Welcome to Gentle Musings, a publication about reconnecting with yourself, experiencing life as a creative practice, and living out loud. Gentle Musings is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support this work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
My mind says: don’t think, just write!
I’ve been meaning to write another studio notes for a while now, but I’ve been overthinking, and overthinking tends to give fingers stage fright on the keyboard.
But then I had the thought: this is just a tendency, isn’t it?! To keep our attention on what we haven’t yet completed or crossed off the list (the stack of half-read books are side-eyeing me).
In a forward-reaching society, I’m often reaching toward what’s next and what’s not here without realizing it. This occurs to me with every new year and every new birthday: I spend so much time reaching.
I’m so ferociously in love with life that I end up sprinting from the present moment to taste more of what hasn’t yet arrived!
And I love this part of myself, the insatiable one. The one who wants to learn it all and all at once. The one who wants to stay in the euphoria of curiosity as an antidote to misanthropy.
This craving for more also catches up with me.
Turns out, creative desires don’t take well to toddler-like grasping. They demand space, time, and next-level non-linearity.
Maybe you find yourself reaching, too: reaching to create better systems; reaching for a goal that you’ve been reaching for, maybe for years, but haven’t yet reached (reach harder, you might say to yourself); reaching for urgent shifts; reaching for belonging; reaching for confidence; reaching for relief; reaching for contentment.
Sometimes this reaching comes from pulsing aliveness… maybe you’re a creative conduit who knows how much life there is to taste, and you want the whole juicy lot of it!
Maybe there is a sense of reaching for security and stable ground in the groundless experience of being a human.
Sometimes we’re patching up a leaky boat while weathering a storm, and the reaching is necessary. Sometimes the storm has passed but the reaching stays.
Well… am I putting off my studio notes? Yes, the answer is yes… But here’s the thing! Just like writing, the discipline of slowing down and taking stock—with seemingly no forward movement—is central to keeping my creative practice generative. Really, it’s central to arriving in oneself and drawing one’s own map.
And: the impulse for more is a beautiful impulse for life.
May we dance between the past, present, and future with honest, fluid equanimity.
