"the perceived difficulty of creative work is undisciplined internal context switching." This has my full attention right now. The most recent episode of Plain English with Derrik Thompson meditates on this idea of Focus and avoiding Distraction. As a storyteller, I am always distracted. This is just how it goes for me. I work like a person in the middle of a spider web that senses and responds to everything at once. I am productive, I suppose, because I block out times with certain objectives, but I'm not really sure about that.
I so appreciate your distinction and illustration of the creative process as phasic. We do a thing, and then we do a different thing—and so often blend it all together. Thank you for this!
Riffing on that axis between focus and distraction, it is precisely our distractibility I surmise could be associated with openness and creativity. As one prone to tangents and the dopaminergic hit of making lateral connections, I resonate with your spider web analogy, especially in performative contexts like jamming or sparring, where one has to be sensitive and responsive to a constantly changing context.
Rather than making it wrong, I think it's a matter of matching (or mismatching) mode and task.
May your distractions prove fruitful. Exploration, play, and flow could be other words for the exact same state, depending on context.
"the perceived difficulty of creative work is undisciplined internal context switching." This has my full attention right now. The most recent episode of Plain English with Derrik Thompson meditates on this idea of Focus and avoiding Distraction. As a storyteller, I am always distracted. This is just how it goes for me. I work like a person in the middle of a spider web that senses and responds to everything at once. I am productive, I suppose, because I block out times with certain objectives, but I'm not really sure about that.
I so appreciate your distinction and illustration of the creative process as phasic. We do a thing, and then we do a different thing—and so often blend it all together. Thank you for this!
Thanks for reading and the thoughtful comment.
Riffing on that axis between focus and distraction, it is precisely our distractibility I surmise could be associated with openness and creativity. As one prone to tangents and the dopaminergic hit of making lateral connections, I resonate with your spider web analogy, especially in performative contexts like jamming or sparring, where one has to be sensitive and responsive to a constantly changing context.
Rather than making it wrong, I think it's a matter of matching (or mismatching) mode and task.
May your distractions prove fruitful. Exploration, play, and flow could be other words for the exact same state, depending on context.