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Episode 5 - Does Boredom Drive Creativity?
1.5k Plays8 months ago
Most of us hate being bored. However, does being bored actually stimulate creativity? Research suggests it DOES! . How do you handle your boredom? Do you allow yourself time to be bored or do you constantly take your phone out and browse it like a dopamine addict? Are you doing yourself a creative disservice? Join us for a discussion on this absolutely fascinating topic.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:00:15
Speaker
Well, hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Woodworking is Bullshit, your favorite new podcast about design inspiration and the philosophy of design. I'm your host, Paul Jasper, scientist by day, woodworker by night. And I'm joined with my two co-hosts who are gorgeous, talented, and also intelligent.
00:00:34
Speaker
We start with Eric Curtis, who is a professional woodworker by day, professional thirst trap by night, who you may know is Premier Mary from her days on stage, AI designer by day, and contemporary furniture maker by night. Ooh, that was a great intro. Today, we may have been drinking prior to this episode. Today, what we are discussing, the question we have,
00:01:04
Speaker
centers around boredom, and I will turn it over to Eric. Well, if we're going to continue the drinking, I'm going to pour myself a little bit of wine here.
Is Boredom Necessary for Creativity?
00:01:16
Speaker
So this is what I've been thinking about, and I've been thinking about this for a while. And the question that I'll propose to you both first is, is boredom necessary for creativity?
00:01:31
Speaker
And I think the necessary thing is kind of the linchpin of this question, because I think time and space is definitely necessary for creative thinking. I think giving yourself the ability to kind of block out other voices as you're kind of honing in on your own is a necessary thing in the development. But boredom is a thing that we actively avoid, I think more so in our current culture than ever before.
00:02:00
Speaker
I've only been around 36 years, so I can't speak to the 70s, for example. However, I think it's pretty clear that we live now in a society that actively tries to avoid us being bored because when we're bored, we're not making people money.
00:02:16
Speaker
Right. And we're constantly overstimulated. We're constantly bombarded with visuals, with sound, with, you know, not like one of the things that I found myself getting irritated with for no particular reason is like the billboards, the electronic billboards on trucks, like you're driving down the street, and it's like a TV on the side of a truck. And I'm like, I don't want to see your active ad, I just want to zone out and drive. Because those moments of
00:02:44
Speaker
meandering mentally, I think are really important to the creative process. So for me personally, I'll speak to this from my experiential point of view. When I'm coming up with a design, when I'm trying to come up with a fresh idea, when I'm trying to do something that's interesting and meaningful and not just trying to bang a thing out by a deadline.
00:03:04
Speaker
I'll develop an idea or I'll develop kind of a guiding principle and then I'll sit with it for a time. And often what I'll do is I'll just go on long walks and I'll leave my phone at home and I will just meander the streets of Philadelphia and see what happens, see where my brain goes. And sometimes it's not productive at all. Sometimes my brain goes off on tangents that have nothing to do with what I need to think about.
00:03:29
Speaker
But I think giving it that space to develop, even if it's on the background kind of kind of running on like a second window on a processor, allowing it that time to percolate can give it the space to develop into something interesting that's not simply
00:03:48
Speaker
You know, regurgitation of what you've seen before. And the reason I think I'm bringing this question up now is because I feel like that's where I'm at currently in my creative practice and in my business is I have so many deadlines and I have so many things going on.
00:04:02
Speaker
with running a small business that I don't have currently enough time to sit with ideas and develop them and do interesting things. And so I find myself relying on the same old bag of tricks. A couple of details here, a little bit of texture here, and I know I can pull it off and I know the client's going to be happy with it.
00:04:22
Speaker
But I don't find that same level of creative satisfaction that I get from doing something new, challenging myself, and really taking a risk to see if it's going to just blow up. And instead, I find myself making furniture. And there's nothing wrong with making furniture. But that's where I stand right now. And so again, I come back to the question of, is that boredom, is that unstructured play, if you will, of the mind?
00:04:52
Speaker
necessary for creative development.
00:04:56
Speaker
That's a great intro, Eric. You gave your experience about boredom and creativity. So I often, as a scientist, I often try to hit the literature, the scientific literature, to figure out, well, has this been addressed in any sort of structured way? Have any experiments been done? And in fact, a lot of experiments have been done, looking at the linkage between boredom and creativity.
00:05:24
Speaker
And for a long time, the conventional wisdom, this is through the early 1900s and 70s and even into the 80s, the conventional wisdom is that boredom's bad in general. We think about boredom as a stressed or agitated state, yet at the same time lethargic. Other people like to describe it as tiring and miserable and frustrated.
00:05:49
Speaker
And it's been shown to have like negative outcomes in almost every way like negative outcomes at work in terms of performance, like academically at school if kids are bored, often their academic performance goes down or at work, their performance goes down. And in fact, they also sort of looked at safety.
00:06:08
Speaker
in the workplace, like if you're bored, you make a mistake and someone gets hurt. Yeah. So the sort of the prevailing wisdom and inertia was always that boredom is a negative trait.
