Focus - Leo Babauta [35]
Lack of use. When we don't create on a regular basis, it becomes intimidating. When we put off creating, and put it off, we lose some of the key habits (see below) that allow us to create.
These creativity killers come in many forms, but forming the key creativity habits below will help us to deal with these problems.
the most important creativity habit
In a word, the most important creativity habit: solitude. Creativity flourishes in solitude. With quiet, you can hear your thoughts, you can reach deep within yourself, you can focus.
The best art is created in solitude, for good reason: it's only when we are alone that we can reach into ourselves and find truth, beauty, soul. Some of the most famous philosophers took daily walks, and it was on these walks that they found their deepest thoughts.
My best writing, and in fact the best of anything I've done, was created in solitude. Just a few of the benefits I've found from solitude:
time for thought
in being alone, we get to know ourselves
we face our demons, and deal with them
space to create
space to unwind, and find peace
time to reflect on what we've done, and learn from it
isolation from the influences of other helps us to find our own voice
quiet helps us to appreciate the smaller things that get lost in the roar
If you want to nurture creativity, you need to create the proper environment for it: an environment of solitude, free of distractions, full of quiet and a blank canvas. This book is aimed at helping you to create that environment, and once you do, see the other important creativity habits below for what to do in that environment.
the greats on solitude
Of course, many other creative people have believed in the habit of solitude. I've collected a small but influential sample here. There are many more examples.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: "When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer–say, traveling in a carriage or walking after a good meal or during the night when I cannot sleep -- it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly."
Albert Einstein: "On the other hand, although I have a regular work schedule, I take time to go for long walks on the beach so that I can listen to what is going on inside my head. If my work isn't going well, I lie down in the middle of a workday and gaze at the ceiling while I listen and visualize what goes on in my imagination."
Franz Kafka: "You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."
Nikola Tesla: "The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone -- that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude."
Pablo Picasso: "Without great solitude no serious work is possible."
Carl Sandburg: "One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude."
Thomas Mann: "Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous -- to poetry."
other important habits
Creating an environment of solitude is an important beginning, but there are other habits that help as well.
Deep focus. You're in isolation, free from distractions. Now it's important to learn to pour yourself into your creative task. That means losing yourself in the task, so that you forget the world around you and lose track