The Opposite of Stress is Not Relaxation

This is how we talk about stress. "I have a deadline tomorrow, I have to figure out what we're doing for dinner, I need to pay that bill and do laundry." It's about stuff. All the stuff we have to do.

But what happens when you stop doing stuff? When you finally collapse--or by some miracle catch a quick break? You're probably still stressed. At the very least, you're already planning how stressed you're going to be. In the future. Future stress.

The minimalists among us blame materialism (it generates stuff), our jobs (where we do stuff all day long), and our reticence to change (we're addicted to stuff). They say, "away with all the stuff!"

We all know the phrase 'emotional baggage.' If you go through the exercise of purging all of your physical stuff, you're probably going to be left with something. Something intangible. A sense of restlessness. Of vague anxiety. Unhappiness. A hairline fracture of stress, ready to topple you. Not about your physical stuff necessarily. It could be about pretty much anything--that's kind of the nature of stress. Just because it thrives on insane deadlines and household chores doesn't mean it comes from those things. Otherwise, taking vacation days would make it go away. But it doesn't.

Relaxation--the way we practice it anyway--is often a way of repressing stress. We decide to do the laundry later, take a nap now, and grab something quick for dinner. No, stress only goes away when we process the root cause. That's when relaxation can happen. And also something else.

The opposite of stress is curiosity.

If you're talking about a spectrum, where one end is bottled up, erratic negative energy, it doesn't make sense that a feeling of tranquility and stasis would be its opposite--that's the midpoint. The opposite of stress is curiosity because curiosity represents all of the excitement, spontaneity, and exploration that stress suppresses.

It would be nice if freedom from stress were as simple as saying, in a frustrated moment, "Ah! I just need curiosity!" Of course, that's not how it works. Dealing with stress is a unique process--and one that calls for its own blog post. What I'm trying to point out here is the reality that stress can work to crush our creativity precisely because it blinds our curiosity. When pressured and wrung out, brilliant, nuanced solutions are not top of mind. A curious mindset, on the other hand, creates a climate where the new, the unexpected, and the spontaneous can thrive.

Curiosity is why all children are artists. Curiosity is what we are lacking when our work becomes stale, trite, repetitive.

Sure, curiosity can be scary. Often curiosity will challenge knowledge that you treasure because it was so hard to learn. If you desire growth, you will seek out uncertainty. The unexpected. The new.

Or you will remain comforted by parody, imitation, and sameness. We've all got some kind of deeply rooted inertia. It grows differently in all of us. The choice is ours: do the same work you've always done... or, be curious and make something new.

5 Tools for Overcoming Creative Anxiety

When I first got my hands on a DSLR, I was fearless. I took photos and videos of everything, and I was just so excited about the power and possibilities of this little machine. Maybe you remember that feeling too, and maybe you smile and say, "yeah, those photos were terrible." They were terrible, but they represented exploration and discovery.

Now, approaching the art form of your choice feels heavy. The pen is the weight of a brilliant novel. The camera is laden with photography awards. Art isn't fun when it's heavy. Isn't easy when it's full of anxiety.

What's so scary about art? Why is it so much harder to sit down and make something now then when you started? (It's not social media. Give it up for a week or a month and you'll see). It's fear, fear in the pit of your stomach, that if you try to make something as good as your inspiration, you're going to fail. And look like an idiot. And no one will take you seriously.

Of course, you may also have noticed that you can experience creative anxiety when you don't make anything at all because then you feel guilty or maybe depressed. Or maybe you just feel like a fraud.

5 Tools for Overcoming Creative Anxiety

1) Detachment. Remove perfectionism from the equation. Detach from:

• from a singular "perfect" vision
• the idea that you're in complete control.
• thinking your self worth comes from being a creative god/goddess who only ever graces the world with 100% perfect work 

2) Embrace the failures that come with the first marks on the blank page. There is much failure in the life of a creative person. Many things will not go as intended. This can serve as inspiration or desperation. It's not merely that failure is inevitable though. It's that you need to explore your options in your medium in order to tangibly see what is or isn't working. 90% of the time I struggle with a project is time spent resisting the different options rather than just trying them and getting it over with. If the perfect piece only exists inside your head, you'll never get to experience the satisfaction of working to make it real.

3) Build self-awareness. Challenge the way you think about every aspect of creativity. Broadly, and narrowly. Use this as inspiration... as avenues of growth. The best ways that I know to do this is to read the kind of books that open your artistic mind and to talk to other people who are doing creative work.

4) Use accountability to make a real plan. Like an upcoming contest, a creative challenge, or another opportunity. In preperation for a conference, for example, I've challenged myself to submit some kind of work weekly until the event.

