Jonathan Fields published a post this week that hit home for me. In fact, I recently had a similar revelation. I spent last week in south eastern Pennsylvania, enjoying a family reunion and some outdoor fun, but no Internet or AT&T access. I was cut off from Twitter, email, blogs, etc.
At first I was aggravated. “Well, this will be a long week,” I thought. At the end of the third day I hadn’t even thought about trying my iPhone and by the next morning the desire was gone.
Then something amazing happened. I had an incredible dream. I saw a huge book open, and on the first page were song lyrics. The page turned, and there was the next line. It turned again, and the third line appeared. While the pages flipped, I heard the full score: Guitar, bass, drums and melody. “I’ve got to write this down,” I thought, and began to run.
The dream house was huge and I kept running and running. Finally I remember thinking, “I’ve got to wake up for real and write this down.” And that’s what happened. I woke up, grabbed my iPhone, opened the Notes app and wrote 24 lines of lyrics. I also remembered the music.
That hasn’t happened since I was a songwriting major at Berklee College of Music (I left Berklee in ’91). But it gets better. Later in the week I got a full short story. The idea stared with a “What if…” musing. I wrote down the premise and now I’m working on the full story. Again, that hasn’t happened in a very long time.
What changed? You could argue that I was on vacation, and free of the typical day-to-day stress. But I don’t believe that was it.
Empty a box of junk and you’ve made room for more stuff. As a blogger, I spend all day every day reading posts, articles, comments and tweets. I listen to audio books and podcasts whenever I’m in the car. In other words, I was keeping my box full. There are times when I sit down to work and think, “What am I going to write about?” There’s so much stuff in my head, like news, opinion pieces, tweets and so on that I’d like to comment on, that I can’t get started.
By removing that stream, I made room for the good stuff. In this case, my own thoughts. Social media (God, I hate that term) is wonderful but it’s like drinking from 10 fire hoses. Yes, it’s cool to monitor your friends and receive up-to-the-second news updates, but it’s not necessary. In fact, it’s detrimental. Step back, log out and let your mind rest for a while.
When Jonathan says, “Step away from the screen and live a little,” you best take that advice. You’ll be amazed at what shows up.
