I’m writing my newsletter this week from Tallahassee, FL, where I am on vacation for a few days. Today’s post is about the stress of getting away. The days leading up to vacation involve catching up on work and making sure I have coverage. The day of travel itself can be especially stressful, at least until I arrive.
I got up at 2:45 am yesterday to get to the airport by 5:30 for a 7:00 am flight out of Philadelphia. Somewhere along the trip, I realized that I had taken my prayer beads out of my suitcase to meditate at 3 am. I failed to repack them. I left them right on the meditation cushion where they belong.
When I had some writing time later in the day, after my big “ah” of relief that I had arrived, my thoughts turned to sleep deprivation. Today, I counted as I meditated. It was okay. The rhythm and melody of the mantra still led to a calm, altered mood.
“Altered states” is a term usually used in the context of spiritual quests or psychotropic medication, but sleep is an altered state we all enter regularly. We enter sleep by allowing ourselves to fall into a restorative state. It’s not a state we enter by pushing or insisting, as everyone who’s had a sleepless night knows.
Sleep and Creativity
Entering the creative flow state is analogous to sleep in some ways. As with sleep, writing happens when we give it the best circumstances and environment. Instead of a comfortable bed in a quiet, dark room, the circumstances and environment for creativity mean sitting in a comfortable, quiet place with a notebook and pen or a laptop in front of me.
Both practices work better if practiced regularly. The difference between them is that sleep demands a certain minimum amount. Sleep deprivation can cause someone to fall asleep unexpectedly or to hallucinate if deprived of REM sleep. The creative flow never insists in this way.
If one is blessed (or cursed) with a constitution that needs to be in the creative flow state on a regular basis, deprivation is not as dramatic or detrimental as sleep deprivation, but it still takes a toll on well-being. The signs and symptoms of creative-flow deprivation are more subtle. I get grumpy.
The Remedy
I know something is wrong, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. The remedy is to enter creative flow, which requires that I enter a state of allowing for the muse to come. I sit. I say, “Okay, I’m ready.” I write.
I write drivel and terrible things, but I prove to the muse that I am serious. I am willing to write badly for as long as it takes for a good idea to happen. Finally, the muse relents, and I really begin.