00:06:23
Speaker
And I think all of us relate to that at a human level, right? None of us love it.
The Link Between Boredom and Creativity
00:06:29
Speaker
However, Sandy Mann and Rebecca Cadman in 2014, they were not the only group to test the idea of boredom linking to creativity, but they were one of the clearest papers that I came across in my limited research.
00:06:47
Speaker
on this topic. So Sandy and Rebecca, what they did is they tried to ask the question, does boredom predispose to more creative episodes after? Okay. And the way they went about testing this is super interesting, right? They took two groups of people, like 90 or so participants in each group. One group had to do a boring ass task, writing phone numbers. All right.
00:07:16
Speaker
Another group had to just read phone numbers. So writing phone numbers, reading phone numbers, and a third group got to not be bored and engage in their favorite whatever the hell it is. And then after a period of boredom or not boredom, those three groups then were asked to do a creative task.
00:07:35
Speaker
that could be ranked and quantified, right? And so the question was, were the people that were bored, did they come up with more interesting creative answers on the creative task that followed or not? And it could be measured. The number of creative solutions to that task was quantified and the creativity of those solutions was quantified somehow.
00:07:59
Speaker
What they found, and I think you know the answer already, everyone, you and everyone probably knows the punchline here, the people that were bored actually came up with more creative solutions and more creative answers than the group that was not bored. And you say, how does that make sense? Well, Eric, you already touched on what they think is the link.
00:08:24
Speaker
Which is, when you're bored, you have a tendency to have a free mind. You daydream, daydreaming.
00:08:33
Speaker
And while you're daydreaming, the creative answers come up. You ask questions, you ponder solutions. How many of you have come up with an idea in the shower, like a shower thought where you're like, oh, that's it.
Daydreaming and Creative Thinking
00:08:46
Speaker
It's a perfect example. Your board is hell. I mean, how many times have you washed your junk, right? So, I mean, how many times have you washed your junk?
00:08:58
Speaker
Not where I expected us to go, but OK. So how many times have you washed your body and just been thinking about something else? So boredom allows daydreaming, which allows creative thinking. Now, the one last piece I want to tell you before we pivot to Mary and her shower habits is they found that the people who were given a written task of writing phone numbers
00:09:26
Speaker
versus the people that were just reading phone numbers, they had a difference in their ability to come up with creative thinking. Eric, you know, that was the case. Eric, you know, do you want to guess? Go ahead. I well, purely from experience, I would guess that the the writing of the phone numbers is a task that requires some output and therefore limited their ability to come up with creative solutions.
00:09:50
Speaker
Absolutely. A hundred percent. Yes. So being, being occupied even with the boring task stole the brain processing power away from daydreaming, which then limited the amount of creativity that the daydreaming could conjure up.
00:10:07
Speaker
That is such a cool experiment. And it's been repeated in other ways by other research groups. I don't want to slight any of them. I just don't have time to cover the entire research literature for a single podcast episode. But I think this is brilliant. It makes perfect sense to me in how I experience boredom and creativity and shower thoughts. And now it's time to ask Mary. Mary, does this framework resonate with you of boredom, daydreaming, creativity?
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah. Well, first off, am I understanding that the more you wash your junk that correlates with creativity? Yes. Precisely. Precisely. We're really encouraging extreme hygiene. Eric and my junk is extremely clean. There's ghosts on the table. I'm going to leave them there. Oh, man. OK.
00:11:03
Speaker
Um, I, yeah, obviously I agree. I like Eric in a position where I haven't had access to a shop, so I have been dying. And I don't know if that's a seamless like boredom of just like really wanting to be in a shop and having access to the ability to make things, but I would define it in a similar way. Like Eric knows that I've been just like,
00:11:27
Speaker
bubbling over with too many ideas. And a lot of it, like you should see my iPad, it's literally just so many pages of sketches and sketches and sketches. And that is also what I do when I
00:11:39
Speaker
I'm in a creative rut, like all I do is just make sure the pen hits the paper, the iPad, and I don't even know what I'm going to be drawing. Sometimes it's just like random squiggles and like different shapes, but that helps spur a moment. And for me, that is huge. Like sketching is always a good way to start that spark. And then also like Eric going,
00:12:03
Speaker
on walks or just like emptying your mind is another mode for me. However, I'm a bit more specific. I like to go look at things like I think you like to basically zone out.
00:12:15
Speaker
maybe, and I really like to go look at things that I know I like and I know that are inspiring to me. So it's usually buildings, usually some sort of architecture, some sort of view, et cetera. Um,
Finding Inspiration in Architecture
00:12:26
Speaker
and that is where I get creativity because, and not, not always, but I think that for me historically, that's just been a very consistent way for me to get started. And then there's also times where that doesn't work. And then I don't really know how to handle it. I just keep going back or I try something new.
