Solitude and giving ourselves short breaks throughout the day for our minds to wander aren’t just healthy for our spiritual practices. They can also help us with our creative work. The following article from LifeHacker explores the research behind creativity, and the ways that we can nurture creative thinking.
The short version is that taking a walk can be extremely good for both your prayer practices and for your creative project!
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“What Barron found was that the most creative thinkers all exhibited certain common traits: an openness to one’s inner life; a preference for ambiguity and complexity; an unusually high tolerance for disorder and disarray (and vodka and orange juice if we’re talking about Capote); and the ability to extract order from chaos.”
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“From a social, cultural, and scientific standpoint, creativity seems to come more freely when we’re able to utilize the parts of our brain that are less connected to reality and more free flowing in nature.”
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“In almost every ‘system’ of creativity devised, the most important part of the process involves a letting go of your consciousness to let the deeper parts of your mind come in and make connections. Without incubation—that space away from direct thought—there is no Eureka!”
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“One of the traits that Barron found during his creativity study was that creative people are more introspective. But not only in the sense that they have an increased level of self-awareness, but that they also have a familiarity with the darker and more uncomfortable parts of their psyche.
You’ve probably read about the creative benefits of daydreaming, but one of the things that is rarely mentioned in these essays is the importance of uninhibited daydreaming—not letting your brain filter the thoughts coming into your head.”
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Thomas Merton makes me want to take a walk in the woods for a week. At a time when we have no shortage of words, we desperately need the wisdom and insight that comes from extended periods of solitude. Just by virtue of his beautiful prose, Merton makes solitude desirable.
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