A lot of us have been having weird symptoms again. Insomnia, vertigo, free-floating, sudden onset anxiety, nervous system anomalies, unexpected outbursts of rage, bizarre money events (good and bad). Those are just the ones I’ve heard about in the last week. And of course there’s the crazy shit happening with people and guns in society. Continue reading
If it’s true that my daily habits are the difference between mediocrity and success, then I want to develop the right daily habits. But, how do I square this with my tendency to rebel against expectations?
The answer: I don’t know.
But I want to find out.
Here are a few ideas I’m working with to try to solve this mystery: Continue reading
In my post on the power of doing something every day, I mentioned how Gretchen Rubin’s book Better than Before was just about to inspire me to start some positive new habits when Mars went retrograde and my “new start” energy seemed to dissipate into thin air.
Since the Mars Rx ended, I’m back to reading the book and trying to apply Rubin’s insights to motivate myself.
The biggest insight I’ve gained from the book so far (and believe me, it is full of fun, piquant observations) is looking at my habit patterns through the lens of Rubin’s Four Tendencies framework. Continue reading
I started reading Gretchen Rubin’s Better Than Before in February, a few weeks before Mars stationed retrograde. It’s a fascinating exploration into how different people form habits, and how knowing thyself a little better can help you actually succeed at making a good habit (or breaking a bad one).
I’ve been taking classes from producer and electronic musician Jason Timothy – I really dig his sacred warrior approach to music-making. In the intro materials to one of his classes I read the following statement: Continue reading
There comes a time in every human life where one must decide to either follow one’s heart or to live an increasingly hollow existence attempting to meet the expectations of parents, partner, or society. Although the latter choice leads inevitably to infirmity of the spirit, dulling of the mind, and weakening of the body, it does carry with it the comfort of conformity.
For those of us who choose, repeatedly, to follow our hearts, Life is a much more uncertain – and often more volatile – adventure. To expect those close to us to support us in this choice, or even to understand it, is at times to much to ask. Continue reading
Ready for action! Photo by Dick Daniels (Creative Commons)
The turn of the season is a great time to realign with our intentions. Especially so this year, as the Solstice corresponds with Mars – the planet of action, energy, will and desire – returning to direct motion after being retrograde since March. Continue reading
(This post is copied from my Patreon page.)
I was journaling about “just getting started” this morning, and then a few minutes ago I saw AfroDJMac’s post on the topic.
I’m usually working on 3-4 projects simultaneously. I think – being a moody Pisces – this usually works for me. When I get stuck or burned out on one song I can just move over to another one. It’s like creative cross-fertilization or crop rotation.
BUT I realized one reason I procrastinate with music stuff is that I get stuck ruminating on “Which project should I work on today?”
Subconsciously I’m weighing it up as this huge investment. Like, I’d better choose the right project or I’ll have wasted my day. In reality I’m wasting my day by not “just getting started”.
I gave myself permission to dump that old story today by saying: just pick one and set a timer for 5 minutes. If it feels like the wrong one when the timer dings, pick another one…
(I had about 40 minutes music time today. I spent 35 of them totally rockin’ out and making big progress on a live performance technique I’ve been trying to figure out! That was five hours ago and I’m still mildly buzzing from it 😆)
I’ve read – and written – quite a bit about the “just get started” thing, but I had never thought of it in terms of inertia and momentum. Whether you’re a musician or not, I think you’ll find AfroDJMac’s inertia/momentum angle helpful too.
In this recent post on voluntarily embracing limits as a way of increasing creative output, I talk about the limits I used to record a live looping version of Traffic’s Dear Mr. Fantasy.
I also made a video – mainly because I know some of my readers prefer to listen to music on YouTube. The video took me about two hours to make. (Obviously, I have no ambitions of being the next Stanley Kubrick.) I limited myself to using: Continue reading
Haven’t had much time to sit down and write a grammatically-correct, well-structured blog post about the creative process lately. (1)
Between a big freelance project I started three weeks ago and the sometimes frustrating levels of fatigue that seem to be affecting so many of us during this Mars Retrograde, time for unpaid creative work has been in short supply. (Mars, the energy and drive planet, has been retro since March 25. He goes direct on June 29. We should see a noticeable bounce by early July.)
I can’t tell you too many details about the project I’ve been working on. It involves a couple of mega-corporations in which people are using technology to change the way people work. (I’ll share the video once it comes out.) Continue reading
I really like this one, not because it’s perfect – but because it came from a moment of being absolutely in the moment, with full permission to experiment and make mistakes. Continue reading