The Creative Energy Account – How do you recharge?

How often have you put a creative project on hold to “rewire the studio” or clean up a hard drive?

Our creative energy often gets zapped troubleshooting technical malfunctions and inefficiencies. Sometimes a creative block can be rationalized by the need to rewire the studio. “I need to get rid of that ground loop “buzz” before I can proceed” or “that new OS update has caused a critical piece of software to crash…”

On the other hand creative energy can be increased by inspiration, meditation, exercise, listening to a great record or a long peaceful hike in the forest.

The trick is to budget our daily creative energy wisely or we might find that creative expression gets postponed to another day.

My favourite way to recharge the creative juices is to go canoe tripping in the wilderness. When I was a kid my parents and I would go on 4-7 day canoe trips in Algonquin Park. By the second portage, we would be alone on the lake, sharing the setting sun with a family of loons. My most precious memory is taking the canoe out at dusk and just laying on my back with the gentle waves lapping at the sides of the cedar strip and canvas canoe, loons with their haunting calls at the other end of the lake and a lonely owl starting to stir. I found that at this moment my mind would empty of all immediate worries and in its place new ideas would start to flow.

It’s been a long time since I have done a trip like that, but just remembering the feeling as I write this post gets me excited to make it happen again soon.

A portion of that creative energy must be allocated to improving workflow and keeping the technical well tuned and trouble free, but equal importance must be placed on recharging and then channeling that energy towards creative expression.