Chocolate, Hard Work & A Walk Down the Magnificent Mile

When there's nothing to worry about, but the typing of my fingers or the speed of my creativity. I become overwhelmingly giddy and goofy. And when a deadline is hours away and I know I'm going to work until I get loopy, I become uncontrollably weird. So weird that I buy chocolate eat it and then spin around in my chair until I'm dizzy. Then as if on cue I dance in front of each person in my dept and offer chocolate and a personalized dance move.

Sometimes the stress level is so high I can feel its thickness. I have come to recognize the frosting of stress and cut it with laughter rather than falling into its crypt.

Creative people do not do well in certain situations, and they definitely do not do well when they are being leashed and tied up like a dog outside a really awesome restaurant. Creative people need fresh air, lots of color, humor, and in my case space to move.

Movement is essential for creativity. So much so, that I sometimes do headstands in my cube, or strut down the hallway with high kicks and kung fu punches. Creativity for me is about moving out all the junk to get to the good stuff. The physicality is essential. More for me to release the control that my brain so often traps me in. The control of perfection is what I've come to recognize. When I'm in that place--it's in many ways a day of doom. Forget getting me to write anything short of crap.

Since I work in a field where judgment is constant, it is essential that I do not judge, but rather associate. What does that mean? Well I'm still learning how to practice what I call "association," but what I've discovered is that it's very abstract and requires nothing of the brain but more of what many people refer to as "the gut." As soon as the brain makes the move, Screwage. You're doomed, because ultimately you'll be plagued with taking the project too personal no matter if it's good or bad. You're doomed because it's suddenly become about you. Or as I should say "me."

Association with intuitiveness is a much more...hmmm...selfless act of creativity. Mark me, it does not mean that you can't "enjoy" or have "fond feelings" for your work, but it cannot be the ultimate reason for doing your work. Rather the work just "comes" and works the way it works because it was inspired to do so.

In essence everything that is creative needs to be "spiritually" driven. Now, I do not mean "religious." But I do mean "spirit." The incorporeal part--the part that is not driven by our brains. The brain does nothing for creativity but cloud. Well, that's not entirely true, but 95% true. The brain provides memory, but memory is still rooted in the incorporeal part.

Delicious. Creativity is so delicious. When you're in it, you're in it and there's nothing else. It's presence personified--Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, the Golden Gate Bridge, a Shakespearean sonnet, Tosca...Nature is a perfect example of creativity. And well, to "create" means to be creative. ...

Tonight after being drained from the thickness of stress that surrounded me and eventually clouded a lot of my presence. I walked. I walked for blocks. I contemplated walking all the way home, but I was hot. It was 60 degrees out and I was wearing a wool coat and my wool fleeced boots. I walked as far as I could down Michigan Avenue. Breathing in the air of the city, relaxing into the darkness and staring up at the clouds that were backlit by the bright towers that balanced around me.

In my head I went to Cahuita, Costa Rica to clear away the claustrophobicness that I was experiencing. I felt the ocean breeze through the stale air of the taxi-driven streets, I felt the energy of the stars, although the lights were from the offices and storefronts around me, I heard the birds in the ambulance sirens, and I saw the ocean in the frozen lake.

I smiled and felt the energy of the city. For the first time in two weeks I felt an energy that wasn't weak, but one that was full of hope. It was on the faces of the people, and it was in the pace of the cars. Things felt slower. The weather must have brought out the warmth and the hope that "Spring will birth new things."

Spring is the time of creativity. The time to plant new seeds, the time to fertilize dreams, and the time to let the cold mourning winter go.

Where we walk there is a path. Where we work there is an energy. Where we are is right here.
Where we create we are present.