5) SHARE

• what you know
• your resources
• your time
• your energy

Creativity does not survive in a box. It comes from the unexpected collision of two different ideas. Not exactly something you can predict. Why not practice generosity as you participate in the randomness of creativity?

Art as Instinct

When I was an adolescent, I spent a lot of time reading books about writing. I believed there was a "way" to write, and I could discover this if I simply did enough research. But writing books all boil down to the same thing: write more, to find your voice and become a better writer.

I was annoyed by this, but time did reveal the wisdom of practicing the craft in order to gain further skill. And yet, making art is not a purely technical endeavor. Art requires a form, something to give it shape and allow us to view it again later. But art is also about so much more. We can cite personal expression as an impetus as well, but surely we have the opportunity to express ourselves in myriad ways, not just or even most fully through art. (Perhaps that's a controversial statement, but I would argue that prayer takes precedence as fundamental human expression--the creation reaching out to the creator--which can of course happen through art).

There's a certain "high" to making art that all artists call a different name: the muse, the flow, the rhythm. Often I think this experience motivates art--all kinds of art. The cathartic release when the struggle to express oneself finds a voice in a rhythm that spills out in a beautiful, technical design. But also the disciplined craftsman who comes to task every day and only on some occasions lives the bliss of uninterrupted art moving through him. Why is this brand of creativity so deliciously addicting? Perhaps it is due to the urgency, the need to "catch" a moment that is rapidly passing, or to jump on a train that is zipping away. Perhaps it is that sense of something bigger, of art that is bigger than artist, pressing against the fragile relationship between the ego and the simple desire to create.

So much of art requires a "yes." Requires sacrifice not as you make something in your own image, but rather the time and energy for the sake of that idea. Art must go beyond ego because otherwise it does not dare greatly. Does not demand an artistic openness. Does not break down absolutes and open up new possibilities or ways of seeing.

The allure of beauty is the opportunity for the beholder to be fundamentally changed. Not all art is beautiful, but I think you can see in all art an attempt to get at the heart of something. Sometimes, there's too much ego mixed in. Sometimes, too many ideas. Or too much execution and not enough raw material. Much of craftsmanship is about shades of the piece. About tuning in to the nuance of pitch, word choice, f stop, or brush stroke. Art goes beyond the technical because these nuances cannot be expressed in a textbook kind of way. It's a part of style, but transcends even that.

I think it's called instinct, and it's what happens when you trust an idea without any rules, requirements, or expectations.

Though it is not often studied directly, this seemingly effortless attitude often holds the key to work that is as satisfying as it is successful.

Gut Check

I'm pretty good at thinking too hard about things. And when I say "pretty good," what I actually mean is an expert. Like, if somebody invented a video game with the object of over-analyzing, I would be the all time MVP. First I get vaguely curious about something, then outright intrigued, and then, if it remains mysterious, I'm hooked. I have to know. Why is it that way? What are the socio-economic influences? What's the history? Has it always been like this? Imagine you're cutting a pizza and everything is going fine until you realize that you haven't cut all the way through the bottom layer. Wouldn't that bug you? Wouldn't you try to do something about it?

Okay, I'm not really trying to get you to accept my over-analyzing (sympathize, maybe, but not condone). I am saying that pizza is delicious, and I'm pretty sure we can agree about that. When you're a serial over-thinker like I am, you realize that it's extremely possible to think yourself into a corner, so to speak. To go over the data so much that it becomes meaningless. The central lie that an over-thinker believes is this: more information will bring clarity. Clarity here meaning a definitive judgement or statement about the topic in question. Ultimately, however, information isn't the source of that closure. We experience closure when we make a decision.

Unfinished "To-Do" lists bother us because they're a graveyard of unmade decisions. We put off thinking about what we have to do because it means making a decision. And in our culture, making a decision is an ordeal. You have to do research. Gather data. Get a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. You've got to put it through controlled testing. You've got to be sure--why? Because someone is going to ask you why you made that decision, and you can't just say "because it felt right." That phrase is reserved for the crazy ones. The dreamers. The people who fly out of JFK when they're 18 and hitchhike through Europe for 10 years. That's attractive, right? It seems like those people don't have to obey the rules that the rest of us do.

To be fair, it would take more than just this one blog post to unpack these ideas (like how we feel about dreams, how to make better lists, and how we feel about our daily life--though I did previously write about that last one). So what's the point? That I (and Malcom Gladwell) think it can be powerful to do the opposite of this drawn out method. In other words, I think we should capitalize on our gut reactions.

How? Often when I'm mired in the swampy quagmire of overthinking I find myself circling around one thought: "this would be so much easier if I hadn't thought about it so much." But you can't take back thought, right? Well, no, but you can still get your gut check. One very simple way to do this is with a coin flip. For one side, "I will eat pizza for dinner," and on the other side, "I will not eat pizza for dinner." Then, after you flip the coin, you have your gut reaction, and here's the best part: if you're disappointed, then you know that you actually want to do the opposite thing.

