60. The Power of Boredom

60. The Power of Boredom

In this podcast episode, I reflect on boredom. Boredom is a restless, sometimes frightening emotion that can feel like an indictment of a life being wasted. This leads some of us to run toward distractions, productivity tools, or urgency. The problem as I see it, isn’t boredom, but the avoidance of it. Shaming ourselves with “shoulds” and infinite task lists amplifies the dread. Instead, how about taking a different approach by pausing to acknowledge boredom as a signal rather than a driver. Can we look for small glimmers of life to sow seeds of play within the necessary chores or uninspiring moments which are simply part of living? I end the episode with a piano piece blending two of my other compositions, “Herd” and “Alight”, both in F minor. As with all of my music, it is ever-evolving. Transcript Ah, boredom. What am I gonna do? Nothing to do? Ugh. It seems as if boredom has a sense of a exhaustion to it. Restlessness? But it's base, I think it can feel quite scary. Some can even view it as this indictment against themselves. Of, somehow this reflection of an empty life. And so we might look to occupy ourselves with the next productivity tool, the next craft, the next project interest, whatever. Well, to put it more bluntly though, we run from that feeling of boredom. But the trouble isn't the boredom, it's the running. THE GUILT IN BOREDOM Whenever we dismiss, cutoff, any emotion, we cut something from ourselves. Sometimes we shame ourselves with the shoulds. I should be that person. I should have done more in my younger years. I should do the laundry. I shouldn't be bored. We use the should as this sort of knife. Any of these emotions can be painful, and so we distract ourselves. Sometimes we become overwhelmed standing at the edge of some work, some field of knowledge, the gaping maw of some effectively infinite task list. Just start. Just start might be the admonition here. One I'm certainly not a fan of, especially as it can easily touch off more of the, "I don't wanna" feelings. Running from boredom can sound like, well, I better act now and get rid of that feeling. The feeling is like it's pesky. Something to push away. As we dive into another activity, often fueled by and further fueling some sense of urgency, but if we pause, pay attention to it, allowing it to be neither indulging nor ignoring, we might acknowledge its power, it's grip. Sometimes it's a small tingle, but other times it's this existential dread. A sense that life itself is being wasted. And now we add on that we only have our shameful selves to blame, effectively compounding the problem. THINGS STILL NEED TO GET DONE Some of those boring things, taxes, laundry, dishes, and the like, yet need doing. And when we pause without running, we can hear that emotion as a signal and less have it become our driver. When we pause, we might be able to consider, "How can I find some life, some flow within whatever it is that might be boring? What tiny plant of play perhaps can I find in here and nourish?" The answer, of course is not obvious. Sometimes it's not even possible. But what we do start doing is we stop avoiding the things that are causing us boredom and troubles, and instead start recognizing that we can try to find life within them, and that that itself is a practice. When I returned to the piano on those days that I'm not feeling it, I'll still sit with it. I'll breathe it in. Feel the moment as it is. Maybe just maybe lightly brush a key with a gentle touch, and then maybe just maybe press a key. I'm not acting, I'm not "faking it until I make it," a phrase that makes me otherwise nauseous. FINDING LIFE IN ONE NOTE Instead, what I'm doing is I'm listening for the life. Within that note, can I hear that? I'm not trying to defend against the space time, distortions of boredom and other strong emotions, but I'm trying to integrate it, sing through it with it, form with it. I am where I am in the mush of the moment. And can I hear the beauty of that single sound in a single note, in that mush? And if I can find that itself, not a simple task, but if I can, even if the entire session is about that, somehow something unlocks. Whatever comes next, somehow rings more deeply, whatever's left of that session, even if it's only for a few moments that I'm playing something, somehow it feels more engaging and powerful than had I spent hours pounding away at the keys. Next sessions, both at the piano and in other things of my life throughout the day, somehow carry a different confidence. This confidence that's born in the bravery of facing that stalwart foe of boredom once again. It is a challenge, but it's a worthy one, and it's one that's rewarded not by some pot of gold at the end, but by a return to where work itself feels alive. If we can find that life, that play, that care, then we're also finding maybe the mastery and meaning in the moment. SITTING WITH BOREDOM It's not solved in a day, and I don't have a hack for you, but I do have a suggestion. The wandering mind wanders, not least of all through avoiding flaring and difficult emotions, but also we can guide it with practice engaging emotions like boredom again. In this way, it becomes less driver and more messenger. The next time you might feel that wave of boredom approach even envelop you, can you be with it? Can you be with it at a place that engages you in that boredom? Can you do so not to a degree that overwhelms you, but also not so little in such a way that you pretend it doesn't exist. Can you do so to whatever caring degree makes sense to you? And if so, what does it have to say? Maybe it says nothing beyond some vague feeling. I wonder how you might experience making that next decision. What would your next session be like, whatever you decide. Might it not be richer than if you simply acted? HEARD AND ALIGHT IN F MINOR The following piece is a mix of a couple of, uh, pieces called Herd and Alight, both of them in F Minor. They're both, I suppose relatively old, a couple decades old. But as with all of these pieces, they tend to evolve. I like the, um, structure that's formed in these that they, um still allow for a flow and a change from one performance to the next. Sometimes I repeat one thing more often and another thing less often and I vary here or there, but still that structure's within it. Anyway, hope you enjoy this piece, that's kind of meld between the two. Um, sometimes I'll think of these pieces as something of a garden, if you will. You know, one grows and another thing fades. Sometimes they combine, sometimes they become two. Anyway, this is called Herd and Alight. Mentioned in this episode: Join the Weekly Wind Down Newsletter The Weekly Wind Down is an exploration of wandering minds, task and time management, and more importantly, how we find calmer focus and meaningful work.

