Write Anyway

I often find I write that which I most need to read.  Today, that feels especially true, as I’m sharing a recent (and ongoing) conversation I had with myself. 

Me: “I’m not feeling creative today.”

Also Me: “Write anyway.”

M: “I’m tired.” 

AM: “Write anyway.”

M: “I have nothing helpful to share.”

AM: “Write anyway.”

And it goes like that, every time. 

And after I write? It goes like this: 

“I’m so glad I did that,”

or

“I needed that,”

or

“I didn’t even realize what was on my mind.”

Pay attention to the things that leave you feeling this way.  

And, even (especially) when you’re not at your best, do them anyway.

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Useful Questions

What is your “do it anyway?” 

What daily (or frequent) activity leaves you with the same feeling as a drink of fresh water on a hot summer day?

What are you always glad you did?  

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My "Write Anyway" Challenge

Follow Along on my Something of Meaning Substack

Today, I started Write Anyway, a writing challenge and experiment, over on Substack.

Write every day and share it for 30 days. Care to join me?

Let me know by replying to this newsletter or reaching out on Instagram.

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A Quote That Is Sitting With Me

“Perhaps the first rule of everything we endeavor to do is to pay attention.

Perhaps the second is to be patient.

Perhaps the third is to be attentive to what the body knows.”

                  -Barry Lopez, Embrace Fearlessly The Burning World

   

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What I've Been Up To

Podcast - Episode 3 of Something of Meaning is out! Mystical and I talk about being a practitioner. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Writing - My Day 1 entry of Write Anyway is on Substack.  I imagine that may of daily posts will be similarly reflective in nature, and I look forward to seeing where this adventure takes me.

Are you a fan of my work? Donating is a great way to show it. You can throw a few bucks in the digital tip jar or become a patron and support me on a monthly basis, starting at the price of a cup of coffee or lunch. Thank you for your support!

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Every Thursday, you’ll get a short email with an idea, a question, a suggestion, and a quote that help cultivate Creativity, Connection, and Community.

The Lead Domino

Have you ever met one of those people that seemingly never needs to sleep? I envy their energy and drive, especially at 7am when they are enthusiastically marching ahead on the trail, after we stayed up until 3am around the campfire.  Meanwhile, I’m still yawning and rubbing my eyes as if, with enough pressure, my fists could somehow grind the tiredness out of me. 

When it comes to his work, my dad is one of those people.  I asked him once, on a particularly tired morning (for me), where he found the energy.  He told me, “you know, every morning I ask the universe to give me the energy to do what is needed, and I always seem to have what I need.” He kept his eye on his goal put a lot of trust in his ability to show up.

When my roommate was on the path to becoming a professional drummer, he practiced three hours a day.  He turned down all social invitations if he hadn’t checked off the “practice” box for the day.  He even said no to burritos!  He prioritized that habit for years and ended up going pro.

Through trial and error, I've learned that I'm neither someone that can go days with insufficient sleep, nor someone that can consistently say no to burritos.  Sleep matters, and so does a little bit of comfort food from time to time.  In fact, I have about a dozen different habits that each contribute in their own way to the quality of my day.

Any single habit won’t make the difference on its own, but some habits have an outsized impact on all the rest.  I heard James Clear refer to these key habits as the “lead domino.” The lead domino is that most important habit, the trigger, that makes it more likely we will do the other things that lead to our best days. 

My lead domino, these days, is taking 20 minutes to myself early in the morning to journal. I write about whatever’s on my mind; it’s often pretty negative stuff, what you might call “psychic toxins.” In the process of getting these toxins out of my head and onto the page, I find myself settle into a place of presence and clarity.  I naturally move into planning my day and getting going with my most important priorities. 

 

Leading Questions

Each of us has a lead domino that impacts our day for the better -or worse- depending on which way that domino falls. 

What is your lead domino? 

What habit leads to you making more choices that lead to your best days? 

