Going Deep
From my End-of-Year Newsletter, 2009
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I want to revisit a topic I brought up back in July (“The Value of Doing Nothing”). It seems even more important and appropriate as we turn into winter, the fallow time of the year. The topic is this: the importance, no – more than that – the absolute, vital necessity of going deep in order to do our creative work. By going deep, I mean really having enough time to immerse yourself deeply in your work, or to discover what in fact the work is.
One of my former student/clients just told me her cell phone had been stolen (along with a lot of other things in her purse-ouch!). At first she didn’t know how she would survive without it until the new one came. But then something unexpected happened. She discovered that going “off line” was incredibly helpful to her in focusing on her dissertation, which is the project she is currently working on.
It is so easy in our lives today to be distracted: by the cell phone and the email and the 24-hour-news programs and everything else. What I think it really boils down to is that everyone now expects everyone they want to reach to be available at all times. And if you are working creatively, this is not OK. You need to be able to block out time when you are uninterrupted so you can just think, or mull, or play, or waste time, or daydream, or whatever it is you do to get to the source from whence all our creativity springs.
What would your life look like if you did this: start every morning with two whole hours to do as you please? Does that sound impossible? How about a half hour to yourself before you begin your writing time, and no checking emails or phone messages until you are through? Or if all that really seems not feasible right now, how about a whole day on the weekend where you leave the cell phone and email behind and do what you want (including your creative time)?
This client asked me when we were talking, “How did you get deep enough to write your book?” (referring to It’s About Time, which was published in 2003). I told her, “I walked every morning, by myself.” That’s how I go deep.
Obviously, in my life right now walking alone is not possible very often. Mostly I’m walking with Mia in the stroller, but I find if it’s the time she’s needing to get quiet for her nap, even that can work for me (as long as I don’t pick up the cell phone to talk!).