Creativity in business - and vulnerability, too. Love the puppet caper!

Great interview of the creative curator Maria Popova.

My favorite segment is below . . .

You know, it’s funny because I frequently get emails from young people starting out and asking, “How do I make a successful website or start my own thing?” And, very often, it’s tied to some measure of success that’s audience-based or reach-based. “How do you build up to seven million readers a month or two million Facebook fans?” But the work is not how to get that size of an audience or those numbers. That’s just the byproduct of what Lewis Hyde calls “creative labor,” which is really our inner drive. The real work is how not to hang your self-worth, your sense of success and merits, the fullness of your heart, and the stability of your soul on those numbers—on that constant positive reinforcement and external validation. That’s the only real work, and the irony is that the more “successful” you get, by either your own standards or external standards, the harder it is to decouple all of those inner values from your work. I think we often confuse the doing for the being.

Interesting! A few didn't exercise, or worry about making ends meet, while others socialized or took naps on a daily basis.

Aside from research details in the first half, I found this article engaging yet not particularly enlightening. Yes, schizophrenia is rampant in many creative families including my own. Yes, inventors are untidy while engineers are practical. 

And it has long been observed that creative individuals can channel psychic pain and accept their darkness.

In my work, I help each creator find their own creative place; I believe you can know your own "inventor" as well as your own inner "engineer." It's more about the states you allow yourself to be in than the genes you were born with.

People who don't identify as creative don't take time out to tap musing and wondering, a state the author describes as REST. Yet a reordering of priorities and change of states can have a huge impact.

We all have access to what I call the Dream Kid. It's just that most of the time we've labeled ourselves, gotten too busy, or pushed the possibilities from our lives.

From other creatives, we can learn how to take in the habits that foster unexpected connections and good ideas. 

We may get deeper in touch with ourselves and our subconscious pain, as well. No mental illness required. 

More about Sagmeister's genius approach of time off to fuel creativity. "Sameness is overrated." - love this wisdom!

A bit of fun with mythology, paleontology, psychological speculation and Sinbad. What monsters will you imagine today?

Quirky, touching, provocative story. 

Your writing prompt:

Did you ever have a costume, uniform, hat, or badge that transformed you? What did you become? What happened next?  

A great list for writers and creatives. Some of these, like Letters to a Young Poet, have changed my life. Always reach for inspiration and growth - it's out there.

My two favorites:

*Failure is only one moment before success.*

and

*Creation can come from destruction.*

Many stories I've written seemed failures - until I revised them later, and they won awards.

I discovered collage by destroying a watercolor of mine that I hated. It become something entirely new that I quite loved.

Love the concept of playing with "swarm." Anything can make curious, - anything can become your theme when you're creating.