If you’re not sure, try making a list of 3-5 habits that might be the most impactful and then experiment for a few weeks.  Take a few minutes at the end of your day to reflect, and notice which habits have the biggest positive impact. 

 

An Article That Gets At Something Important

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule by Paul Graham

This article articulates something that I've experienced for a while now but have not been able to put my finger on before.  Namely, that there is a quality to the time needed for really good creative work, or solving difficult problems, that doesn't seem to emerge right away. Sometimes, I don't find anything of value until the 2nd or 3rd hour of digging in and, if my day is broken up by meetings, I might not ever manage to find the creative flow needed to do my most important work.
 

A Quote That Inspires Me

“We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”

                  -Archilochus, Greek poet

   

What I've Been Up To

Podcast - Episode 3 of Something of Meaning is out! Mystical and I talk about being a practitioner. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Writing - Did I Get It Right? You can decide for yourself. I wrote about judgment, and got a little poetic too.

Are you a fan of my work? Donating is a great way to show it. You can throw a few bucks in the digital tip jar or become a patron and support me on a monthly basis, starting at the price of a cup of coffee or lunch. Thank you for your support!

Enjoyed this? Click here to Get The Something of Meaning Newsletter in your inbox every Thursday.

It's Up To You

I have over 200 recordings of little musical ideas on my phone.  Every one of them came to me suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. 

They didn’t exist a moment ago.  Now they do. 

Ideas are like that. They visit us, knock on the doors of our awareness and offer themselves…

“Hello, here’s a little bit of music. What will you do with it?”

What makes it a song?  It’s up to you. 

Dance with the idea, or not. Tease it out. Work it out. Or not.

Give it a name. Play it again and again. Share it with others.  Or not. It’s up to you.

 

Helpful Questions

What ideas have visited you recently?
What song do you want to play?
What story do you want to write?

 

A Book That's Giving Me Life

BIG MAGIC - Elizabeth Gilbert

I find that what I need most can be a moving target, and this week I have really needed someone to unapologetically remind me that committing to creativity is WORTH IT.  This book has been breathing into me and filling me with just the right warmth. It's good medicine for my soul. 

A Quote That Inspires Me

From Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert:

“Are you considering becoming a creative person? Too late.

You already are one.

To even call somebody a creative person is almost laughably redundant; creativity is the hallmark of our species. We have the senses for it, we have the curiosity for it, we have the opposable thumbs for it, we have the rhythm for it, we have the language and the excitement and the innate connection to divinity for it.

If you are alive, you are a creative person. You, and I, and everyone you know are descended from tens of thousands of years of makers, decorators, tinkerers, storytellers, dancers, explorers, fiddlers, drummers, builders, growers, problem solvers, and embellishers. These are our common ancestors. 

The guardians of high culture will try to convince you that the arts belong only to a chosen few, but they are wrong, and they are also annoying. 

We are all the chosen few.”

What I've Been Up To

Podcast - Episode 2 of Something of Meaning is out! Mystical and I talk about being a practitioner. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Writing - Did I Get It Right? You can decide for yourself. I wrote about judgment, and got a little poetic too.

Are you a fan of my work? Donating is a great way to show it. You can throw a few bucks in the digital tip jar or become a patron and support me on a monthly basis, starting at the price of a cup of coffee or lunch. Thank you for your support!

Enjoyed this? Click here to Get The Something of Meaning Newsletter in your inbox every Thursday.

Repetition Is Good

There’s a common story that repeats itself when learning a new skill. At first, the new task feels impossible, then it feels awkward, later it begins to feel natural, and finally it feels like it’s always been part of us. In between these steps, we repeat the task again and again.  Gradually, it moves from our conscious to our subconscious as we internalize. Our subconscious systems are incredible. They allow us to execute with near perfection on the things that we have internalized.

