datamusicata

As a child, I was always doing something and I had chores to complete so I didn’t have a lot of time to just lie there. And being goal oriented, I would feel a little guilty lying there, just doing nothing.

As I got older, I instinctively recognized the importance of being still. Doing yoga helped me to see the value in this and, to tell you the truth, for a littgle while, smoking a little weed also got me to be still, to just lie there and look at the clouds or the trees or a mandela or listen to an entire album with my eyes closed.

I also discovered that when I was still, not distracted, not entertained, etc, that my mind would eventually come up with something; a song, a story idea, an arrangement idea, a comedy bit for my stage act—the point is something would come up. Provided that I was still enough for the idea to find me.

Now it is true that you can come up with things by making certain times the creative times and focusing all your energy during that time. And you should definitely do that, if you can.

But you need this down time for your body and your brain and your heart. Sometimes you need the down time to just get away from what you are doing...step back from it...get a fresh take on what you are doing and what you have already done.

You needn’t feel guilty about goofing off sometimes. It recharges your batteries. And yes, if you spend two years in your bathrobe watching the soaps, you should feel guilty. You need to play hard, work hard and rest with just as much conviction.

I read about this genius sculptor, author, painter, musician, doctor in Virginia (yes he did all those things really well). His secret was to do nothing for more than three hours. Three hours of sculpting, or painting or composing or playing his piano or studying medicine. Just three hours, then he would go off and do something else. He felt that you needed to get away from whatever you were doing after three hours as that was when he realized that, for him, his creativity was waning, as was his focus.

Now I don’t have the wealth to just bounce from one to the other. I’ve got to make what I do pay and probably so do you, but there is something to learn here from this doctor. And that is stepping back from what you are doing and doing something else.

To his concept I apply the idea of doing nothing for a bit. After three or four hours of intense practicing or recording or writing or whatever you are doing, try going outside. Take a walk and see if you can spot a flower you’ve never seen before or a bird, anything that will take you outside of what you are doing.

And then find a comfortable spot and just sit down. Don’t do anything. Don’t think of anything, just let the world wash over you; let the parade of life just go by you. See if you can do this for twenty minutes. It’s almost like meditation but instead of going inward, you are opening up and letting everything inside out and everything outside in.

Then when you feel antsy or recharged or too guilty to sit there any longer, get up and return to what you were doing. See if the exercise of doing nothing (wow, no exercise exercise!) has enabled you to bring some new energy to what you are doing.

Work hard, but take some time to do nothing and don’t feel guilty about it. Nothing is the same, so it’s hard to tell the difference.