00:12:43
Speaker
Yeah, but I do know the ways to spark that creativity for me as it can, like, this is the most consistent way. So I think that's an interesting point to bring up because I think on the whole, everything that Paul was saying, I was kind of thinking,
00:13:00
Speaker
led into my point of I think boredom is necessary, right? Because it's the development of the idea. But what you're saying, this is an interesting thing. And this is maybe it's an input output question rather than a boredom question. But what you're saying is, when you're in a creative rut, what you do is go do visual research, right? You go to a museum, you go look at buildings, you go do, etc, etc, etc.
00:13:25
Speaker
And what I do is, like you said, like I tend to zone out and kind of give the idea space to develop. So I wonder if it's more of just finding the balance between like, for example, reading the phone numbers versus writing the phone numbers, because one is an active task where you may be searching for inspiration so that you can leapfrog that. Whereas I may already have the idea and I need to give it space to kind of come to fruition.
00:13:54
Speaker
Yeah, comment, comment. So I view your answers as the same, honestly. So Eric, you don't need that stimuli of like architecture and inspiration to spur your thoughts. Okay, great. You have downtime, things are happening in the city as you're walking, which is sensory and then you go back to your thoughts and then sensory and you go back to your thoughts. That's what Mary's doing. She has sensory,
00:14:18
Speaker
Oh, wow, look at that. Oh, wow. And then she goes back to her thoughts. And then she has another piece of inspiration, another piece of sensory information. And then she processes it, right? I think that's, that's a very fair point. I think it's the active versus the passive, which is the point I'm trying to make, right? I think you're both active.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yes, I think just may not know active input versus passive input. Okay, I get you. You're exactly right. And part of the reason that I walk is because like I know that my body just needs to do with things so that my mind can concentrate because I'm the type of kid who was doodling in school when I was bored. And and I know that as long as my body's moving, my brain can function better.
00:15:01
Speaker
versus what Mary's doing I think is actively seeking out input and I'm actively trying to avoid it but allowing it in if there's something that catches the eye and I think that's that's a important differentiation because I think it's it's like when you're a kid in the car staring out the window because it's a long road trip and it's 1991 and we don't have game boys or anything like that and you're just like
00:15:26
Speaker
Cool. I just saw a tree and now I'm developing, I'm daydreaming this like story in my head that is, you know, there's a monkey and a tree and a spawn, whatever the hell it is. Would you say it's more like a filter for you? Cause I think for me, I try to like take in as much as possible and use, and then process that as opposed to you who already have, like if you are taking things in, but you also need some time to just like not process anything there. So you're filtering like,
00:15:53
Speaker
the ideas down? It's a two step process for me. So it usually starts with what you're talking about, which is going and seeking visual research, right? It's looking at books, it's going to galleries, it's looking at buildings. But then once I do that, and I have kind of a guiding star of an idea,
00:16:10
Speaker
then I have to block everything else out because I need the thing to be able to develop in its own space rather than be kind of bombarded by what I see on social media, what I see in books or on the internet. So I think that's the same church, different people.
00:16:30
Speaker
Okay, so what I want to do is pause for a moment. I want to ask those of you listening, do you tend to go with your own thoughts away? Do you tend to seek out inspiration?
00:16:47
Speaker
and then go to your own thoughts. Like, I just want to put a pause here to allow you, the listener, to consider what your own experience is because one of my pet peeves is how fast podcasts run and how everyone eliminates space, which doesn't give us time to think. So I'm going to give us 10 seconds now to think about what your experience is.
00:17:20
Speaker
10 seconds feels like 10 minutes, don't it? I was wondering how many of us were just counting to 10. But really, you know, I do think having pauses in podcasts and lulls in the conversation does allow processing time, which is boredom, which allows you to chew over what was just said in terms of your own experience. So go ahead, Mary. I think a change
00:17:49
Speaker
What is like causing this boredom now? Like, what do you think is the solution for that? Is it just more time to process things? And that's the pressure that you're feeling? The lack of boredom you mean? Yeah.
00:18:02
Speaker
Well, I think what's happening right now in my current situation is I'm running a business as a furniture maker. I'm growing a business as a content creator. And then there's the teaching and a million other things going on. And so
Balancing Business with Creativity
00:18:21
Speaker
I tend to think that most furniture makers don't make more than about a half dozen pieces a year if you're making studio furniture, right?
00:18:32
Speaker
if you have two months to design and make an object, right? And that's not enough time to really, really dive deep into it. So you're already limited. And then you have the business aspect of things to make sure that you're maintaining so that you can maintain a life as a furniture maker. So what's happening is those things are all happening concurrently. And there's not any dedicated time to
00:19:00
Speaker
you know, say to a client who's been super patient, like, Hey, I know, I know I said this thing's going to take two months. I think it should take six months because I want it to be right. Most, most clients aren't okay with that. Some are, and I've had some wonderful clients who have allowed me to take excessive amounts of time to make a thing. But then you have the business aspect of it that says, all right, well, you know, that may take six months to make, but they're not going to pay for six months. They're paying for two months.
00:19:28
Speaker
So the solution for me right now is this is part of the reason why I'm building up the other aspects of my business. So I have the YouTube or the content creation aspect of the business, which I think could kind of simulate the teaching aspect of what I used to have.
