Creativity on the fly

Here’s another musing on the new stuff I learned about my design process. Creativity strolls through your body co-op’ing the systems it wants to use. Need the eyes and the brain; in fact, need the entire nervous system; need these fingers, the palm of the hand, the backbone. Need them all in peak condition because creativity is physical.

Looking backwards from this new high-tower perspective, I think I thought creativity was a psychic wind of such force that my physical fitness was moot. How wrong was my assumption. Creativity might live inside me, but it certainly needs health and wellness to flourish. It needs health and wellness just to fight its way out of my body. It needs a steady hand.

Creativity doesn’t need full-throttle caffeine. I used to be really macho about coffee and caffeine– because my Dad drank lots of coffee and to this day I want to be “like my Dad.” Stopping at Tim’s for a coffee before a job interview is not a good idea for me. And asking for a decaf is just a waste of time.

Here’s the thing about the consistency of a Tim Horton’s outlet. I’ve tried decaffeinated coffee at a few different locations; it is consistently not good. Some combination of product and process inevitably results in a disappointing cup of coffee each time. Kudos for maintaining quality across a wide variety of restaurants and franchise operations even if the quality is mediocre.

Also while we are giving kudos to Tim’s in this post about the physical nature of creativity and the necessity of health and wellness to quality output, thank you Tim’s for consistently having flies in your outlets. It is an excellent way to keep me away from doughnuts. I love doughnuts and Tim Horton’s makes good ones. Fortunately for me, they can’t seem to keep the flies off them and that really takes my appetite away. Now I just have to stay away from doughnuts at the local grocery store and I am good.

Which makes me realize I don’t see flies at a grocery store. Shouldn’t they be there? Are grocery stores  just so big that the flies go unnoticed (whereas Tim’s is so small the flies are very visible)? Hmmm. What is the grocery store doing to keep flies out that Tim’s cannot do? The produce section at Zehr’s should have flies. The red plums are sticky with juice and yet there are no flies there. Am I wrong about this?

I need a good transition to get me back to the physical aspects necessary to create effective design. It’ll come to me. Or it won’t. It may be this post is just a way of stalling, avoiding my studio so thick with expectation and unrealized ideas. Maybe I should exercise first because creativity is physical.

 

Weeks later… maybe I should just finish this post and move on.