In her book, “How To Do The Work”, Nicole LePera shares that our subconscious wants us to stay in our automatic patterns because that uses the least amount of energy.  After all, we are still products of our evolution and, until very recently, energy conservation was essential for survival.  Once we internalize an efficient way to play a major scale, brush our teeth, or navigate a weekly meeting, our subconscious has a powerful incentive to repeat that way of doing things. 

On the other hand, our conscious mind can reflect on our situation and see changes that would improve our lives if we internalized a new way of doing things instead. So, when we’re seeking to make a change, it’s important to remember that our very powerful subconscious will resist.  On some level, it feels like a literal matter of life and death to change our internalized patterns. 

At first it feels impossible. Repeat. Repeat.

Then it feels awkward. Repeat. Repeat.

Then it starts to feel natural. Repeat. 

Until it feels like it’s always been a part of you. 

Helpful Questions

What are the patterns that keep causing you the most trouble?

What change would you make?

What new pattern can you practice (repeat) until it becomes internalized?

A Video That I Love To Repeat

Yoga With Adriene - 10 Minute Routine (Youtube) (12 min)

I have found this routine incredibly rejuvenating. I had to repeat it several times before I got the hang of it, but now it's a regular part of my self-care routine and I feel amazing after I'm done. 

If you're interested in finding a yoga routine but this doesn't feel like the right place to start, she has lots of other great videos to try.

A Quote That Inspires Me

    “Beliefs are practiced thoughts.”

-Nicole LePera, How To Do The Work

Yes, I'm repeating this quote. Repetition is good.

What I've Been Up To This Week

Podcast - I've released my first episode of the Something of Meaning Podcast with Aidan Young. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Music -  Check out this video of me playing Come Together with my good friends Hannah McDonald (vocals) and Ryan Johnson (drums). We had a great time at that gig.

Writing - This post from about one year ago is speaking to me this week. Embrace Ritual. Repetition is Good.

Are you a fan of my work? Donating is a great way to show it. You can throw a few bucks in the digital tip jar or become a patron and support me on a monthly basis, starting at the price of a cup of coffee or lunch. Thank you for your support!

Enjoyed this? Click here to Get The Something of Meaning Newsletter in your inbox every Thursday.

Tune In

Try this: take a minute to look around and ask yourself to notice anything red. Then try white. Green. Black.  As you change colors, those colors seem to light up in your vision. 

Now, take a moment to look around and notice “what's wrong.” Now, focus on what’s working. Focus on what you’re grateful for, what you like. 

What we tune into, where we direct our attention, changes our perspective.  Our senses take in information every moment, and pass it through the filter of our internal story, what we choose to focus on.

It’s our choice whether to focus on the negative (problems, obstacles) or the positive (solutions, progress). 

Being positive doesn't mean pretending there is nothing wrong; it means focusing on what can be done, what can be made, and what can be learned.  It means recognizing problems as a starting point, and tuning in to what we can do to solve them.

 

Helpful Questions

How is my current focus coloring my perspective?

What am I choosing to tune into?
 

A Video That Makes Me Think

Victor Wooten - Think About That (Youtube) (4 min)

“Vibrations? Yeah, it's actually pretty simple. The thing is nothing ever stops vibrating.

Scientists know that, I mean they'll tell u that everything is a vibration. Right, yeah.

I mean, things vibrate faster they may appear as light, slower it may appear as something solid or something like that. But even thoughts are vibrations.

But the key here is that nothing ever stops vibrating, ever.

So check it out. Everything that ever vibrated is still vibrating. Everything that ever was still is. That's cool.

Yeah, me too. It really makes me want to pay attention to the vibrations that I'm putting out there.

"Cause do they ever go away? (Think about that!)”
 

A Quote That Inspires Me

“Beliefs are practiced thoughts.”

-Nicole LePera, How To Do The Work.
 

What I've Been Up To This Week

Music -  For those of you studying music, I've started to upload some teaching videos. This week, I shared some music theory basics. More to come soon!

Writing - My poetic side visited me this week. This is a poem about our inner journeys, called Dreaming Inside Out. Enjoy!