59. Creativity and Error

This episode explores how those of us with ADHD and wandering minds often link our “scatter” to creativity. Of course, turning creative ideas into finished work requires managing motivation, energy, time, and life rhythms. And when scatter turns into "error", we can become completely derailed. It may seem counterintuitive, but I would argue that "error" is a vital part of creativity. That being said, while Bob Ross’s “happy accidents” and Miles Davis’s attitude toward mistakes can be inspiring, this mindset tends to only ring true for masters of their craft. Perfection paralysis and self-accusations about mistakes can cause harm and prevent us from moving forward or even starting in the first place. But I like to define creativity as discovering what you’re making over time. This should leave no room for what may be perceived as a mistake, whether in art or even in practical tasks. So when we are confronted with a perceived error or mistake, I invite you to pause, acknowledge any emotions coming up, and use error to realign rather than ignore it. We close out with an experimental music piece, “Inspawn,” which is a combination of "inspire" and spawn". It gives you a glimpse of how I learn jazz techniques through play and letting creativity take me on a journey with no mandatory destination. Transcript THE LOVELY CHAOS OF CREATIVITY > But my scatter is my creativity! Those with ADHD, wandering minds and the like are often creative. Sometimes we attribute that creativity to the feelings of scatter itself. This idea, that idea, they all jump in and suddenly there's a connection. But there can be troubles with creativity. Guiding it to a conclusion means several things, including managing motivation, energy, time, balance in the rhythms of our lives and more. Today I thought we can consider the vital role of error in creativity. THE SHACKLES OF PERCEIVED MISTAKES Pithy statements from Bob Ross. Talks of "happy accidents." Or Miles Davis who talks about not fearing mistakes as there are none, sound wonderful. They can even resonate as true. But really mainly is true for a master in their craft. If I were to pick up a paintbrush, and by some amazing luck was able to create the Mona Lisa, but then somewhere I, I dunno, threw a splash of red paint across it because that's really where my painting abilities are, that might be a mistake. But the truth in those pithy statements is that we can create more trouble for ourselves by accusing ourselves of making mistakes. CREATIVITY AS PLAYFUL DISCOVERY Anyway, let me back up a moment. Creativity. What do I even mean by creativity? Creativity is this development of something over time as a discovery. We discover what we're making in the act of making it. We don't know the steps there. We don't know what the end will be. There's some blurriness to the vision. We don't know, maybe both the steps there or what the end might look like. In this way the information, the skills, it's not entirely within our conscious awareness. Some aspect of the work is outside of us. And in this way, the act of creativity is about discovering something as we make it. That doesn't have to be about art then, it could be a budget, a report, fixing a door that's stuck. Whatever it is, we try to envision something and then take some gentle step forward. That idea of a next action of breaking off, a small piece, of slowing down, of searching for the simplicity, the fundamentals, but then there is error. THE PERFECTIONISM PROBLEM Somewhere we discover that whatever we're doing is deviating from that blurry vision, making it worse. We don't know where we're heading, but where we're heading doesn't seem quite right. Many with ADHD end up berating themselves somewhere here. The so-called perfectionism may have prevented even reaching that first step, as effective as it is in defending ourselves from the shame that might arise when we're looking at trying to complete a thing. As we are a creative, we weave together this unknown as we resolve this vision. DISCOVERING CURIOSITY IN EMOTION Let me take another side step for a moment and define emotion. I've defined it in other episodes, is that which comes to mind. Admittedly a different definition than what you might be used to, but it allows for a different point of view that can be helpful here. For example, words, thoughts, even logic. These are the cresting of emotion into consciousness. We're trying to understand what we can trust to exist, for example, when these thoughts then are the manifestation. Now what does that have to do with ADHD? If we define emotion this way, every emotion has discovery within it. There's this unknown becoming known, and this transition can touch off other emotions. When we're in flow, things are building. It can be delightful. We're moving through those windows of challenge. Neither overwhelmed nor bored. But when errors appear, that deviation from vision, because emotions are involved, they have this tendency to find their way through the windows that are open now. The "I should have known," it leads to this wave of regret. "What don't I know," can touch off fear. "What does this say about me that I don't know?" Well, this wave of shame can grow. The shoulds, the woulds, the