00:19:45
Speaker
And then the objects that I make can be afforded more time because they're not the primary driver of income. And so if I get to a point where I say, I'm not doing any commissions and I'm making, you know, two or three pieces a year, well, now I've got four to six months apiece. And that feels like enough time because it's not. Again, this is this is purely experiential first person stuff, but
00:20:12
Speaker
Even if the idea is not the thing you're contending with directly, having time for it to sit in the back of your brain for a few months, knowing that it's coming is sometimes enough for me to say like, oh, well, that's an interesting thing. Maybe I'll apply it to that thing I'm going to make in six, 12, 18 months. And I think just that space of being able to sit with it, it's not boredom per se, but it is time, which is a thing that we don't allot very much of in our current
00:20:42
Speaker
you know social society yeah that was my question like what are you defining as boredom here is it just allowing yourself to process things through time because like boredom indicates like a negative aspect i guess and i don't know if that's necessarily true here it's more just allowing yourself to have
00:21:01
Speaker
processing time, right? Yeah, Mary, good point. I think, yeah, I think what we need is processing time, whether you talk, whether you label that boredom or not, I guess is up to you.
00:21:16
Speaker
All right, so I want to change topics a little bit because I feel like we've been hammering this. We were about to really sink the teeth in. No, no, no. I do want to change just gears, but not entirely. So what if the articles I read, when Mortis and Tenon magazine came out in the very beginning, the very first few episodes, I remember reading an article of a production turner.
00:21:41
Speaker
or a production maker who makes hundreds and hundreds of units of something in a row.
00:21:49
Speaker
or thousands even. And you would think, oh my God, how boring. But the thesis or the premise of this article was that while that person is doing the repetitive production task, in the midst of that is when the creativity occurs. And I was like, wow, I never considered that. I always thought creativity occurred when you're like kind of thinking off somewhere, not making a thousand copies of something.
00:22:19
Speaker
And I was like, because I hate production. I hate it. I'm so bored during it. But I thought, golly, that's such an interesting idea. And I have since done some production runs where I make 20, 50, 100 of something. And I did find my brain, while I was doing that task and bored, making 50 copies of something, I did find myself optimizing
00:22:47
Speaker
rethinking the process, how I could make version two better. What would version three look like while I was doing it? So I think that's a fair point. And I think there's kind of two things to say to that first and foremost.
00:23:02
Speaker
This is why people called Sam Maloof a process artist, right? Like that was his thing. He made the same damn chair for 50 years, but every time he made it, he made it ever so slightly different. And he seemed to really enjoy that process of taking a thing that you know 90% of it and seeing the details come alive in the final 10%. And I think this is just,
00:23:30
Speaker
a thing to note that creativity looks different to everybody. And I think that's fine. But the other thing is, you know, this year with kind of refocusing my business more toward YouTube, I wanted to have some supplemental income. And so I took a job working at a cabinet shop, you know, one to two days a week. And
00:23:55
Speaker
I don't want to sound arrogant, but it's so easy, man. It's just boxes, you know? And I've been doing this for over a decade. It's not hard to make cabinets.
00:24:11
Speaker
It was brilliant because you go in and you do the thing and you don't have to think about it. And so your mind can go elsewhere. I'm building a $50,000 kitchen for these people or doing this giant armoire for these other clients. And I'm thinking about three pieces ahead because I have the time and the space to do that. And I think that comes back to my creative processes. My body needs to be moving so my mind can be clear and therefore my mind can't be super engaged with whatever physical task I'm doing.
00:24:41
Speaker
Which actually speaks to Mary's counterpoint, which is, is it really boredom, or is it just your mind's free to wander? Well, how are we defining boredom then? Well, I don't want to get in the semantics of that. Let's not do that. Okay, last question for you. Does our phone and technology...
Impact of Technology on Creativity
00:25:02
Speaker
Yes, whatever the question is. Just fuck us up. Yeah, I was different with that. Right? Mary, you start.
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Are you kidding me? Everything about today's culture is like one, attention spans are so short to you always have to be occupied. I mean, I'm even guilty of this to even just reaching for something when I'm like,
00:25:26
Speaker
I don't know, when I'm not having to think of anything, it's just my instinct to open an app or open something to scroll. And the fact that it's like, and the scrolling makes it so difficult. As a UX designer, this is a huge, fascinating topic because it is maybe kind of a dark pattern in which you're encouraging negative behaviors, but also you like the people want you to consume as much as possible. That's the whole point. It's consumption and it's like the advertisements and
00:25:52
Speaker
everything. So it doesn't give you the ability to, you know, take time in your brain for yourself. And it also encourages the behavior that even if you do have that, it feels wrong, you become addicted to not having that. It is definitely something I struggle with. And I'm not even like the young mom, the youngest person here, but
00:26:14
Speaker
I'm not like Gen Z. So it's something I've noticed over the years. Like, I don't think I was like this before. It's just the, you know, the behaviors of social media and our phones. It's encouraging everyone, even our parents. Yeah.
