So what’s all this, then?

Long story short: this is a blog. Also a sketchbook, photo album, lab, museum, and general experiment in progress. And it shall henceforth be called…

The plan

Post something every day, five days a week. Technically, the Weekday Wildcard would probably have been a more accurate title, but I didn’t like it as much.

But first, some context.

When I first sat down here tonight, I was thinking I should put together some kind of graduate-thesis-level opus magnum here, some long thoughtful essay on my theories of creativity and maybe an illustrated history on how many blogs I’ve gone through to get to this point. But it’s 7:28pm and I have to finish a few things and bring my car to the dealer around nine tomorrow, so I’m going to save most of that for another time.

I’ve got these four bullet points. I think they pretty much sum it up.

(1) I need a reason to create things regularly.

I’m fortunate to have a job that encourages creativity. Still, there’s a difference between official work projects and random projects/explorations. I learn by both, but I get to experiment more with the wild and random stuff. However, the fact is that if I don’t specifically seek out these explorations, they will probably not happen.

Well, that’s not quite true. They will happen. But they will happen in fits and starts – random sketches, doodles, possibilities that will languish in the Drafts folder of my phone and/or computer and never leave the embryonic stage. When I was young and wild, I believed that ideas were the most important part of any project. They aren’t. An idea is literally nothing without execution, and execution comes from organization. Organization comes from the presence of routines. I need a project that requires a routine of creativity. This site is that project.

(2) On that note, I need a reason to actually finish the things I create.

I don’t know what my ratio of finished works to unfinished works is. It’s probably depressing. I have perfectionist tendencies — I’m not good at ripping my work from my own hands and bringing it into the world. I always see stuff I think needs fixing. Left to myself, my creative process turns into a living example of Zeno’s Paradox: crawling closer and closer to my idea of “finished” but never quite getting there. If I’ve made a public vow to post something new five times a week, however, actually finishing projects takes on a new urgency. Can’t disappoint my legions of loyal readers, now can I?

(3) Creating things reminds me I have a mind and soul.

I’ve realized that it is frighteningly easy to forget one has a mind and soul. All it takes is getting distracted by activities that don’t require either one.

I wouldn’t say, generally speaking, that I lead a mindless or soulless life. But I get preoccupied with the daily grind. There is always something more justifiably immediate than creativity. Nope, I can’t finish that drawing until I pay these bills. And answer those emails. And clean the kitchen. Important tasks are important. Creativity is nice. Creativity can wait.

But all that waiting piles up into stagnation, and stagnation isn’t good. When I’m working out a design problem, or building something interesting, or trying to connect a bunch of different ideas into one cohesive creation, I feel awake in a way that I’ve realized hasn’t been frequent these days. Regular creative problem solving is more psychologically important than I think it’s given credit for.

(4) Creating things also reminds me there is life beyond my apartment.

Avenue Q reference there, but it’s true. A routine of creativity is an incentive to notice more; a reason to think, and seek out interesting things. I was just thinking about blog posts for next week. I need ideas. If I’m on the hunt for ideas, I will see more of what’s going on around me than if I spend my various trips from point A to point B thinking about the emails I need to send.

He not busy being born is busy dying. — Bob Dylan

This isn’t a bullet point so much as a philosophy. I think it covers most of everything I’ve just said.

So, then. Let the wild rumpus start.