potentials, and all the rest, entwine with anger, if not rage, themselves finding lightning rods in ourselves and the worlds around us. These feelings might have been born in the early years of being chastised and accused of being lazy and whatever. They all echo. Finding their way through those channels that are now open to consciousness. PRACTICING THE PAUSE What can be most helpful, as it is often most helpful, as it is also often most difficult, is to first pause. Within that pause, we can now practice acknowledging those emotions as they come to mind. As we're in those sessions, in those visits. Because as we do that, we can see those symbols, the stories, the ideas, whatever they are that relate to the vision or not. We can engage this lifetime practice of care, bravery, and mastery. Whatever the craft, you can see that pain of lacking perfection. And in so doing, we see that error that's inevitable. The path will always deviate from the vision. The mistake is ignoring it. The lesson is in acknowledging it 'cause that's where we can realign and engage once again. INSPAWN Today's piece of music is called Inspawn. It's kinda like inspire and spawn mixed together as a word that probably isn't a word. Anyway, that's what it is. Um, I've been experimenting a bit with, with, uh, jazz, trying to learn it. As if that's a thing I can actually completely learn. It's not, it's, it's another vast field, mountain range on which to, to try to climb. But you can hear a bit of the dominant major, or major sevenths I should say, and maybe some, uh, as well, some ninth chords in here. It starts to grow more into the jazz realm when you start adding more of those higher, harmonic registers. Anyway, just learning it. And when learning, I think it's always about, uh, trying to integrate play in some way, 'cause that's the way you make it a part of yourself. And, and so that's what I'm doing. Anyway. Hope you enjoy the piece, it's not exactly jazz, but you can hear some of the little echoes of jazz in here perhaps. Mentioned in this episode: Rhythms of Focus - CTA - Subscribe, Rate, and Review

58. Trust, Decay, and Retooling - A Discussion with Michael

This week I have a discussion with Michael, a Waves of Focus [https://www.kouroshdini.com/waves-of-focus] group member, about living with ADHD and a wandering mind and how he refines tools and routines to manage distractibility, interruption sensitivity, and RSD. Diagnosed as an adult six years ago after years of being mischaracterized with learning issues, Michael gained clarity through ADHD community resources (including How to ADHD and Waves of Focus). He describes “refinement” as narrowing and consolidating workflows across methods and tools. We discuss trust vs. doubt in systems, keeping clutter out of daily view, the emergence of AI, and preserving autonomous thinking and human creativity. You can see more about what Michael Porter is getting up to at his website [https://www.michaelpporter.com/]. HELPFUL TOOLS FOR ADHD AND WANDERING MINDS REFERENCED: Obsidian [https://obsidian.md/] Jira [https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira] Waves of Focus [https://www.kouroshdini.com/waves-of-focus] OmniFocus [https://kourosh.gumroad.com/l/CreatingFlow3] DevonThink [https://kourosh.gumroad.com/l/Taking_Smart_Notes_With_DEVONthink] Due reminder app [https://www.dueapp.com/] Todoist [https://www.todoist.com/] Mentioned in this episode: Rhythms of Focus - CTA - Subscribe, Rate, and Review

57. The Power of Anchoring with ADHD - Options Over Tasks

Summary This episode explores how ADHD and wandering minds can make “I don’t wanna” feelings so strong that even writing a dreaded obligation down feels difficult because, in doing so, we are admitting it exists. To get over this hurdle, I introduce a foundational skill from the WAVES method called anchoring. This technique allows us to pause and write down what is happening and the pathhs available to us in the now. We treat these items as options rather than tasks that fill us with overwhelm. When ready, we prepare to “launch” into an action by giving ourselves the choice of where to give our attention in the moment. We end with a reflective piano piece called “Caregiver.” Transcript But if I write it down, that means I have to do it. One of the struggles of ADHD, wandering minds and beyond is that it can be terribly complex navigating the, I don't want to feelings, for example. Maybe we get caught in the sense of where they come from, or more often than not, we're trying to outsmart them. Of course, that can lead to its own troubles. So what do we do? "I don't wanna" feelings can run deep. Have a listen to episode nine [https://rhythms-of-focus.captivate.fm/episode/i-dont-wanna-and-the-practice-of-agency] to get a sense of what they can be about. One place they crop up is in even admitting that something exists. A report, the taxes, whatever it is, can become so dreaded that even writing them down becomes a terrifying enterprise. If we write it down that means we would admit to ourselves that there's this thing to do. As odd as that might seem, it's simply human. We can expand that notion to the world of therapy, for example, if we give voice to a problem, maybe we're making it worse. I think