00:26:29
Speaker
I think it's been really interesting over the last five-ish years now to see how I've developed that relationship with my phone because, I mean, you know, social media was less prevalent five years ago, but it was still very prevalent. But I wasn't on any social media. I mean, I had a Facebook, but I didn't start utilizing social media as a business tool until 2018.
00:26:57
Speaker
And I've developed this habit over the years of, well, I'm doing it for business. And then all of a sudden, well, now I've got friends on this platform. And now, well, now I'm on seven different platforms maintaining a business. And it's, well, obviously you got, listen, I got bills to pay. Okay. All right.
00:27:16
Speaker
Uh, but it is, it's a thing of like this morning, for example, I, I usually like have a list of things that I need to get done in the day, uh, because I have a terrible memory. And I always keep that in the notes app on my phone. And this morning I took out a piece of paper and I wrote it down on a piece of paper specifically. So I didn't have to look at my phone because then you go and you look at your phone and then you're like, Oh, well somebody DM me on Instagram. And then
00:27:41
Speaker
You're looking at that for 10 minutes, you're like, I shouldn't do that. And then I got to look at comments on YouTube. And then I'm on YouTube for 40 minutes. And you just, you keep circling the drain. And you never actually, you know, it like you never get there. And it just eats away at your time to sit with thoughts and ideas. So I think for me, I need to be very intentional about taking my time away from that in applying it in different areas.
00:28:11
Speaker
Great answer. So I am often asked why I don't have a YouTube. And the truth is because I'm on my phone too goddamn much already. If I have to record everything in video and process it and upload it to YouTube, I won't have time to make anything anymore.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's already too much. I'm not looking for more phone time. In fact, I feel horrible when I'm on my phone all day, or for like two, three hours at a time. I feel mentally exhausted. Just nothing moves me. I feel like tired.
00:28:52
Speaker
like gross, right? And I've learned now that when I go in the shop sometimes, like I know it could benefit people to see how I cut something or do something like people getting into woodworking. And I understand it would be interesting. It would get me views and get me followers, but I don't fucking care sometimes. I just want that time to feel good for myself, which is like, I just want to make shit and just be happy. It's that simple. And so I put the phone away.
00:29:22
Speaker
Yeah. Have you guys ever gone through a period in which you don't look at this, like for an extended period of time? Because I know for me- A phone? Yeah. Yeah. Or like any sort of consuming of social media or anything. Because for me, I mean, this was a while ago, but when I lived in Turkey in the middle of nowhere on an archaeological dig, I had no access to Wi-Fi, no reception. And I cannot remember a time where I was happier.
00:29:52
Speaker
which is insane because also it was like 10 years ago and like social media wasn't even that prevalent but even the state of you know internet access and being able to talk with other people and that like just completely cutting that out it gave me such a better state of mind such a better like clarity much more creative I was able to like pursue pursue a new interest like took up sketching then like walking around even just
00:30:19
Speaker
Taking in all the sites. I don't know. Have you guys gone through a period like that or no? This is this is why I started doing the road trips big month-long road trips and I'm you know 90% of those days I spend my evenings out in the middle of nowhere with no reception and There's there's nothing to do but you know stare at a fire and pour a glass of whiskey and just like contemplate life and
00:30:44
Speaker
Eric, I didn't get the hell out of you for doing that, really. I find myself wishing I could be there with you when you do that. Next time, you're coming, buddy. No, like, really, like the fact that you have the fortitude to actually do it, it's awesome. Come hang, next time. We could do a podcast road trip. We could do a campaign. Guys, we're not going to be sober for that one.
00:31:13
Speaker
We're not sober for this one, big guy. God damn right, buddy. You know how many fucks I haven't dropped this episode? I'm so proud of myself. Wow.
00:31:26
Speaker
All right. So I guess we're in agreement that the phone is a detriment to our creative process. I think we can look up examples of creativity online. So let's bring it back to the conversation around woodworking, not just mental health and all of those things, which are very well documented, but the creative process in the core of this question about boredom and developing ideas. This is why I talk about the echo chamber of social media.
00:31:55
Speaker
right? Because what happens is if all you ever do is take inputs and you see people making a thing and you think, oh, that's really cool. I want to go make it. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you want to develop your own vocabulary and do interesting work and all you ever allow yourself the space to be is bombarded with other people making
00:32:14
Speaker
fucking charcuterie boards with epoxy infills or like whatever the the microwave shock thing was that people were doing for a hot second. You're about to say copper ring, whatever, whether copper ring, whatever it is. But like those, you just end up echoing other people rather than developing your own language and
00:32:34
Speaker
I'm not trying to be an elitist about this. I understand that there are hordes of people who don't have the time or desire to want to actually develop a language. They just want to make things. And that's totally fine. But the making of the thing and the developing of an idea are two separate processes. And so if you're trying to develop ideas and vocabularies, I don't think you can do that if you're constantly surrounded by
00:33:02
Speaker
Frankly, not very good woodworking on social media apps that are designed to keep you on the app. Great, great point, Eric.