Are you a fan of my work? Donating is a great way to show it. You can throw a few bucks in the digital tip jar or become a patron and support me on a monthly basis, starting at the price of a cup of coffee or a lunch. Thank you for your support!

Until next time, I wish all of you the best in your journey to make something of meaning. 

Much love,

Aidan

Enjoyed this? Click here to Get The Something of Meaning Newsletter in your inbox every Thursday.

Something New

An Idea for Consideration

Something New
Take a moment to listen. Get comfortable. Close your eyes and sink in.  What’s really there?  Keep going, underneath the movement and the noise, beyond the stories and the fears. Breathe. Make space. Let your mind wander, senses stretching out in all directions while you allow…something deeper to emerge. 

A notion, an image, a sensation, a tiny thread. Pull that thread, see where it takes you. 

With the gift of hindsight, things that already exist make sense to us.  We can see their application, measure their impact. It is easy to dismiss something new as absurd, because we have no way to know where it might lead us, but all the things that are now an important part of our lives were once new.

A song, a poem, a business, an invention, a favorite place, a lifelong friend…

Each of these begins with saying yes to something new.

Questions I've Found Helpful

When did I last slow down and take the time to check in deeply with myself?  

What do I want to say yes to more often?  What do I want to say no to more often?

A Video That Made Me Think

The Good Life | Robert Waldinger | TEDxBeaconStreet
What makes us happy and healthy as we go through life? If you want to invest in "the good life," where should you put your time and energy? Robert Waldinger answers these questions with lessons learned from a 75-year-long study of adult life that started in the late 1930s and continues to this day.

Spoiler: the study shows that the quality of our relationships is the most important factor in living a "good life." For me, this starts with the relationship I have to myself, and taking time to get in touch with what brings me joy, what I need, and the kinds of connection I want to make.

A Quote That Inspires Me

“Great Love is always a discovery,

a revelation,

a wonderful surprise,

a falling into "something"

much bigger and deeper

that is literally beyond us and larger than us.”

-Richard Rohr, from his book Falling Upward

What I've Been Up To This Week

Music -  This video is a bit of a Throwback Thursday moment, playing Dragon Slayer in my dad's living room in 2015. Enjoy!

Blog - This post from early in 2022 really resonates with me this week. Sometimes, showing up for fifteen minutes makes all the difference.

Consider supporting me on Patreon.  I love sharing things that mean a lot to me, and have a positive impact on you too.  The support of the community will make it possible for me to continue to do this for a long time to come.

Until next time, I wish all of you the best in your journey to make something of meaning. 

Much love,

Aidan

Enjoyed this? Click here to Get The Something of Meaning Newsletter in your inbox every Thursday.

What's Upstream?

An Idea for Consideration

What’s Upstream?

I often think of creativity and consumption as opposites.  

It is literally true that we can’t consume and create at the same time. If we spend all of our time consuming (social media, movies and tv, podcasts, books, shopping, eating, etc), there is little time or energy left to create. 

It is also true that what we consume has a massive impact on what we create.  Like water, the information we consume flows into every aspect of our life.  It seeps into every part of us and influences our choices, often in invisible ways.

Pay attention to what information is upstream from you, and what influences you would like to keep consuming.

A Question I've Found Helpful

What is upstream from me right now that I want to keep consuming? What do I want to change? 

What is my current balance between creativity and consumption?  If I want to adjust it, what is one small thing I can do differently, starting today?

An Article I Enjoyed Reading

Elizabeth Gilbert: When A Magical Idea Comes Knocking You Have Three Options

I love what Elizabeth Gilbert has to say in this article about where our creative ideas come from and how we can choose to engage with them (or not).

A Quote That Inspires Me

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now.”


-Goethe

What I've Been Up To This Week

Music - here's a video of my original song La Vie Continue.

Blog - This week, I wrote about the value of the quiet voice of our intuition, and remembering to connect with ourselves.

