Unstuck

Revelations and realities after 7 days of silent meditation

Over New Years I went on a 7 day silent meditation retreat at Spirit Rock in Northern California. For 7 days I tried to notice every time I got lost in thought, and for 7 days I got really really lost in thought. But on one of those days, one of those thoughts I got lost in felt different.

The thought was something like this: I should write a book about the creative process.

The feeling was something like this:

For the next few weeks, I tried to ride that sweet stream of creativity by writing thousands of words about what drives people to create, how it changes, challenges, and connects us, and a lot of other shit that is tangentially related.

Then the current started to mellow out. I tried to keep momentum by blocking off writing time, telling others to hold me accountable, and watching YouTube hype videos about creativity. But there was no denying it: I felt stuck.

Believe it or not these YouTube rabbit holes did not cure my writer’s block

I had doubts, I made excuses, and I kicked the can down the road in my mind. Thankfully, I eventually got some tough love from a friend who said something to the effect of, “stop tripping, just write about this.”

That shake of the shoulders was all I needed to see the irony of my own stuckness. What I was struggling with was exactly the question I wanted to explore with my writing: What does it look like to go on a creative journey and why is it so damn hard?

Stories have a sneaky way of obscuring reality, and the story I sneaky got attached to sounded something like this:

Man goes on meditation retreat, has revelation, works tirelessly on his magnum opus, self-publishes, self-actualizes, and lives the rest of his life in glory and contentment.

lol turns out reality is a bit messier. I still want to write a book, but I’m trying to let go of how I think it should come to be. To keep me going, I’m setting some smaller commitments:

1. Write this post and hit publish

2. Sign up for a 5-week writing course in April called Write of Passage

3. Keep writing here and publish something every month…ish

4. Take time off every 7 weeks to NOT work or write (h/tPaul Millerd for this idea)

I took my first break of the year last week and went and stayed with friends in San Diego. I got to reconnect with the homies, mountain bike, pickleball, play a lot of Wavelength, and eat a mochi bagel.

I haven’t figured out how to make much progress on writing, but I do feel like I’m making some moves on getting unstuck.

Like for more beaver dam demolition vids,

Brandon