributed with the proverb "hope deferred makes the heart sick." Change the word sick for weak and you have the root of powerlessness -- hope prolonged from delivery. There is a direct correlation between the length of time it takes to turn your actions into a reward and rebound.

In competitive sports there is a common phrase for the failing to progress. It is called "hitting the wall." The wall is that mental or physical barrier that is set just before the finish line, goal, or record to break. Breaking through that wall may seem a minor feat. Unless you want to brand yourself as a standout.

The difference between winning a race and breaking a record is milliseconds. Maxie Long won the 400m in the 1900 Olympics with a winning time of 47.8 seconds. The best 400m time was run by Michael Johnson in 1999 at 43.18 seconds. A difference of 4.62 seconds. You can credit equipment, training, diet or whatever for the new record. But after a 99 years, winning runners were only able to shave about 4 to 5 seconds from Long's time.

For weeks now I have languished in a sense of powerlessness. I lost sleep because I allowed mindless things to occupy my attention. My passion has suffered. I lost ground (and gained pounds) with my exercise regimen, have not written on my scripts for months, and let my blog lay dormant for nearly a month. BAM! A mental wall. All the aches and pains of crashing into a brick wall are evidenced by the bruises in attitude, will, and creative energy.

What to do? Do like any athlete does that wants to be better or be the best. You figure out what you can to perform more efficiently and get back to the starting line. Looking down at that starting line may get old as you stare down at the goals in front of you for the umpteenth time. But you will never win your race unless you are willing to shake the sense of powerlessness that accompanies a collision with the wall inside your head.

And now for something completely different

From the moment I started work today I found myself engaged in the mundane tasks that I wrote about in Escape the Mundane. A mountain of validating and editing training curriculum beckoned me to press on. That kind of work makes the day go very fast, but it doesn't exactly evoke a lot of creativity. Just after lunch and gobbling another chapter of 59 Seconds, I slipped back to my lair to Prnt Scrn, edit shots, and catalog images for the manual.

In the morning I was using two laptops to do my work. In the afternoon, my faithful Dell was able to be my music source and visual distraction. For my visual I applied Wiseman's advice and put up an image of geometric shapes. At a point that I wearied of my cutting and pasting, I sat back and looked at the geo-shapes. The idea behind the exercise is to let your mind be engaged into something completely different than your current activity.

Instead of focusing on my current situation I thought about my problem of writer's fatigue with a script I need to finish. I posed a question to myself: How can I review my script in a fresh way? I pondered the geo-shape (insert) for a few minutes, and then went for a short walk down the hall. Almost as soon as I left my office I could feel my brain percolating with an idea. Eureka!

The answer my friend came with a whoosh! Record the script using Camtasia and listen to it on my commutes to Pueblo. Record it in Camtasia so I can also listen to it at work with the script automatically flipping page-to-page with my reading. To capture and reinforce that creative thought I made a date in my date timer for Saturday to do the recording.

Very cool how the brain works. I can't wait to try this on other mental roadblocks. Speaking of something completely different...

Escape the Mundane

“Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.” Bill Moyers, Journalist

Several of my friends do freelance work so that they can pursue that which drives them. They put in unending hours of editing, reworking pieces, or slaving away at the rigors of prep and post production. As a screenwriter, I am intimate with working a scene or character over and over. In the midst of editing, the tasks can begin to feel ...well...boring.

Creative block (pick your poison) can rob an artist of the very will to live if allowed to fester. That is why it is so important to escape the mundane. You have probably heard the phrase "so heavenly minded that he or she is of no earthly good." That is mundane defined: consumed or trapped by earthly, worldly cares. A Bohemian attitude may help ease the depressed condition of living the life of a three job pauper, but it doesn't unshackle the creative genius within.

There are so many people with formulaic answers for creative block and the torture of living day-to-day with the mundane. Some of those solutions include: will power, visualization, coaching, drug induced stupor, or a line up of ineffective or self-destructive behaviors that may never deliver your answers. Eventually you plod through to the end with a certain level of resentment as the payoff or never finish your project.

Richard Wiseman recommends several concrete solutions in his book 59 Seconds. Wiseman throws down a challenge to the mindset that change can come by wishful thinking. "Fantasizing about your perfect world may put a smile on your face, but it is unlikely to help transform your dreams into reality." He describes the process of as "getting in touch with your inner gorilla." The actions you can take to escape the mundane -- at least long enough to regain your sanity -- include:

• Priming—work hard on the problem then do something completely different...then come back to the problem

• Perspective—Put yourself in a different role/person
• Play—15 minute fun break
• Perceive—Ask yourself an interesting question and get the answer

I hit a block with my writing back in October. This week I am going to use these tools to revive the rework of one of my favorite scripts. Success is right around the corner. Chris Soth encouraged me today with these words, "you need to find joy in the process." If you don't enjoy what you are doing, you will have to revive that joy to earn the reward of fulfillment.