Consider supporting me on Patreon.  I love sharing things that mean a lot to me, and have a positive impact on you too.  The support of the community will make it possible for me to continue to do this for a long time to come.

Until next time, I wish all of you the best in your journey to make something of meaning. 

Much love,

Aidan

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I'm Not A Creative Person...Or Am I?

An Idea for Consideration

I'm Not A Creative Person...Or Am I?

Let’s look closer.  I think it’s common for us to conflate being creative with being ‘an artist.’  And while it’s true that many of us don’t spend much time creating art (music, visual arts, photography, film, etc), creativity is another matter. 

Let’s deconstruct Brené Brown’s beautiful quote on creativity: “Creativity embeds knowledge so that it can become practice. We move what we’re learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands. We are born makers, and creativity is the ultimate act of integration- it is how we fold our experiences into our being.”

To create is to “move what we’re learning…” 

(knowledge, images, sounds, sensation, inspiration, experience, feeling, imagination) 

“…from our heads to our hearts” 

by manifesting it in a tangible way 

“...through our hands.”

Before creating, nothing tangible exists. It’s only in our head.  After creating, there is something. You can sense it, experience it. You can share it with others and they can experience it with you.  It is something of meaning.

Before, there was nothing. Now, there’s something of meaning. That’s cool.

Gardening is a creative act. Cooking is a creative act. Problem Solving is a creative act.  Dancing is a creative act.  Playing is a creative act.  Sharing an idea is a creative act. Conversation is a creative act.  Building or making anything is a creative act.  

Each of these are tangible, observable manifestations of thoughts, feelings, or sensations, brought into the real world for others to experience along with us.  Each of them contribute to building our shared world.  

That is what I believe when I say creativity.  And I believe you are creative. Because I don’t know how it would be possible for you not to be.

 

A Question I've Found Helpful

This definition of creativity above begs the following question: 

Assuming I AM creative, what would I like to create today? What do I want to see more of manifested in the world? 
 

Something I Find Interesting

Bring On The Learning Revolution, Ken Robinson (Youtube - 18 Min)

"We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process, it is an organic process, and you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will flourish."

 

A Quote That Inspires Me

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

-Arthur Ashe

 

What I've Been Up To This Week

Music - here's a video of me playing "A Life" by John Dupuy, one of my favorite songs that I've been playing since I was 11 years old. 

Blog - If you enjoyed my idea in this newsletter, the article I wrote this week digs into why I think creativity matters, and how it benefits me.

Consider supporting me on Patreon.  I love sharing things that mean a lot to me, and have a positive impact on you too.  The support of the community will make it possible for me to continue to do this for a long time to come.

Until next time, I wish all of you the best in your journey to make something of meaning. 

Much love,

Aidan

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Sharing Our Gifts

Hi Everyone! 

Here is this week's Something of Meaning, a few thoughts that will hopefully help you cultivate a little creativity, connection, and community in your life, and bring you a little joy along the way.  If you feel inspired, please feel free to forward this to friends. 

An Idea for Consideration

Gifts

The Haudenosaunee (also known as the Iroquois) have a particular approach to “finding our gift.” 

 Every individual has a job, to look for the gifts of others and, if they notice something special in someone, to be sure to let that person know. This is taken very seriously, because you might be the only one that recognizes the gift in the other person and, if you don’t point it out, we all lose out on benefitting from that gift.

These days, the words “gift” and “talent” are interchangeable. Often, when we hear, “you’re so talented!” The next sentence is something like, “I could never do that.”  

We love to celebrate others and minimize our own value, perhaps because it keeps us safe from judging whether our own gifts and talents are “good enough” to share. We often aren’t capable of recognizing our own gifts at all. We’re too close. We can see every imperfection in perfect detail, recite a laundry list of reasons why our gifts aren’t ready to be shared.  Imperfections become apparent in almost everything if you look closely enough. 