00:33:11
Speaker
So I have a question for each of you now that bears on this conversation. I love that last point, by the way. I'm not moving away from it. Oh, that's great. Anyway. No, I think he's absolutely right. Absolutely right. But we covered elements of one about copying and generating your own ideas. And basically, Eric's saying you need the bandwidth to generate your own ideas. When you're in a creative rut,
00:33:40
Speaker
What the hell
Overcoming Creative Blocks
00:33:41
Speaker
do you do? And I'm sure there are many people listening who would know exactly what we're talking about. You hit that creative rut, you don't feel it. You just, I don't, I have no ideas. I'm not feeling like being in the shop. This sucks. I don't feel inspired. God damn it. I want to get back to where I used to feel like excited, titillated about my next project. What do you do? Mary.
00:34:08
Speaker
Uh, a few different things. I mean, we mentioned the stuff at the beginning of this episode, but for me, a lot of it is sketching, which I've talked about and just like making sure the pen hits the paper, like anything. And usually that helps. However, another thing is, especially since moving to Philly, talking to friends because I get so in my head and then it just gets worse and worse. It's more.
00:34:30
Speaker
just like silence and me being sad that I'm in a creative rut. And I just need to have someone to talk to, to pull me out of that. And yeah, Eric has been helping me with that lately because I've just been.
00:34:44
Speaker
thinking of far too many things just overthinking basically and then yeah and then he encouraged me just start making something just like do anything like i'm the kind of person unfortunately who doesn't like to start making things unless i'm like 100% in love with what it is but i realize that's not always going to be the case for everyone so that yeah talking with friends has been extremely helpful
00:35:09
Speaker
I think that's a great point. The reason that I have a shared shop space is exactly that reason because I think it is immensely valuable, invaluable even to have second eyeballs on things and just have somebody around that you can, whether it's, you know, through text, give a phone call, or in my case, I like to have people physically there around me while I'm building things that I can just be like,
00:35:35
Speaker
What do you think? Like, am I wrong on this? I don't know where to go on this. What would you do here? And you may or may not take that advice, but having somebody to just poke you and prod you, and maybe they say the right thing, I think that's super, super valuable. But the thing that we were talking about the other night, I think is central to this question as you make more objects. You don't even know what the hell I'm about to say. I don't either.
00:36:00
Speaker
It's chasing the dragon. Are we chasing the dragon? So, and I think about this quite a bit because I know I've made really good objects in the last few years and yet the enthusiasm that came about from those objects wasn't the same as it was early on.
The Thrill of New Creative Directions
00:36:21
Speaker
And I think that's just a natural progression of you do the thing. We all are here because we fell in love with woodworking. And it's this incredible medium. It's this beautiful material. We love this thing. And the first time you make an object that's successful, Jesus Christ, that's like having sex for the first time. You're like, what? Like, oh my god. You know? Like, that's this. Eric, get out of that. Eric, it's way better than sex your first time. The first time you're a nervous fucking wreck.
00:36:52
Speaker
That's fair. That's fair. And the irony is the time scale is opposite on the table, you know? Oh my god. But. But.
00:37:04
Speaker
It's chasing that dragon of like, am I ever going to be as excited about a piece as I was that first time I made a piece? And it's happened a couple of times, right? Like every time I think for me that I discover a new direction, it's kind of that same high. It's this idea of like, holy shit, now I have this entire new path to follow and I don't know where this road ends.
00:37:30
Speaker
But when you're doing a thing and you get proficient at it, then it becomes hard to be as excited about this thing because it's not, you're never waiting out beyond the, like once you can swim, the ocean's the ocean, you know? Like you're never waiting out that far.
00:37:54
Speaker
I, so this reminds me of the concept of flow by, uh, what's it? Uh, Chikai me. Uh, what's his name? No, you know, she can I mean me. No, no, no. You know who I'm talking about, right? Like she, Chikai Mika. Jesus Christ. I can't know. I know what you're trying to say. Sorry. The person, do you know this concept of flow?
00:38:24
Speaker
No, you haven't heard of the concept of flow by the psychologist. Oh my God. I'm so embarrassed. I forgot his name. Oh my God. Now keep going buddy. I'm not familiar now. Okay. So I will, I will put his name in the liner notes. I promise.
00:38:51
Speaker
It's a very weird pronunciation. Anyway, it's the concept of flow. And he engineered a framework about how when we enter a new field, we start in, there's like a framework about like when we enter something new, it begins with anxiety and stress because we don't know what we're doing. And the difficulty of the task is high.
00:39:14
Speaker
And we're like, oh, Jesus Christ. You're like, what am I going to do? Right. So when you first get into something, it's not exactly like an enjoyable task because you're freaked out. You don't know how to do it. It seems like incredibly difficult. But then as you gain a technical proficiency where the proficiency you have of the task is married to the difficulty of the task, you enter a state of arousal and excitement.
00:39:40
Speaker
because you're like, okay, I got this. This is super challenging to me. But I actually am starting to get the skills to address that. And it's damn exciting. It is so it is like a euphoric feeling when the first time you realize, I got this, like I'm starting something new.
