Taking my time.
It’s been 2 weeks since my last blog post. Normally, this would have stressed me out. But I feel great. I feel at peace. Aside from the fact this is my first blog, I realized you can’t force creativity for the sake of a deadline. Now, once I am working in an agency, that will change. But this isn’t an agency. This is me learning not to force my creativity. To wait it out. Let my subconscious work.
I could tell you about my stay in Amsterdam. Walking 5 kilometers a day. The canals. The canibus. Not really original, though.
Now, if we’re talking originality, the music festival I just got back from definitely fit the bill. But it’s a music festival nonetheless. If you’ve been to one, that’s what happened.
No.
I have decided to blog, instead, about this little lesson of taking my time. Something I did not follow in my first year in graduate school. You see, once you work in finance, or as any sort of suit, you learn early that long hours directly translate into great work. So that’s what I did. Forcing the right side of my brain to come up with the next genius headline, concept, whatever. And failing miserably time and time again.
It’s like what I said in an earlier post. A writer’s work needs to be his therapy, as well as his craft. And the only thing that changed from my past career was that I was wearing flip flops instead of loafers. Now I needed my brain to loosen its tie a little.
The advice was strange to take in. “Do less work?” I thought to myself when Fenske wrote it up on the chalkboard the first month of school. It was too good to be true. I felt like the workaholic who’s boss had just given him the rest of the day off. I didn’t know how to react. What do I do? “I can get started on the Fisher account…no?”
Slowly but surely this summer, I am working less. And learning more. Feeding my brain the priceless knowledge you attain from books and new experiences. I can feel it breathe again. The clutter is clearing up. And looking back, most of my ideas from first year all seem trivial now. That’s what usually happens when you force creativity: you go around in circles until you convince yourself what you have is great.
It’d be nice to say that doing less is easy. Turns out, it’s easier said than done.