we inherently, naturally gut level, know, that as we pay attention to something, some emotion, something that's stirring the back of mind, barely cresting into consciousness, we start to give it a form. Words, thoughts themselves are this cresting of the emotions, this consolidation, crystallizing of them into our minds. "Did I just say something dumb in that conversation? Well, if I don't call it out, maybe no one will notice." The same idea happens within us, even if there's no one to see, but ourselves. One of the foundational skills in the WAVES approach to practicing ADHD, is that of anchoring. It's a simple pen and paper technique that I'll give you the rudiments of right now. It's probably something you've done before, but didn't realize that there were some unwritten rules that were around it, and so it maybe faded out and you wondered what happened to it. You may have felt that success, but then it was fleeting, illusionary, like so many others. But once you know its rules, well, then you can start to practice it. And you can use it at any time. You don't have to use it. It's there when you feel like it. It's particularly helpful when feeling scattered, confused, exhausted, really any negative emotion really. Or even a positive one if you wanna feel like I wanna focus a little more strongly in this direction or the other and not get lost on some rabbit trail. So here's the technique: First is to pause. Probably the hardest bit of all of this. Secondly, if you have a pad of paper, you can use that as this anchor. If you, uh, don't already have this pad of paper around, you can, start a new one. It could be the back of an envelope if you like that. Next, write in some attempt to acknowledge what your options are of this moment. Grounding yourself in the reality of where you are now. And we're doing this without following through on doing them. You might have an idea, you might have a feeling, but consider any of these possibilities: * One, what are you doing in this moment? If you're multitasking, what are those multiple tasks? Or maybe you're spending time with someone at the moment, you can write the option to pay attention to them. * Secondly, what might be pulling at you? For example, maybe there's something you're hoping to remember to do. Examples might be something you want to do, something you might impulsively do. Maybe there's something that's gnawing at you, something you feel like you need to do. I like to use the mnemonic wind. WIND: Want, Impulse, Need and Drift or Do Nothing. So these ideas that are in your mind in this moment might feel like you are about to brainstorm, but this is not brainstorming. Brainstorming is where you're associating. You're connecting one idea to the next, pulling to mind what might be there lurking there, but you're connecting one thing after the next saying, oh yeah, there's this I can do and that I can do it, et cetera. Well, you could do that if you want, but uh, I might look at that as a form of in indulgence, if you will. It's in the meditational way of speaking. You're inviting a process to tea. To manage this, to avoid the brainstorming part of it, rather than feel like you have to hold back or something, you can write down the option to brainstorm. Now that leaves then whatever is on our mind in this moment, including the option to brainstorm. Something else might come to mind, like something that you don't want to do right now. Something that doesn't make sense to do right now. Well, you could write that down on the side. Maybe cordon it off and say, okay, that's for later. Maybe you're wondering what's on my to-do list. Lemme go there first and take a look. Well, that'd be something of an indulgence too. Rather than dive there, you could write down consult to-do list. Now that's an option. The idea is that you are consulting your own mind. Now you might wonder what to do if something else comes to mind, something to develop, something to get into. Again, give those a separate space if you like. A Today List. Sometimes you have one to two things that come to mind. Sometimes five or ten, maybe more. But at some point you've reflected where your mind is in this moment, and that's the moment you've anchored. Now there's a next phase to this if you'd like. So now that you've anchored, there's also this idea of launching. So anchor and launch. So we get to this fourth step, which is where launch begins, which is at any point, circle an option that you feel makes sense to be with now and attempt to be with that thing you've circled. And of course, you might wonder, what if I wander off? I'd be willing to bet that you'd wander off even the moment that you've circled it. Say, oh yeah, I'll come back to that. That's part of it. What you can do, if and when you catch yourself wandering, I should say, return to the beginning and consider adding where you wandered off as a new option on your anchor pad. What that does is then it helps you to align yourself with your intentions. It might take one time, two times. Might take several times, but somewhere things start to align. Lastly. When that anchor no longer represents the now, and this is important, and this is one of the places you may have gone off the rails with this that it didn't