Stimulating a Creative Response

At the core of our being resides a reservoir of creative energy. Most of the time it lies in an undisturbed state of rest. We move from day to day without giving this incredible source of change a second thought. Then one day you are forced to make a decision that is totally new to you. You get a pink slip in a down economy, some trauma strikes you, or on a positive note you take a leap to escape the mundane. Your brain synaps start cracking with new connections. Pow! You get an idea.

You don't need to wait for trauma to smack you up side the head to get the brain generating enough energy to jump start the creative juices. There are many tools available. In my opinion, the most overstated method for generating creative energy is visualization. Capturing a vision in your mind is wonderful means of getting the imagination rolling. It is like a soft breeze on the sea of your creative core. But if you want wild, untamed creativity to flow from your being you shouldn't settle for soft breezes and hammocks.

To create a storm of creativity you need to take your mind and subconscious on a ride into the uncomfortable. A tame approach might be an aggressive brainstorming session, mind mapping, or other methods of invoking right brain activity. More radical techniques are defined by the creator. Push the boundaries of your prejudices, education, and indoctrination until you feel the reservoir stir with tempestuous power. Let the energy pour from you until you are drained of physical energy.

Spend yourself on your art or whatever is your creative expression. The best way to fill up with new creative ideas is to empty yourself and make room for more.

Creativity DNA

There is no way of broaching the question of the source of creativity without investigating the philosophical and theological connections. Nearly all faiths have a creation story. While considering the source, I recalled the Latin phrase creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing). In the book of Genesis the phrase is worded as God creating something from out of a void.

Using the principle of original use, we can make a reasonable connection that creativity is borne from a place that was void of substance. I know, kind of heavy huh? Too much philosophy? Stick with me. This may take a few days.

When a creative thought is birthed, the ah-ha moment makes you want to yell "Eureka!" Because creativity appears from nowhere, it is historically associated to the Divine. I don't take that position. Creativity comes from a source deep inside. Personally, I think it is the way we are wired. Since creativity is not confined to the religious or irreligious we need to view it as a universal quality of our DNA. Soul if you prefer.

Tomorrow: Stimulating a creative response

Creative or Innovative?

Ralph Goings began painting realism in the 1960s. He has so refined his skill that his work is now referred to as super realism. His diner series reminds me of a HD Norman Rockwell. Although Goings is not the first to paint realism, his work is so real that it bears the brand of illusionary (Inset Ralph Goings' - Duke Diner).

The work of Ralph Goings is a great launching point for debating the differences and similarities of being creative or innovative. Clearly Goings is innovative in his methodology. But if he is essentially capturing an image of his eye in minute detail, how can that be defined as creative? Hold on. The battle within is going to take a few posts to work out.

When writing about being creative versus innovative, definitions can be helpful or they can be lost by common use. I prefer in this instance to use creative (adj) over creativity (noun) and innovative (adj) over innovation. They will blend at some point, but for now I want to focus on these words as qualities of the nouns that they modify: people.

Words, properly used, should describe for the recipient what the messenger intends to be received and comprehended. If, when referring to a system or process, I say that the new system is better then I am referring to that modification as innovation. To achieve innovation a person or team of people must be innovative. She will take what is and transform it into something new and potentially better than the previous process, product, or system.

The dilemma starts there. If an artist (encompassing all arts) uses a tool or process and alters it to create something new, is that creativity or innovation? From what I can tell from my limited exposure to formal art training, all art is evolutionary. Each successive generation builds on the discoveries of the past.

Tommorrow I want to tackle the question: What is the source of being creative?

Dance you fool!

"Out of limitations comes creativity." Debbie Allen, Choreographer

An aspect of the arts and creativity often overlooked by many men is the art of dance. Since middle school most guys have avoided dance for fear of being clumsy clod hoppers. Unlike Navin R Johnson, who could not keep a beat despite his cultural upbringing, most of us have a natural rhythm in our being that yearns for physical release. Tonight I smiled again as I watched a viral video that incorporates dance.

Art, regardless of it's form, is meant to move the emotions. Make us smile, laugh, cry. When you dance you let down your protective barriers. You move to a feeling. At a very minimum, it should bring a smile to your face.

These three viral videos bring a smile and a tear of enjoyment to me every time I watch them. I even wiggle in my seat a little. Who knows... maybe I'll get down when nobody is watching.