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Generous Art
Being a creative there’s always an underlying tension of hesitancy and resistance to sharing work. Expression is externalizing the internal and that’s a vulnerable position to be in, I’m exposing myself to criticism and judgment. And I think it puts me in a posture of not knowing how to share my work. I don’t really want to do it so I don’t know how to do it, therefore there must not be a way. It’s willful ignorance. There’s obviously a way, it’s not impossible but because I’m hesitant and resistant it closes me off to any possibility and keeps me from using my creativity or ingenuity for the purpose of shipping work.
Maybe it’s an issue of generosity. What if my ideas, thoughts and creativity isn’t even mine to begin with. What if I’m being selfish for not sharing the things I’ve discovered. What if creativity is just discovery.
It’s natural, instinctual to think our ideas come from us. It’s ours, we possess it. But isn’t creativity just what comes from the connection of ideas and experiences. Doesn’t the idea already exist, whether we “come” up with it our not. Famous math equations already existed before someone “came” up with it. And doesn’t anything we could imagine have the capacity to exist. A writing, artwork or music is a composition of words, palettes and notes that given an infinite permutation of combinations, it already exists as a theoretical. And the person that writes, paints or composes the piece is simply discovering its existence?
What if art and creativity is meant to be generous and not sharing it would be selfish?
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Bookmark
This blog is a bookmark of thoughts. A net of capturing swirling ideas. Breadcrumbs of where my curiosity has lead me. A kaleidoscope of experiences. A collage of what’s inspired me. A recipe of my interests. A map of internal landmarks.
Not meant to be final drafts. Thoughts are living, growing, evolving. I remain open to new ideas, new experiences, new connections. Try to stay humble, not letting my ego, pride or having to be right get in the way of change and openness. Not letting not being wrong, making mistakes or expectations get in the way of honesty and authenticity.
Continue to have a growth mindset – it’s okay to be wrong, adjust your thinking, seek more understanding and knowledge. Continue to have a beginner’s mindset – it’s okay to not know everything, make mistakes and learn something new everyday.
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Mobility Basics – Hip Hinge
If you wanted to commit to just one thing that you could do everyday that would improve your physical fitness and mobility. If you can commit to simply two minutes a day that might get you started on the lifelong road to health and strength. Let’s start with the hip hinge.
We’ll be able to stimulate flow and movement in the circulatory, digestive and fluid stagnation of your mid-section from sitting all-day. We’ll also lengthen the tendons and connective tissue in your hip, which will loosen up your tight and stiff lower back and wake up your glutes. Hip hinges will help restore your hamstring and posterior chain from all the muscle sleep and poor circulation sitting all day and commuting causes.
You can do this at office chair or find a nice level place to sit. Try to maintain a neutral 90 degree joint angles in your ankles, knees and hips. Gently and easily lean forward into a “good morning” position. Folding your hip joint like a book, create a sharp crease in your hip joint, as a queue place your fingers in between your hip joint and try to get your hip to crease down onto your fingers. Keep your lower back as straight as possible. Only going down as far as your lower back doesn’t start to round. i.e. don’t lower your chest just to try to reach lower. Relax into this position, release any tension in your back, hamstring and mid-section. After a few breaths, you should be able to relax into a lower position. Repeat this breathing and relaxing a few more times to get as low as you’re able.
The essential key is to try to release any tension in your hips, lower back, tendons and connective tissues. Without releasing zero tension in your tendons, they will not build lengthening adaptations. If there’s any tension in your tendons, the tension will keep them short and reduce the amount of lengthening you are extending. It’s really that releasing and relaxing of your tendons that creates lengthening adaptations.
Do hip hinges everyday! They feel good and refreshing. Try to do it for at least a minute but two minutes is even better. The reason why you want to do it for at least a minute, you should not be straining by the end of it, if you’re straining or it’s not relaxing your holding onto tension somewhere. Really try to create that mind-body connection find those nooks and crannies to relax and release tension. If you can comfortably hold it for two minutes then you can literally stay there for 5 – 10 minutes without strain which means you’ve reached the ability to release all tension.
