psychology

The Compassion Of Remembering Basic Competence

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Life has been busy for me lately, as you all know.  I’m sure you also know what it’s like to be busy with something and keep finding more things to do.  It becomes all too easy to keep worrying “How do I do this” or “How do I do that” as more this and that piles up. So you get an idea of where my life has been on and off as of late.

What I started doing when worries intruded was note “I’m smart enough to figure that out” then get back to whatever the hell I was doing. Or wasn’t doing if I was trying to relax, get back to whatever I wasn’t doing.

I quickly found this simple reminder of my own basic competence kept me focused on my current activities or inactivities, as well as reducing distraction and worry.

It’s no surprise something like this helped me focus in hard times. I’ve had to remind others of their own competence and that it’s OK to focus on what is at hand. I just wasn’t as good as applying that advice to myself, to the point where I was startled what I did for others worked for me.

I’m sure some of my audience is nodding along with me. We’re often good at being compassionate for anyone but ourselves, but when we do, it works. It works just like it does for other people, but maybe we forget we’re people as we’re so overwhelmed with everything else.

So now I’m taking time to pause more in the current maelstrom of life and remember my own ability to get things done. A little self-compassion, a little remembering I’m a person and treating myself as I treat others.

Steven Savage

Coming To Our Separate Senses

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

You may remember my earlier post on “granularity” as a measure of quality of story.  My take was that good work has a level of detail, much as a visual work does.  Some works of broad tropes may be big, colorful detail (like an 8 bit game), others may have fine, subtle detail (like a realistic painting).  I felt the visual metaphor was useful.

In a discussion with my friend Serdar, he brought up how he had a similar term for good works – pungent.  That work that has a power to it that brings a reaction just the way a strong smell does.  Pleasant or unpleasant, it has a certain something that draws you in, a depth.

I went with sight as a metaphor.  He went with smell a metaphor.  I suggested we should find other metaphors using the remaining senses, but by the time the joke was made I took it seriously.  Why not experiment with metaphors to understand creativity?  My creative friends and I are always trying to find metaphors to understand what makes creative work good.

Writers, artist, cosplayers, etc. want to know what’s good, but creativity is not so easily classified.  But exchanging metaphors and comparisons like this?  That’s valuable, small signs and milestones to help us get where we’re going.

(OK now I’m using a map metaphor.  See what I mean?)

By taking a moment to think about good works as pungent (as opposed to my granular), I gain a new way to appreciate good works and improve my own.  Is this story I’m considering more soy sauce or fermented pepper paste?  Should a blog post be like a delightful smell that lures you in, or the punch-in-the-nose scent that gets your attention?  For that matter, could I be writing something so bland there’s no “scent” at all?

I invite you to exchange metaphors and brainstorm them with your creative friends.  See what kind of visceral relations and comparisons you can come up with.  Your differences will probably lead you to some informative places . . .
They may even lead to metaphors that are pungent.  Or granular.  Or use some other sense . . .

Steven Savage

Less Time Among The Dead

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Over the last few months, a past project has stayed in my mind. It haunts me – could I reboot it? Transform it? Restart it? I find myself re-envisioning how to redo the project, or change it into something else, yet nothing gets done.

I’m sure that you, my fellow creative, have similar haunts. You have projects long dead, on their way there, or buried hastily in a shallow grave. Yet their ghosts are still around, wandering among your thoughts and distracting you from current, living efforts.

I’ve had to confront my current ghost and decide, “you have to rest. The rest of your descendants may pick up the torch.”  It was quite liberating, if saddening.

We can’t burn time and energy on endlessly mourning dead projects or battling their remnants in our heads. That’s time and energy that we can use to do other stuff. You can’t ignore the living and focus on the dead.

So let me take this morbid metaphor of dead projects as ghosts and suggest some ways we can deal with them from my own experience.

Put Them To Rest: It’s time to let them go; decide you don’t have time for this. Mourn, acknowledge them, and move on. You can even keep a Necropolis of undone projects, you know . . . just in case. Plus, “interring them” may remove any guilt or fear of losing ideas.

Exorcism: Maybe you need to get something out of your head forcefully. Focus on another project, and store your notes elsewhere (or behind a password). 

Resurrection: Sometimes, being haunted means it’s time to return to the project. That’s fine – just do it as part of your planning, be honest about the challenges, and accept you maybe never should have killed the project. Live and learn.

Reincarnation:  Reuse the project, but don’t revive it. Do something else in the setting, transplant your ideas elsewhere, etc. Don’t revive the project – help it find a new and hopefully better life.

Frankenstein: It’s fine to take parts of dead projects and make something new. An incredible amount of creative efforts are like this.

We can’t stay haunted forever.

I would add that as you bury or resurrect back projects, ask yourself why it was hard to get to that choice. Some self-examination will help you understand your limits, help you grow – and maybe keep you from obsessing over dead projects as much.

Spend your time with the living.

Steven Savage