WHITE OUT

“Now is the winter of our discontent” 

— William Shakespeare, Richard III

In September and October of 2019, I embarked on a road trip, first through Michigan crossing over the UP, then back to Chicago via Wisconsin. I soon repacked and prepared for an excursion to Springfield, Illinois, the Lincoln Museum, and a tour of southern Illinois, Shawnee National Forest, with various stops on the way back, including Metropolis — the home of Superman. I secured mementos, took notes and photos, and upon my return, was fully prepared to document the entire adventure on this blog.

But the blog fell silent.

At first I figured it was just the result of decompressing and getting back to normal, and that maybe then it was the holidays that distracted me. And then Covid shut me down. It is amazing how busy you can be being busy doing nothing. These times can play with your brain and your energy, and I shut down. But I’ve done a lot of introspection and self-evaluation, so it’s not all bad, except the not blogging part.

Initially I judged myself harshly for not being productive and halting posts on this blog. It took me about a year originally to get it going, and at least a modicum of dedication to keep it going, and I was disappointed, then befuddled as to why, with all of this additional time on my hands, I had just shut down. But then I thought of lessons and learnings from the creativity world that I will share with you here upon renewing posting. There are at least three relevant to taking time off from toil:

1. In the creativity world there is something we call “incubation”. We often use it in our consulting practices for our own purposes, but also in creative sessions. Simply put, it is time one takes away from the challenge at hand to just let things percolate in your brain. Phrases like “I’ll sleep on it” or “I’ll take a walk and give it some thought” come to mind. The best ideas often come to us in these moments when we’re off-task. Einstein famously first envisioned Relativity Theory in the shower — Newton was hit on the head with an apple. In other words, the “Aha Ideas” often come to us at these times away from the work on the challenge. 
2. Another thing we often do in creative sessions is to create what we term “excursions”. To make that happen, I have done sessions adjacent to art galleries, butterfly sanctuaries, nature trails, and funky museums in which we use walk-throughs to stimulate thought by connecting with these evocative stimuli. It is a great opportunity to discover analogies and forced connections to push your creative thinking to a new level. If we lack such adjacencies, we will sometimes play an improv game or will guide the group through a meditation in which they envision a series of stimuli to evoke new associations and new thinking by liberating the mind into a new realm.
3. Lastly, sometimes we are just worn out. We’re tired. As we often say, “I am too close to the problem” or “I’ve got to pack it in and call it a day.” So, time away can allow us to return to the creative challenge with “fresh eyes”. I have often used this in writing. I am frequently not sure if a piece is worthy of publication, but the next day or the next week, I will know right away whether what I have written needs some work — and exactly where it is needed. Typos and grammatical errors leap off the page, and new tweaks to make the writing better will suddenly occur to me that hadn’t occurred to me before. And then, HURRAY — the piece is finished!

In sum, I wouldn’t recommend taking 18 months off from a task, unless it’s ongoing and longterm — like maybe a relationship or a huge architectural project, or putting together the Oxford English Dictionary* or something like that.

But I am back, and look forward to getting these posts cranking again. As I gear up, my perspectives learned have me wanting to be more brief, have more fun, use more humor, and provide more pith to stimulate your thinking more meaningfully and in a more useful and daily applicable way.

These are tough, uniquely challenging times. I wish you well as you weather them and hope you wish me the same.

And so, here we go again!

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”

— Albert Camus

* See the film “The Professor and the Madman”