work out for you. Feel free to add things, cross things off. Make them once again reflect the now and once it does not reflect the now, get rid of it, archive it, discard it, trash it, whatever makes sense. If there's something important on there that you wanna remember, okay. Where do you trust that you would be able to come back to that? Maybe you just title it differently and say, this is an important thing, and you put that off to the side somewhere. That would be part of another type of practice. Figuring out longer task lists and communicating with future you at a longer distance than what we're doing here now. Whatever it is, if that paper is no longer representative of the now, your mind in this moment, it's no longer an anchor. Now this all might seem simple, and it is in some ways, but so is meditation, which in particular for wandering minds can be quite difficult. Fortunately, I find this much easier than the typical rest your mind on your breath type of meditation. But one of the major muscles that are practiced in this is that as you're writing something down, here in this anchoring process, you're doing so as options, not tasks, and this is one of the important muscles to exercise. A wandering mind tends to be zoomed in the periphery, the short term memory, that's all in short supply. Working memory, what we play with in this moment is in full blast. As a result, thoughts can pass by and we know they're short-lived and we'll lose them quickly. If you've ever used a microscope, you can understand. If you see something, it's like, oh, better not lose it. The nature of the mind being a lens itself is that you forget that you've lost something. And as a result, we tend to hold onto things, jump from one thing to the next in near instant calculation of, do I have the momentum? Do I have the motivation to do it? Is this more important than what I'm doing? Or it might all boil down to this is shinier on fire and there's seemingly no thought process. You may even find yourself there without having realized it. So when you do catch a thought, it immediately becomes this burden. It's this, I have to do this while it's on my mind. But because it can be so heavy, this affront to sense of agency, we might decide well, maybe I can let it go. If it's important enough, it'll come back to me. Whether by floating back again into mind or by urgency of a deadline or somebody reminds you, whether we do it or not isn't the issue. It's that we're forced to make this decision then and there. Because of that zoomed in nature of the mind, further weighing down our ability to make a decision, that pressure of time makes it that much worse. And this can become the majority of our experience when it comes to decisions. Particularly with those things that we might be avoiding. But with this anchoring process, the idea of transitioning from task to option lifts that burden, it's a practice. It's new, it's not familiar, but with some attempt at it, it becomes familiar and it becomes something that's not required. It's no longer a thing you have to do. It's a suggestion at the moment, but later on it becomes, oh, this helps me. Another way to think about anchoring is like creating a menu for this moment, only this moment. By writing the options down. That short term memory, that part of us that's trying to hold on so tightly to the multiple possibilities, that probability cloud of the next, that muscle can now relax. And the energy that's now available because of that relaxation is now there to help make the decision. It's there to help consider the option as an option rather than hold onto it for fear that it's going to run away. So as a takeaway, maybe try anchoring, pause with a piece of paper, reflect on where the mind is in this moment, and don't forget to trash it, destroy it, get rid of it. Archive it when it no longer reflects the now. And further. Can you feel the difference of creating options over tasks? Several episodes ago I described the spirit and practice of care. It's one of those episodes people will bring up to me regularly saying it touched something. It's episode 41 [https://player.captivate.fm/episode/38a3b2e1-b13f-49cf-8b0a-c02c27726554/] if you wanna check it out. Care is not simple. It pulls on us every which way. Whether we're caring for the work in front of us or the people in our lives, we're limited in our resources and that can have its own effects, its own emotional reverberations through us. The following piece is called Caregiver. It's an attempt to reflect that melancholy that we might find ourselves in when, in that position. So I hope you enjoy it. I hope it's something that provides a point of reflection. Mentioned in this episode: Rhythms of Focus - CTA - Subscribe, Rate, and Review

56. Fear of the Blank Page

