(original thread) meant to write an essay today but got distracted by twitter lol and now its bedtime so maybe i’ll blurt out a thread about what the essay was going to be. twas intended for friends who feel kinda trapped by the moderate success of some creative project(s)

several of my clients have fit this bill: they’re creative, entrepreneurial people who like to play and experiment, and they’ve found themselves committed to a certain project that has achieved some amount of success, now they feel burdened with the obligation to see it through

problem is, it’s hard to be playful and experimental when you feel a burdensome obligation on your shoulders. so often they end up freezing on the main project, being kinda chronically stressed about not making any real progress on anything, and also not having space to goof off
so here’s what i do with my clients when i hear this: I change the subject, lol. I say lets put that down for a minute, I wanna hear about the stuff you like. What inspired you? What songs, tv shows, movies, artists, etc? Who are your favorites, living or dead? What do you love?

I ask this partially because I’m genuinely always curious to know what inspires people – but also, the things you love are clues to the essence of who you are. And that essence is critical in figuring out what you “oughta” do next

a good number of people who feel creatively stuck, are imo stuck because they’re trying to think with their minds about what their next steps ought to be, instead of feeling it with their hearts, or bodies. I know that sounds cheesy but there’s really something to it

the exercise i then like to lead clients through is to imagine themselves as part of a larger cinematic universe. here i like to reference whatever they brought up – if it was a movie, i say pretend you’re a film studio. song, record company, etc. get detailed and evocative, impt

imagine that whatever it is that you’ve been working on – blog, book, youtube channel, event series, etc – is just ONE artist in that holding company. now imagine you also get to be several other artists- a dozen or more, if you like – each doing entirely different projects

i can talk you through some of mine. eg I have VEERA, an alter ego who is a literal twitter alt of mine, and also an entirely different configuration of my personality. we are both offshoots of the same Self, but we emphasize different facets of ourselves

if you’re feeling creatively blocked/stuck etc i I highly, highly recommend figuring out who the Veera to your Visa is. I’ve been very honored to witness people light up as they realize what they have inside them, that they haven’t allowed the opportunity to come out and play

the separation of personas or stage acts etc seems to be something that’s really helpful to people, I can see/feel the relief. the idea being that you don’t have to change/modify who you currently are. you don’t have to abandon or end the project you’re currently working on

I recommend riffing around with phrases and ideas until you find something like a slogan, a talisman, a generative phrase or image that inspires you. you’ll know you’ve hit something when you feel excitement and aliveness stirring within you

and there’s no need to be in a rush to commit to something. as the publishing house / film studio, you can try hundreds of different artists and projects until you find something that really resonates with you. this you can do with just your imagination, or through cheap sketches

if you’ve been stuck feeling like you’re in a loveless marriage with your primary project, take some time – maybe spend a day at a cafe, maybe a weekend trip out of town – and brainstorm and experiment and feel out possibilities. you dont have to commit to anything. just feel em

sometimes people find too much blank canvas daunting. ok, then narrow it down. give yourself a specific imagination challenge. like, imagine one alternate version of yourself, tweaking just one major character trait, strongly. (i like to do many branches, but its your experiment)

then you give this imaginary alternate person some specific challenges, like interrogate them abt what movies THEY would want to make, or what book THEY would write. you can actually ‘stack’ this. you can have THEM imagine ANOTHER alternate self with some other set of constraints

why? well, imagine it’s going like this. your alternate, more rebellious self wants to make a movie about… a failing video game studio in the 90s… and that studio… made a game called… Vexen… and it had a great soundtrack… what was great about the Vexen soundtrack?

and then in going along with this, feeling out seemingly random nonsensical things, you arrive at “omg! I could totally record a demo for the Vexen soundtrack!” and halfway through recording track 5 you realize you’ve smashed your creative block around “I wanna record an album”

because to some degree it’s not ~really~ “you” recording the album, it’s some distant alternate-universe fragment of yourself, and it’s not a “real” album, it’s a fictional fake thing, like a silly game toy pretend thing… it’s allowed to be bad, in fact its cheesy on purpose…

that’s it. my thesis here is that people have gotten overindexed on their primary identity, and it’s exhausting, overwhelming, scary. and the solution is to play-pretend, put on some costumes, literally or figuratively, and goof off. put on your robe and wizard hat. do nonsense

these aren’t new ideas at all, if anything I think they’re some of the oldest. Khalil Gibran didn’t write “Khalil’s Rules for Life”, he wrote “The Prophet”. That way, if it turns out to be crap, well, blame Mustafa for bein’ a crappy prophet, lol

i have more to say about the power and value of frame stories but i am feeling the call of sleep, so maybe tomorrow, or maybe in the essay, who knows. always a mystery