Day 2: Pressure is on

I awoke this morning feeling tired, maybe because I had a restless sleep or not enough….or the many things going through my brain. Feels like pressure and it is uncomfortable.  My incubation challenge was asking why we have 2-hemispheres in our brain.  I did not wake with any huge breakthroughs or insights…maybe the unconscious is still working on it…or maybe it doesn’t know either.

This is a big week with work.  The KIE conference is on Tuesday and I need to prepare.  I haven’t completed the website for Everyday Creativity.  Yes, I’m definitely feeling the pressure of life, when I only want to play and relax and read a book or two.  One thing on my mind today as I awoke is, “why the creativity challenges and how do they have anything to do with creativity?”  Upon reflection trying out new things and getting curious about trying new things is a great way to get out of our normal way of thinking. This is as Simple as breaking free of my comfort zone.  Pushing my edge and sharing the experience.  Yesterday I had such excitement mixed with wonder when exploring the Wildwood Lane.  It also reminded me of impermanence, this idea that things do not last, that all things come to an end, that we one day will also end.  I have a desire to keep precious my feelings and emotions for they are fleeting and also necessary.  My own youth, family, experiences of being in high school, college and often feeling nostalgia and wishing and wanting my kids to stay as the perfect little beings - little babies forever.  And, also I am VERY aware they must grow and change.  As I am also to grow, change, age and evolve.  Wildwood Lane is a reminder that we do and will leave pieces of ourselves behind.  Intentionally or not we leave ripples of our selves behind and our actions will travel - regardless.  Also, Wildwood reminds me that perfect and normal are abstract notions that are make-believe.  The houses on Wildwood face each other, without a street, tucked into a secret path. Definitely less desirable from the perspective of ‘fitting-in’ or what we might call a standard house.  But they are what they are, just as we are what we are.  We are not perfect in the sense of trying to mold into a cultural motif or pattern built from what society ‘expects’.

Can we not agree to do it our own way, and be happy with it.

Today I give creative affirmation to be myself, and allow my own uniqueness to get some room to expand to be free.  Less trying to fit any patterns and no “normal”.  Normal is the setting on the washing machine, and that’s about the extent of it.  I love my voice and my life and my experiences.  I love to show magic and energy and knowledge and how they all come together for this beautiful experience.  So, even though there is a big to-do list, maybe enjoy doing them and with some fun and love attached today.  

Mindfulness Practice:  

I felt stiffer and more tense in my body today.  Feel a bit inflamed, my body never lies to me and would like more water, more exercise and foods that are less inflammatory and more supportive of healthy bodies.  

I did get a message to do a creativity challenge - a 2-hour meditation one day. 

Idea Quota:

The brain is distributed so that it doesn’t get in our own way.  It has built in redundancy from injury, protective in ways to make us better at what we need, to be hunters, family and social, food collectors.

Are we the caretakers of the planet?  Is that our mission?

Idea:  trash / recycling contest (Scan Bar Codes)

Reading books contest

Exercise, badges (gamification)

Gamify the things that we don’t naturally do.

Reward and validate each other.

Celebrate learning and excellence and ways we bring it to everyone.

Celebrate teachers.  

Who is more the genius or brilliant - the person who is brilliant or the teacher(s) of the brilliant genius?

Go back and find all of my teachers and praise them.

Share my journey with them publicly.

Reach out to celebrities and ask them to become influencers for teaching and teachers.

Start the teaching fund, that literally gives money to teachers who are awesome

I can’t afford to teach so how can we change the world to make it so we can afford to teach?

Philanthropists?  Some kind of sustaining system that makes income and also pays the teachers. 

Proceeds from sales, books, likes, memberships, etc…. 

How are we to pay teachers livable wages? 

How do we make learning worth paying for?  

Motivate everyone to contribute to education grants?

Bring together two rather separate entities to make or create something new… for example, the Department of Defense and the Department of Education.

Entertainment and education, or even separate education and look for ways new innovations might come out of bringing together what would seem separate or different. 

The fishing industry and pollution in the oceans.  Geologists and travel and leisure.  The drug war and farmers.  Grocery Stores and food distribution and recycling and a healthy climate.  

Incubation Question:

What does it take to have a company in which the employees have fun on the job?