This episode focuses on the struggle of the blank page. How it can seem like a hack to use pre-existing content to spring us forward to a starting point that isn't "nothing." But it can also build limitations to create something new and exciting when boxing ourselves in with the ideas of our previous work, past notes, or even AI. What seems like a great way to jump ahead can turn into a confusing mess that feels like it's missing your own voice. The blank page is terrifying because it mirrors self-doubt, distraction, and exhaustion. Yet prematurely searching outside oneself can narrow thinking, block new paths, and reduce creation to what already exists. Vitality in art comes from discovery and play—a resonance between self and world—rather than repeating what’s been done. Research and AI can be useful, but the unique seed of an idea must begin from within. Even the worst rough drafts are a necessary fertilizer for growth through revision. We end with a piece called "Where Did the Table Go?" ##Transcript THE ANXIETY OF STARTING FROM SCRATCH All right, I gotta write this thing. I gotta make this thing. How can I make this thing with as little time as possible? Okay, maybe I'll ask AI. Okay. I look through my past notes, I'll research what I've already done. Minutes go by. Oh, what is this? What am I, I can't, no, this doesn't make sense. Hours go by. This is a mess. We all have things we need to create the work, the repeated work, the blank page. There's schools of thought around writing, for instance, that promise never having to work from the blank page. We can dive into our past notes nicely cultivated, and pull out some inspiration. Or perhaps we have a project we can pull up the mighty internet or the promises of AI to outline the work for us. But then something can feel missing. What is that? What's missing is us, the creative self. Why would we run from that? But there's some reason. That blank page can be terrifying. It holds up this mirror that says what you think you're creative? Do you think you know what you're talking about? Do you know how many other people know more than you about whatever it is you think you're talking about? Every comment pummels us as we sit further and further back into the chair, if we can even manage to stay there. A wandering mind, ADHD or beyond can certainly find reason to run here. Distraction, exhaustion, collapse all nipping at our heels, if they haven't gotten us already. One of our methods of relieving that tension is in the search for what's come before. Un-blank, the page. THE COMPLICATIONS OF PRE-EXISTING PATHS But there's so many troubles that can come from other paths of premature search. If we look at existing research our mind is pulled to what exists. If we look at past notes, we might block new paths. If we ask AI, we really only see the average of what already exists. Whatever it is, we lose the seed of discovery in creation and it is in discovery where we find vitality. When I play a piece of music that I've played a hundred times before without variation, there's no feeling in it. It gives both me and the audience a headache. When I can play with a sense of finding something new, well, now we're talking. That sense of vitality comes through in the notes. That's what we're listening for. That's what feeds back on itself. But discovery itself is only an artifact. Its vitality comes from play. Something deep within a connection and exploration of self and world reacting, but guiding. A creative building sense of fulfillment, meaning, and more. In other words, discovery is a resonance between world and self building from within. NURTURING THE SEED It's not to say that research, previous writings or even AI should not be consulted. On the contrary, any one of these can be powerful themselves, bulging with their own caches of knowledge and more. But the seed of an idea, a sentence, a blurry vision from within is where it all begins. While a conceived egg is tiny, it is so powerfully unique unto itself. It can gather whatever it can from womb to world, from that epicenter, all the while remaining powerfully unique unto itself. So for a moment, it's useful to hold that tension of the blank page and see what comes to mind. Of course, you might be worried, what if it's terrible? What if there's nothing unique? What if I've got nothing to offer? WHERE THERE IS SHIT THERE IS GROWTH In the wonderful words of Earnest Hemingway, "The first draft of anything is shit." And what I love about that phrase is the dual meaning. The first draft is no good for consumption. Whatever is, there is a sketch, a start, maybe even ugly. But shit is also a fertilizer. It's what gives the ground the nutrients of growth. We need it to be there for the second and third drafts and beyond where matters flower and bloom. We visit and revisit building and practicing facing the blank page to write again. Somewhere something is written, but beyond something changes within ourselves, as we practice, we create ourselves. And maybe that's even scarier. That's the pause for bravery. But when we can. We can start from within and go from there, because that's where it's alive. WHERE DID THE TABLE GO Titles for music seems silly when I realize I've created a new piece. I tend to sit in silence for a moment after playing it, and I wait until some title comes to mind. Sometimes it makes sense, though many times it doesn't, and I keep crafting it. This is part of the art itself, I suppose. So while I had a previous piece called, "Where Did the Table Go?", well, this one perhaps, surprisingly, came to mind as I think I found the table. I hope you enjoy it. Mentioned in this episode: Rhythms of Focus - CTA - Subscribe, Rate, and Review