Go ahead , fellow retirees, say it.
“This guy is pathetic!”
But millions of wise people whose lives revolve around the total care and comfort of their dogs can’t all be wrong.
Month: March 2019
Need to spark your imagination?
Fun stuff in this list of timed writing exercises.
Creative retirees: I think a number of these activities can be translated into your chosen medium–paint…music, even.
Celebrate spontaneous creativity.
Those can be magical moments.
For me, it happens most often in the kitchen.
Why? Consider all the available tools and ingredients.
And then there’s the love of food.
And spontaneity can also be fed by the time of day or the day of the week.
Sunday afternoons are a time for baking. Sure it’s fun to thumb through a cookbook or launch a Google search for quick and easy coffee cake [a more-than-occasional venture at our house], but it’s just as fun to use the recipe as a foundation for experimentation.
Case in point: Last Saturday morning.
I was all set for our traditional jaunt to the local farmer’s market. But there was L on the and I didn’t feel like waiting for breakfast.
Someone once proposed that hunger was the mother of invention. I think it was me.
The next thing I knew, amidst a cloud of two kinds of flour, a little corn meal mush, separated eggs, and the other expected ingredients, I had set up a waffle station. Soon after came the colby cheese for one batch, the almonds and dried cranberries for another. [The true miracle, however, was forgetting to add chocolate chips for ‘she who must have chocolate’.]
Soapbox time: We retirees should revel in times like this. Remember…’try new’.
I looked up ‘spontaneous creativity’ and there is a book with that title, but I was drawn instead to this 2013 post from Scott Myers:
That is where relying on our creativity is most important. This implies a kind of trust in our creative instincts and that implies having worked with our creativity enough to learn to trust it.
But in truth if we trust in our creativity, we can surprise ourselves with moments of deep insight to help us perform to our best ability.
Okay, waffles aren’t exactly a deep insight, nor was my dinner tonight, which was supposed to be bangers and mash, but ended up as mustard greens/caramelized onion/sausage/sun dried tomatoes swimming in a chicken broth base, topped with a splash of balsamic vinegar, served over a bed of cavatelli.
But while not profound or life-changing, the spontaneous creativity can’t be denied.
More Tips to Fire Up Your Creativity
More from
201 Ways to Arouse Your Creativity
— Keep a box labeled for each project. Toss everything in the box, and don’t worry about misplacing things or ideas.
from Amy Ng of Pikaland
— Choose just one creative aim for the day. What one creative project can you begin/continue/finish today?
from Dan Goodwin’s Wakeful Ways at A Big Creative Yes
— Think on paper. With a bunch of loose paper, start jotting ideas down. Here are four benefits of writing by hand.
from Jacob Cass at Just Creative Design
Accountability…still good for my retirement
201 Tips to Fire Up Your Creativity
This guest post by Katie Tallo of Momentum Gathering can be found at https://writetodone.com
201 Ways to Arouse Your Creativity
She compiled the list from a number of sources. A few favorites below…
- from Jacob Cass at Just Creative Designs: “Mindmap. Whether you use key words, images, colours, a hierarchy system, numbers, outlines, circles or random words, mindmapping gets your creative juices flowing.”
- from Steve Pavlina: “Architect a worthy challenge. If a task is too easy, you don’t need to be particularly creative, so your creative self will simply say, “You can manage this one without me.”
- from Alison Motluk: “Seek out creative company. The best ideas are forged not in moments of solitary genius, but during exchanges with trusted colleagues.” [Note: Austin Kleon calls this creative company a ‘scenius‘.]
Retire*Renew*Reinvent 