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Mobility Basics – Introduction
Tendons have the viscoelastic property of being able to stretch and relax while also creating rigidity and stiffness. They should have the pliability of muscles and the structural integrity of bone, to allow joints to move while also lock in place when absorbing and producing force from the ground. I’ve found that in improving my mobility, lengthening my tendons, it’s also improved my flexibility, overall lengthening and stretching in my muscles – which could be because the overall length from tendon to muscle to tendon is lengthening at the tendon points and also while my tendons are strengthening in lengthening my muscles are able to be in a more relaxed state not having to compensate for the shortness, instability and weakness of my tendons and joints.
Tendons are an overlooked portion of mobility principles. It’s on the lower rung of priorities when the time and effort is usually spent on strength, conditioning and skills. People tend to see mobility as best practiced through yoga or pilates and I think it’s also misunderstood as where you gain in mobility you lose in strength and stability.
Another reason why I think people overlook mobility is because it’s really difficult to see progression and results and while also understand and program the progression. Lifting weights for strength makes sense. Running for conditioning makes sense. But I think people don’t see immediate results with mobility first because tendons take a long time to adapt and second they’re doing mobility in a way that doesn’t produce the most efficient and optimized results. So I would say the keys are, fold your hinge joint like a book, release all tension in the crease and be patient. And also frequency works best here. Once a day is great but even 2-3 times a day spread out throughout the day will produce and accelerate the range exponentially.
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Super Hero
Super hero movies are fun, action-packed, an exciting viewing experience. Today’s films are so well-crafted, the special effects, acting and writing are very well done. So much time, effort, money and talent goes into each of them. I love watching them, it’s a fun fantasy to live through.
But a reality check or maybe it’s just mirroring how we think. That it takes someone “special” to save us or we’re waiting for someone with super powers to fix everything. Super hero movies usually represent the super hero as a “regular” person, they’re just a human that have their own doubts and flaws to overcome. But is that story relatable to people without super powers when these super heroes overcome their flaws and doubts with super powers?
But that doesn’t get us off the hook, we do have super powers, maybe it’s not flying, super strength or some special ability. It doesn’t seem as exciting or glamorous but creativity, compassion, understanding, communication, innovation, connection, listening, encouragement, work ethic, writing, vocation, interests, positive mindset, openness, availability, collaboration, energy… the list goes on. It sounds cheesy, I know. But maybe it’s just as cheesy as super heroes dressed in a costumes running around saving the world.
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Just be.
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First Principles – Deep Core
If you’ve heard of First Principles thinking. Maybe the opposite of that would be results-oriented thinking. Which might be described as find someone that’s done what you want to do and just copy what they did, replicate the process. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s priority isn’t innovation, discovery, creativity, taking risks or exploration. Its priority would mainly be getting results from a process that’s been proven.
First Principles thinking is reverse engineering the ideal, perfect product or outcome and determining what are the fundamental principles of what makes that perfect, ideal, desirable. Then putting all your focus, emphasis and priority in making those principles what you are good at, your expertise and theoretically you will get the ideal, perfect product or close. It’s more time consuming, there isn’t a right or wrong way, it’s riskier, requires trial and error, incurs more errors and isn’t guaranteed the outcome. But hopefully by the end of it the person going through the principles will understand the process inside and out with the ability to innovate upon innovation because they understand the inner-workings and the causal sequences.
I think the point that goes missing in this way of thinking or maybe where people might not go far enough is that, there maybe deeper levels to getting to the absolute, zeroed-out First Principle – meaning we might derive what we think is the first principle but if we dig deeper there might be an even more refined, essential fundamental principle to the core. And the thing is, we might not be able to see deeper into the core until you start the process, until you start digging. You might not have the penetrating insight, tools or experience to get to that inner-core from the onset, but with experience and practice becomes easier to do.