This works crazy well. Of course, it also forces you to confront yourself. To like yourself. To trust yourself. To be okay with wanting things that don't follow the script that other people write for you. To be confident in the face of criticism and animosity. To let go. To try. And all of that is pretty tough. But, personally, I think it's worth the effort.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein

The Headspace of an Imagined Future

You check the boxes. You pay the bills and do the laundry. You think, “this is adulting, right? I'm doing it now, right?” You have a love/hate/need relationship with social media. With Netflix. With your phone. You want to give up everything and move to the mountains. You want to become a hermit and never have an internet connection ever again and live authentically and never feel that you're not doing it right. Or that you're not good enough.

You checked boxes off for so long, that now you start to wonder if the dread, the sense that something is missing, is just another box for you to put an emphatic check into. You watch others go through the same things and you see the articles and blogs. “Ok,” you think, “maybe the death of wonder in my life is something I can work with. Maybe this existential hole will be the inspiration for my next blog post.”

You feel transparent. Like people are looking past all of your accomplishments and hard work, straight to the truth: that you can't follow through with the things you want to do, the things that you want to make. That you feel hardened in some incalculable way against beauty. Against what used to inspire you. Against almost everything. Against yourself.

It's a special talent of human beings to look ahead. To set a trap and catch an animal. To plant a seed and wait for a flower to bloom. To imagine the future. To connect a finite life to the thought of an infinite being.

But we’re not supposed to use this power to distract or numb ourselves from the now. I think we sense this, and that's why we want to go up to the mountain – to get away from all of the easy distractions. But even if we did go, and leave everything behind, we would still bring ourselves, and the headspace of an imagined future. Hundreds of miles away from any civilization, we could still be clinging to the future.

Most people are sentimental about childhood because if there's one thing children know, it’s how to live in the present. You don't learn to ride a bike or how to swim by imagining those things. You learn by doing. But if your parents don't pay for karate lessons or sign you up for the soccer team, you don't learn those things. Instead, for children, living in the present means learning from the circumstances you find yourself in.

Fast-forward to picking your own job, apartment, and car. Now you are responsible. It's your fault if it isn't perfect. If it isn't effortless. Except for this: every good thing in your life is a gift. You worked for it but that doesn't mean it still wasn't given to you.

While you spend all this time in the headspace of imagined future, there are uncountable moments in the present waiting for you – not just to live through them, but to live them well. This… this is your moment. The annoying chores and tasks are your opportunities. Not to love them, but to understand them as gifts. Opportunities. To live them well, not halfheartedly.

To live your mundane moments well is art. Is beautiful. Is good. To live well is to reawaken yourself to the beauty of the world through gratitude and sacrifice. To live well is to live engaged, and to live engaged is the deep yearning of the human heart.

Introductions 3/21/16

When talking about following your dreams, all motivational speakers and entrepreneurs say the same thing: just do it. Action is the key. Cut through the red tape with a machete. Okay, great--but what if you don't know (or remember) your dream?

I graduated from college just 10 months ago. Which means I've had some time to think about dreams, but also responsibilities... and necessities. Honestly, there was a part of me that hoped being an adult was just like being a kid but without the frustrating parts--like curfew, no allowance, not able to drive anywhere. Then I found out that being an adult involves giving yourself a bedtime and an allowance, and being able to drive--to and from work, that is. Also, laundry. I've noticed that being an adult involves a lot of laundry.

Okay, but what about that dreaming business? And what's the deal with this blog, anyway?

The thing is, I've been thinking. You know, ignoring the "do it" advice of people more successful than me and just putting things on hold... to think. Dreams, at least for me, do not lay golden ideas that hatch dramatically in my mind. It's more like I'm surrounded with ideas, plenty of them rotten, but I know there's one that's gold--on the inside.

A lot of the time, you just have to try something and hope. That's where the action comes in. You try something and hope and it fails but you learn and then you try again. You never get everything right but you do get some things right. You get more things right than before. And you begin to inoculate yourself against the things that used to scare you.

Back to my thinking. After thinking about it from every angle I could think of, and then realizing I was thinking about it all wrong, I finally thought about giving up. I gave up trying to quantify or qualify, or to schedule or strategize my dreams. And something magical happened: I remembered. I remembered those dreams.

So--deep breath--here are a few dreams of mine:

-To write short, speculative fiction from unique perspectives using first person narrative.
-To make small documentaries (incidentally this one is also a professional goal). About people... ideas... important topics in society. About stories.
-To create photographs and graphic arts images that communicate depth, emotion, and mystery through simple, succinct design.

Hi, I'm Meredith Kuzma. This blog is about my dreams.