When it comes to collecting behavior, I wouldn’t describe myself as a tried-and-true hobbyist. In fact, there isn’t one particular object or category of objects that generally fascinates me for long. And while I might go through phases in which I’m enamored by, say, watches, vintage magazines, or vinyl records, the likelihood that I would [...]
Category: creativity and learning
This must be the place.
This must be the place, paper collage, 2020 This post is formatted to reflect an original journal entry. 11/10/20 Had a significant insight into my own creative process. It happened on Sunday morning, as I was having coffee and reading one of John Muir’s Wilderness Essays. Experienced a flood of positive emotions as I was [...]
Dressing Games
This post is formatted to reflect an original journal entry. 10/15/20 Something magical about the moments between wakefulness and sleep. A time of vivid, free-floating images, words, phrases. I get some of my best creative ideas then—just before drifting off to sleep or upon waking. Rollo May talks about this phenomenon in The Courage to [...]
Raising Butterflies
This post is formatted to reflect an original journal entry. 8/2/20 Woke up and took care of the caterpillars. How striking they are to look at. Such vibrant stripes of yellow, white, and green. It’s amazing how they’ve grown in the past four days, since I first discovered eight—now fourteen—little ones on a dill plant [...]
On Talent
I first got the idea about two months ago to write a post exploring the relationship between creativity and talent. Following an insightful and thought-provoking conversation with Nitin from There Will Come Soft Rains, I sensed I was close to forming a definitive opinion on the subject, one that, falling line in with more traditional [...]
Promenade
This post was formatted to reflect an original journal entry. 5/10/20 A slow, easy, reflective Sunday. Yoga and some much-needed outdoor time. I can’t wait to go camping. Soon. Have this grand idea of going off the grid for a little while. Heading up into the mountains and losing myself in the stillness. A reclamation of [...]
On Being a Master of None
Can you believe The Used Life celebrated her third anniversary on April 27? Neither can I.... When I started this blog three years ago, I felt instinctively (and immediately, as I recall) that the tagline, Experiments in the Art of Mastering None, captured the essence of my project. Indeed, I first conceived of The Used [...]
Superhero
This post has been formatted to reflect an original journal entry. 3/13/20 Been reflecting lately on the importance of knowing what to ignore. Placing appropriate limits on technology use, media consumption, etc. An interesting thought: I imagine highly sensitive people have less of a problem with this. For me: I want to turn it all [...]
On Fantasy
I’ve always been a daydreamer. In school, I was a quiet, bookish girl who spent much of her time staring out the window, doodling, or scribbling fragments of poems and short stories in a secret notebook. (How many other young writers kept secret notebooks—the ones you covertly slipped into your real notebook, so you could [...]
On Reading
I am still deep into my quest for creative inspiration. And if I may say, I am enjoying the quest so much, I am not certain I want it to end. Indeed, I set out nearly two weeks ago, in the hopes of revivifying my poetry, to explore the world of Steampunk. Which has turned [...]
The Used Life 