You have to dive in deep if you want to write a life
By: Jan Fortune
Tags: Creativity, Journaling, Writing, Writing Life, Personal Growth

Whatever you love, whatever your craft or art, give it time. You should always be pushing your learning and your boundaries in that area, whether it’s writing or being a loving partner.

We can’t all go to the woods to live deliberate lives, but we can shape our time. We can advocate for our priorities so that they are not marginalised by the onslaught of the world’s busyness and noise.

To do this requires some time to think. Picasso tells us:

Without great solitude no serious work is possible

Even if you can’t escape to the woods for a year, at least carve yourself some thinking time. It might be a week away or a daily practice of ten minutes journaling, but give yourself time to focus and during this time:

Make yourself unavailable. Whether it’s closing a door or getting away for a month, the results can be profound.

Disrupt your life — it might not be a cabin in the woods, but change your environment whenever you can.

Have time each day without technology — especially when you first wake because emails and notifications aren’t the most important thing when you are in that amazing state between sleep and waking.

Read, as much as you can — poetry, fiction, essays, history, philosophy. Read great tomes and 4 minute articles. Read as much as possible without screens.

Journal. I’ve kept a consistent journal for the last 25 years. Day to day I often think not much is happening, but when I look back, I see all kinds of shifts in perception that made a difference.

Play. McKeown defines this as as anything we do for the sheer pleasure of of it. Play and imagination not only relieve stress, but are vital to creativity. In the words of Einstein:

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

Sleep — deliberate lives need nourishment.

In short, have a routine that supports your direction and gives the biggest share of your time to the person and the writer you want to become.

4. Live now

Reflecting on the past and planning the future can help us to shape who we want to be and how we want to live, but the most vital thing is to be present to the now.

At any one time, think about what is the most important thing to be doing in that moment and give it your full attention. Time isn’t only about how long we live, but about how deeply we live; the quality of the time we have is everything.

The present moment, the ability to be attentive and present NOW is both a quality that we cultivate in the sense of a skill that we hone and practice and a gift that we give. Simone Weil says it like this:

Attention is the purest form of generosity and absolute attention is prayer.

I am least attentive to those I love, to my writing and passions, to my environment, when I’m stressed, overwhelmed with non-creative work (those emails that make demands but are not real conversations, or the distractions of a too-fast world), preoccupied with small things and have not given time to journalling and the occasional period of silence and solitude. My thoughts get ragged and my behaviour gets cranky.

On the other hand, when I’m doing yoga daily, journalling, taking walks, making time for slow meals, then I listen. I listen not just to the surface words, but to the emotions of others. I listen to the wind and rain. I notice objects that are small and beautiful or take delight in making a pot of coffee or stirring berries into porridge.

When I’m attentive, I unbend. I don’t carry myself so stiffly. And the physical relaxation shows in my actions. I start to embody the creativity and generosity I want to live when I slow down and become more present rather than being elsewhere in my head, full of distractions or anxieties about things that aren’t important or that I can have no effect on.

Writing about her late partner, the photographer Molly Malone Cook, Mary Oliver says:

An openness — an empathy — was necessary if the attention was to matter. Such openness and empathy M. had in abundance, and gave away freely… M. instilled in me this deeper level of looking and working, of seeing through the heavenly visibles to the heavenly invisibles.

We all know that the world is a mess. We look at politicians and can only wish that the asylum was being run by the lunatics — surely that would be so much better? Apparently by 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish. We are living in the midst of the Holocene (or sixth) mass extinction, this one largely caused by human activity.

War continues in Afghanistan, Syria and the Yemen, with more than 10,000 deaths from armed violence in each of these places in the past year. Meanwhile conflicts in Somalia, Nigeria and Iraq, drug wars in Mexico, insurgency in Boko Haram, ethnic violence in Southern Sudan and Northern Mali claim thousands of lives each year.

While consumerism is a frenzy for some, global poverty persists. Over 3 million children die each year from causes related to malnutrition and more than 10% of the world’s population live in extreme poverty (as defined by the World Bank), including 13 million people in North America.

And it’s not just statistics. How many of us know someone, perhaps someone very close, who is dangerously ill? How many of us have lost someone close in the last year, five years? The light is returning and yet we are as fragile as the green blades that last a week, a couple of weeks and then they wilt and are gone.

And yet, we make our marks, with words, with love. This is hope. This is why we write.

5. Live with intention