Input Helps the Output

It's Like Fuel, ish

I've gone through many periods of my life where I wasn't feeling as creative, didn't connect to ideas as much, and felt kind of stagnant.

What usually happened was a realization that I wasn't taking in productive things. The specifics don't matter, it was more that what I was consuming didn't resonate in a way that brought any creativity forward. In a sense, the quality of the show or movie or article or book or whatever didn't matter as much as connecting with it.

Others have written about similar topics. It's like passive vs active consuming of content, something you're just watching because it's there instead of watching something that's driving you in some way. The former can help in short bursts but for me I almost feel mentally thinned out.

That happened recently even though I was catching up on content I thought I wanted to take in. It was while I was doing some stuff in my Obsidian vault when I realized I hadn't created or built something in too long and my brain was fighting back.

It makes me think of Stoicism and this quote:

"When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind" --- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The dots connected and I realized that I needed to dust off some old ideas and projects, make a little progress on something, push ideas out of my head instead of dumping them in. It's why none of what I was looking to watch or listen to or read felt interesting.

That was one of the drivers to get this site back online and updated more regularly. I also reviewed my spark list and went through some of the story ideas, and could almost feel myself relaxing mentally.

Now to work on fighting against Perfect is the Enemy of Good Enough while creating. I just need to finish creating one thing, even if I'm working on a few at once.

All this isn't to say that I stopped consuming any content, far from it. I'm just trying to find a better balance of input and output so I don't get mentally stuck.