The other day, while spending time with my mom, she asked how my writing/creating journey has been going.
After telling her, I asked her the same.
And during her response she mentioned this idea of a clearing that’s been circling in my mind ever since.
She essentially said she hasn’t started any of her personal writing/creating projects because she still has a decent project workload that’s keeping her busy as is. And she said what she imagines herself doing to better honor her muse is create a clearing in her schedule where she can just sit and ruminate… uninterrupted and without obligation of any kind… maybe even for days at a time.
And with that clearing, she imagined not binge watching her favorite Ion TV episodes, but letting her creative juices flow and seeing what comes up.
And it reminded me of something Neil Gaiman said when he was asked how he found inspiration to create, to which he said something along the lines of: I get myself bored.
The problem in today’s world, he adds, is that it’s really hard to get bored. There are millions of people online just waiting to entertain us with a thumb tap or two…
But, if we can manage it, boredom is the springboard for ideas. It’s where our mind starts to daydream, drift, remix, and wander… it’s when it starts to actively try to entertain itself.
And so this is the insight I’m currently playing with in my life: how can I create more clearings in my schedule? How can I deliberately get myself into more states of boredom? How can I create a space where my muse will more frequently visit?