But it’s called a gift because we’re supposed to give it away.  It’s not for you. It’s for everyone else. 

“One must pass the learning onto others or there has been no gift at all.” -quote from A.A.

How do you know if your gift (what you create, or share, or say, or do) is “good enough?”  Listen to what others are telling you…and when they say, “I love that,” believe them.

Your gifts aren’t for you. They’re for your community. So, be generous and share them.

A Question I've Found Helpful

Think back over your life. Ask yourself:

What have I been told about my gifts? 

What have people told me they love about me? 

What have I said, done, or made that caused joy and appreciation in others? 

Something I Find Interesting

13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings (Now the Marginalian)

I loved reading this reflection from Maria Popova on some of her key learnings after more than a decade of doing creative work. 

Her website, The Marginalian, is "the record of the reckoning — a one-woman labor of love, exploring what it means to live a tender, thoughtful life of purpose and gladness, wonder-smitten by reality, governed by the understanding that creativity is a combinatorial force: ideas, insights, knowledge, and inspiration acquired in the course of being alive and awake to the world, composited into things of beauty and substance we call our own."

A Quote That Inspires Me

"The purpose of life is not to triumph over evil but to keep pushing the wheel of justice forward. And when you realize that that is the end point, you then never expect to win. And if you never expect to win you're not disappointed when you lose. And because of that you can keep fighting with the same energy when you're sixty-nine as you had when you were twenty." 

-Wade Davis, author of The Wayfinders (and many more)

If you'd like to explore what else I've been up to this week, you can read my latest blog post, listen to my latest podcast episode, or check out the music I've been creating on Youtube. 

Until next time, I wish all of you the best in your journey to make something of meaning. 

Much love,

Aidan

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Why I chose Creativity, Connection, and Community

Hi Everyone! 

Here is this week's Something of Meaning, a few thoughts that will hopefully help you cultivate a little creativity, connection, and community in your life, and bring you a little joy along the way.  If you feel inspired, please feel free to forward this to friends. 
 

An Idea for Consideration

My North Star: why I chose Creativity, Connection, and Community

If there were no one to listen, we would not be called to speak.

I believe that creating and sharing our deepest selves, and witnessing and celebrating each other, is an essential nutrient for our humanity.  I am dedicated to building a community where we can do that together, a community where vulnerability is met with deep listening and held in high esteem.
 
Here is how I currently define Creativity, Connection, and Community:

Creativity is the process of manifesting what I am deeply called to see in the world.  It includes being conscious of my inputs (my attentional consumption habits), practicing my craft, caring for my mind and body to enable the best conditions for creation, and a consistent practice of creating meaningful work.

Connection starts with bringing consciousness to my inner world, and the practice of noticing what moves me deeply, what my Quiet Voice is saying.  It is also practicing awareness of the world around me, noticing both what moves me, and also how my actions affect others as I move through the world.

Community is engaging and serving the people that want to share in my work.  The community is made up of collaborators, mentors, readers, listeners, viewers, students, and practitioners. Every member of the community is an essential part of my work; the community is literally my reason for doing what I do.

I hope you will join me on this journey. I look forward to seeing what we all create together. 
 

A Question I've Found Helpful

Seth Godin says that the question “what would you do if you knew you could not fail?” is not super helpful because it’s a “genie question,” an impossibility. He suggests instead that we ask the following: 

What would you do if you knew you would fail? What would be worth doing, even though it’s not gonna work?
 

Something I Find Interesting

Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale (Youtube - 3 Min)

This is an entertaining look into our collective capacity to create; humans all over the world have been singing for a long long time, and our voices have so much power to bring us joy.

 

A Quote That Inspires Me

“What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"Kind", said the boy.”

― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
 

If you'd like to explore what else I've been up to this week, you can read my latest blog post, listen to my latest podcast episode, or check out the music I've been creating on Youtube. 

Until next time, I wish all of you the best in your journey to make something of meaning. 

Much love,

Aidan

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