Be creative every day

One of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in recent memory was this delightful… thing.

http://www.drawastickman.com/

It ended with a fantastic message.  It’s something that resonated with me and something that I already totally embrace but fail to fulfill.

Why are you still reading? Go draw a stickman. I’ll wait. Go!

Great, so now we’re on the same page!

So, aside from the message, something I really loved about that website is that everything it did was within my grasp.  I could have made that.  My artistic ability, primitive as it is, could have created that.

So why didn’t I?

Hmm.

There was a hacker news link to a interesting Stack Overflow question earlier today.  I read the question and….  was appalled.   The educators initial thought for how to illustrate programming to students…. involved math!  “NO, that’s Wrong!™” thought I. 

…And then I didn’t answer the question.   It entered my mental queue.  I can construct a “good™” answer to this, but I didn’t.  Or at least, haven’t yet.

Hmm.

Well then.

The Godenites would shout about how it’s due to my lizard brain.  Maybe.  Maybe the reason I don’t act on every impulse or every thing I think I can contribute is because of a fundamental human fear of failure.  But I somewhat aspire to mania…

There’s merit to being a little bit insane.  Not legitimately insane, mind you – just a social aberration.  Willing to speak when unexpected or not speak when expected.  Or perhaps just embedding a song in my stride as I walk down a hall… wondering if anyone notices my slightly off-kilter footsteps.

Or just asking the obvious question.

I lied… I don’t aspire to mania or insanity.  I aspire to reason and thoughtfulness… but I enjoy the unexpected. The intrigue of abnormality. Thoroughly.

 

Sometimes I write under the guise of a cynic.  I don’t wish to be negative … actually I’m always quite upset when I catch myself caught in a context of negativity: I wish to drown out my world with positive perspectives whenever possible.  It’s better that way.   But cynicism is interesting.  The devil’s advocate is both a fun and important role to play.

I wrote a haiku today, and I won a refrigerator.
I don’t think there was much competition, but it’s perhaps the most monetarily valuable poem I’ve ever composed.  There’s a novelty in that, and I suspect that in time the novelty will prove itself to have been more valuable to me than the refrigerator.  Though I’m sure it was entirely unintentional and unrealized, the invitation to write a haiku in exchange for a refrigerator was a delightful gift that I received today.  I think there’s a great value in giving gifts like that to the world.

 

Next time you leave a tip with a credit card,  write a haiku on the receipt.   Have humble trust in your gift of novelty being appreciated. It will be.

 

For Christmas this year, I purchased one present.  A simple item that would cause a smile.  It’s important to have something under the 10” tree.  The rest are a stream.  I have envelopes, glitter pens, a vest, a girl who loves dancing, and I know how to combine them.  Protip: do not combine the glitter pens with the vest. The true gifts will trickle in, and their objective is simple and clear:  maximize the experience.  Theatricality is paramount;  cost, practicality, and sanity.. less so.

 

And so I meander.  Most of my writing evolves in this way, and then I edit viciously.  Early in my writing development I discovered that the antithesis of creativity is the blank page.  There was a time when I had to provide a 5-point essay on the topic of my choice… every day.  I learned to write them in 10 minutes. Watch:

This is literally the first paragraph of the essay.  It’s not of consequence that it’s a paragraph talking about how it’s the first paragraph of the essay, all that matters is that the page is no longer blank… instead, it’s a page with a paragraph.  I’ve started many a good essay with a paragraph on ewoks, lines from a Cream song, or assorted daydreamy thoughts.

Now we’re on to the second paragraph.  Grasp something, anything, from the first paragraph and make a point from it.  It doesn’t even matter if the grammar is repetitive.  The topics of my daydreams have drifted in time.  As a child, I focused primarily on sensational topics – running, climbing, jumping, feeling, tasting….  As a teenager, I drifted more toward … err..  well..  girls.  That one who smiled at me, especially.  What was her name?   Just kidding, I remember perfectly well.   But in adulthood… now it’s about change.  Be the change you want to see in the world™.  Disrupt a flow; optimize an edge; kill all humans; find a new way; channel Feynman.

…

The third and fourth paragraphs are easier now.   Grasp the topic of the first paragraph – day dreams – and take it in two different directions.  The fifth paragraph is a little more of a challenge, but the objective is pretty clear:  You need at least three sentences.  That’s easy enough…  in one sentence each, recap each of your 2nd, 3rd, and 4th paragraphs.  Add a leading sentence if it helps the flow.  Now in your final sentence, draw a conclusion based on the three sentences you just wrote.  Something novel and logically following (however absurdly) from those three simplified sentences.

Now Edit Viciously.   The introduction? The paragraph that starts by saying it’s an introduction, and then talks about ewoks?  Kill it.  It’s crap.  …But you’ve got 90% of the rest of the essay done, so it’s easy to actually introduce the thing that you’ve already spent 4 other paragraphs talking about.    Repeat this for paragraphs 2 through 5.   We want to pull the insanity out… but not quite all of it.  That reference to channeling Feynman?  That was creative and relevant! Keep that bit.  Keep the crazy bits that actually fit™.

And now we have an essay.

Hypothetically, I mean.

This thing you’re reading now? It’s not an essay.

It’s closer to stream of consciousness writing.

Most of my writing starts this way, and then I edit.  Viciously.

 

Editing brings in its own problems… because that’s where I introduce most of my typos and grammatical mismatches.  It’s harder to rewrite a flow than to live with what was there in the first place.  It’s harder to read code and fix its bugs than to write it fresh.  It’s easy to have had things, such as them, and a thing, such as it, and keep their pluralities and tenses proper when you morph their amalgam to what they were and this is.  Editing that type of absurdity will only get you in trouble,  but it came out fine the first time through.

 

Which is why I’m not going to edit this.   I backtrack slightly as I write,  but most of what’s here is raw.  I’ll probably read through this at some point in the future and fix up a typo or a grammatical idiocy,  but until then I’m going to throw this to the wind.  Because I’m done writing now.  I created something and it was joyous… and picking through it for flaws will not be joyous.  I have my MVP and I’m going to ship it. Right now.