00:40:02
Speaker
And I got this. I can do this. That is like a euphoria or a high, like, I mean, man, it is difficult to describe. And I'm sure you both felt it in the shop where you like tried something and you're like, motherfucker, I got this.
00:40:20
Speaker
Oh, that feels so good. Right. And it's because you're in that state of like heightened arousal, you knew it was difficult. But your skill set has eventually, you know, ballooned up to the task. And then Eric,
00:40:34
Speaker
based on what you're saying, when you have proficiency, it's not as arousing. It enters a state of like relaxed proficiency. I have this, it's relaxing to do this because I've done it a hundred times already. And then it actually can in some cases, once you've turned a thousand bowls, it enters a state of boredom.
00:40:57
Speaker
So it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful framework about entering into a new field, anxiety and stress, total arousal and excitement, a flow state where hours go by like minutes. It's truly euphoric. And then you exit into boredom and lethargy eventually once you've done it.
00:41:16
Speaker
So many times that it really doesn't excite you and I think in part that explains why I've tried so many things in the shop I tried woodworking. I tried pyrography. I've tried leafing. I've tried engraving because I'm chasing the dragon as you said Yeah, I think I think this is
00:41:36
Speaker
it might just be the curse of creative people. It's we face boredom, I think, more than most people. I could be wrong. That could be completely unfounded. But I think we all get to a point where we just find ourselves unengaged.
00:41:57
Speaker
not because the work isn't important, not because it's not going well, but because it's not, we're not reaching that flow state because we've maybe not even mastered it, but just become technically proficient, as you said. And I wonder, I wonder how much this bleeds into the career paths of naturally creative people as well. Because I do wonder about this about myself, like am I cursed to be on a seven year cycle for the rest of my life? Like I find it takes me around five to seven years to get good at a thing.
00:42:25
Speaker
And well, it takes me maybe between two to three years to get good at a thing. And then another two to three years to enjoy being good at the thing. And then at the end, I'm like, now I'm ready to move on. Do you think it's, um, like, can that kind of euphoria be contagious? Cause I wonder like when you were teaching or when you do teach and you are around people who kind of
00:42:49
Speaker
discover that feeling in your class. That's why I love teaching. Yeah. Eric, right. This is, this is, I think about this often because the reason I enjoy teaching beginners classes, and I think this is the same reason I enjoyed coaching preschool gymnastics as opposed to more advanced gymnastics is the idea of like, you're just bad at it. Well, I was just bad at it, you know? Okay. So, um, I do want to say, I want to correct myself the pronunciation of the
00:43:17
Speaker
uh, flow state psychologist, Mihai, Chick sent Mihai. I'm not joking. Mihai, Chick sent Mihai. That's how you pronounce his name. Okay. Now that I, now that I feel like I have done the only one that's going to get canceled this episode, we can move on.
00:43:35
Speaker
Now that I have done justice to the scientists, I refer to, finally, and we're at 45 minutes now. Finally, I'd like to transition out of our discussion about boredom. I think we have covered it enough, as you can tell. I'd like to move on to, oh my God, I'd like to, what are your goals for 2024?
Goals for 2024
00:44:04
Speaker
Why don't you go first, Paulie? I don't have a hard time. Okay, okay, okay. Goals for 2024. Oh my God. Honestly, I want to...
00:44:21
Speaker
uh do better in metal engraving. Metal engraving is something I've been enjoying uh pursuing and I think the reason is because it fits into my life quite well. It's like during the day obviously you're working your job and then you know in the early evening after dinner you do in the shop and you use some like you know heavy lifting and wood is heavy and it gives you splinters and you hurt your hands and whatever but then like late at night 9 10 p.m
00:44:49
Speaker
I'm not quite ready to go to bed, but I certainly don't want to be in the shop. I'm just done. I'm just cooked. I don't want to lift heavy shit. I don't want my, I don't want splinters. I don't feel like being cold. So like being in the house, I have my engraving studios in the basement in my, uh, there's a room in my basement that I set it up.
00:45:07
Speaker
Metal engraving, it's like you're warm, it's like very technical, you're under a microscope, and it's just calm and quiet, and you can listen to music, and you can be with your thoughts, and it's very meditative. Like we were saying, because it occupies your mind, you can think about things, I just love it. And I think it's such a great addition to my life for late at night activities, either that or drawing on my iPad. So my goal is to become a better engraver this year.
00:45:36
Speaker
Nice. Should I go? Please. Ladies first. Um, yeah. Well, I think one of my goals for 2024, uh, well, I just moved. So getting back into woodworking after having taken a break for two months, I didn't have access to shop, but just joined a shop. So really excited. Um, but one of my goals and Eric actually knows this is I want to do a line of furniture, um, based off of my favorite buildings in Philadelphia. So I often do.
