Creative Routines, Civic Connection, Double Binds.

A Mindful Miscellany, #32

Mindful: Attentive, Aware, Conscious, Thoughtful, Alert.
Miscellany: A collection of various items, parts, or ingredients, especially one composed of diverse literary works.

Welcome to A Mindful Miscellany, a newsletter dedicated to Story-telling and Sense-making in the Turbulent Twenties.

Creative Routines of Great Artists

I’m always curious how other humans interact with creativity, and this book delivered on the daily routines of famous creatives throughout history.  Initially, my hunch was such pursuits are best accomplished early in the morning (say 4-9am) or late at night (9pm-2am).  This is not supported by the book. I suppose it’s up to each of us to figure out the rhythm that best supports our lives and artistic endeavors.  Like most things, context specific.

Source: Graphic from Podio, based on the book “Daily Rituals”, by Mason Currey. 

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New Robert Putnam Documentary

The author of “Bowling Alone” and coiner of the term “Social Capital” has a documentary. I talked about his new book “The Upswing” in my 4th of July post here. One of our tasks in the next years is to reinvigorate our connections. Legit human-to-human, face-to-face, coming into correspondence with one another. “Join or Die” is a great title— it works on the individual and societal level. If we don’t renew our connections, we will wither.

Braver Angels Convention

Rise for America. If we don’t hold this thing together, who will?

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Metacrisis

Nora Bateson of the Bateson Institute is a third generation deep thinker. This talk is about how to see past our industrial age mindset, to transcend contexts and “Double Binds.” A double bind is one of those “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” style situations humans gets faced with all the time. Per wikipedia: two conflicting demands, each on a different logical level, neither of which can be ignored or escaped. Her solution is to meet the double bind, don’t match it, with a different aesthetic, tone, feel, and logic. She prefers polycrisis to refer to the current moment, but her work is geared toward the same end as many in the metacrisis camp. The old ways of looking at things, the old institutions, the old ways of being— are not serving humans well. How do we find other ways to be in the world? Her new book, “Combining” is out next month, and will be among the stack of books Santa generously brings this year.

Have a great week everyone!