00:46:05
Speaker
like use architecture as inspiration, but Philly is like my hometown. It's kind of the place that I love. It's the place that I know the buildings the most. Also, I went to school here and studied architecture in college and like was led around the whole city by these professors and professionals and the leads of these architecture firms. So having lived through all that, I want to do a lot of furniture, but also in addition to that, and this may be a more multi-year goal, I guess,
00:46:33
Speaker
I want to document better. So I think I want to make a book out of all of that. And that shows kind of my entire process of photographing, of sketching, creating the models and then the final piece. Honestly, I'm more excited about this first parts than the actual final piece and then laying out the book itself because I am a designer. Like laying things out graphically and visually is really, really pleasing to me and really exciting. And it gets me excited to think about that.
00:47:03
Speaker
Oh, I mean, my my first tangible goal, I want to clear out my commission queue. And I want to get rid of that because I want to dive deeper into some pieces that that have some more personal meaning, which I haven't had the time to do since the pandemic since 2020. I've been
00:47:31
Speaker
I've been growing things and I've been growing a business and that's been very exciting. But I haven't had the opportunity I think to set aside a couple of months and just like focus on a piece that I think makes a statement about where I am in my life currently. And that's important to do for me at least every now and again.
00:47:52
Speaker
So I'm going to clear out the commission queue and I want to get to making something that, that forces me to contend with who I am as a human being on a larger scale at this point in time. That's deep. What's the, what's the first piece do you think you want to do? I've got ideas. Okay. All right. Well, we're at the 49 minute mark.
00:48:17
Speaker
I say we go to everybody's favorite segment. At this point, this is episode five. Did I say that in the front? I don't know that I did. Actually, now that I think about it, this is episode five, everyone. And what I do want to say is, since we released this recently,
00:48:38
Speaker
We've had a number of people join our Patreon, which we very much appreciate because obviously we have to pay fees for hosting and whatnot. And your support is very much appreciated. Steve I, someone who I met in person at least two times now, he was our first Patreon. He joined at the highest level. Steve, thank you so much. I know I saw you yesterday at the Woodworking Show, but thank you so much for supporting us.
00:49:06
Speaker
and B.V. Wynn as well. You joined this week and all, of course, now this is funny, this is really funny, our good friend, Keith Johnson, K.J. Soders.
00:49:21
Speaker
Sorry. My issue with Keith is that he's close friends with all three of us. And this motherfucker can't even get out on the top tier bullshit. Oh, oh, Eric. Eric, you have the nuts to say that about Keith. Are you a patron of his podcast? In Keith, I love you, buddy. Yeah, exactly. Eric, answer the question. Do you pay per year
00:49:50
Speaker
to support his podcast. You know how much I pay in emotional support on a monthly basis? Keith, Keith, we love you and we really appreciate you doing that. It's such a touching gesture even though Eric tries to shit all over.
00:50:10
Speaker
I will not do that. I'm the patron on his podcast. All right. Stop kissing ass. So basically, Mary is nice, and Eric is the only dickhead left. Jesus, he's trying to get the best friend part. Well, we appreciate both Steve, Biviwin, and Keith. Those are our first three patrons. That's what we got at the moment. Oh, yeah. And hopefully, we continue to get more patrons as you find this podcast interesting and useful to your own creative life.
00:50:40
Speaker
With that, we're going to transition to everyone's favorite segment, where we explore the intricacies of the DMs that arrive in Eric's inbox, and it is called The Slide.
Exploring Eric's DMs
00:51:03
Speaker
This slide, we're going to slow things down, draw back, pour some wine, light some candles, because we're sliding into Eric's DMs.
00:51:17
Speaker
Oh, baby. Oh, yeah. Oh, you know, you know what the really fun part is, is that, of course, we'll discuss this in the after show. And if you're a patron, you get the after show as well as the video feed. I don't even remember recording these messages with my voice. By the way, my wife, Vicky, does the slide intro. She sounds like a total hot vixen.
00:51:45
Speaker
I wish you would choose that voice more at home, which I assure you she does not. Not yet. Maybe if I was as handsome as Eric, she would. But alas, this message I don't even remember hearing, so let's let her rip. Hey, Eric. Off topic, but can you please come over and move some bricks for me in the rain?
00:52:14
Speaker
So Eric, that sounds absolutely miserable. That sounds great. Eric, you're moving masonry heavy objects in the rain.
00:52:27
Speaker
Now that I think about this, I do remember that this question was from a gentleman, if I recall correctly. And the irony to me is that they're asking me to do labor that I definitely did on the show because we moved like patio pavers in a month soon in Atlanta. So I do just go back and watch the show again.
00:52:52
Speaker
It already happened. It already happened. Come on, man. Maybe he wants a personal version of it. Oh, that's... I don't know if I'm doing, like, road calls. Okay, well, we're going to discuss this more in the actress show.
00:53:06
Speaker
We wanna thank everyone for tuning in today about our discussion about boredom as it relates to creativity and your phone getting in the way. We hope that you found it useful and we hope that it made you question your own creative process. As I said, if you think it's valuable, join our Patreon, we'd appreciate that. And until then, we will see you in the after show or next time. Thanks everyone. Cheers friends.