I hope I’ve convinced you why it’s necessary to create.  The problem is our lives right now are driven by money concerns instead of tapping creativity.  How can I afford to… How can I spend…  Almost all of our decisions are rooted in money concerns.

Creativity exists outside of money constraints.  Once you have enough to get food on the table and a roof over your head, exploring your creativity is open to you.

But - we’ve been conditioned not to be creative.

When we work, it’s optimization, productivity, and monetization.  How can we do this faster?  How can we make more money or attract an audience?

When we relax, it’s easier to turn on the TV, or turn on a video game.  Watch TikTok.  Doomscroll.  

And we bounce from working to recovering from work back to working.

There’s no room for exploration and enjoying our interests for their own sake.

How did we end up like this?

When I was working, the last thing I wanted to do was “be creative.”  I filled my life with work, having fun, improving, and sleeping.  Everything had to have a point.  There was no slack in my life, no time to find autonomy, mastery, and purpose.  

What’s worse, I didn’t even know what creativity meant.  My identity and value were tied up in work and I didn’t see creativity as something of value.  

I did feel stifled, but I didn’t know why.  Vacations were a temporary respite and the only visible alternative to the status quo that I could conceive of was finding a side hustle, and that was still tied to money in my mind.  How can I replace my salary?  What monetizable skills do I have?

The subconscious emphasis on money didn’t allow me to explore what I was actually interested in.  I wanted a clear solution before trying anything out but I needed tangible results before I was willing to try anything.

The longer you don't do something creative the longer it takes to get out.  I felt that everything I did had to have a reason, and that reason was money.  If my “side hustle” didn’t or wouldn’t make money, what was the point of doing it?

Reorienting yourself with the goals of autonomy, mastery, and purpose allows you to escape the inertia.

Discoveries:

1️⃣ “But some people are stuck there because they don’t believe there’s something better. They’ve been hoodwinked by the devil’s lie, fooled into thinking that they are, deep down, a lazy loser, and they must be threatened, cajoled, and caffeinated into working hard, because suffering is the natural state of life. When they get home at the end of the day and they’re so tired that all they can do is sit motionless and watch TV, they blame themselves, as if it’s their fault that they feel exhausted after racing to meet a deadline so they can avoid being publicly shamed. And that breaks my heart.” - Adam Mastroianni

🔗 Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs -

2️⃣ “Finite players accept the roles life gives them (e.g., college student, manager, lawyer, parent, spouse) and play by the received rules in an effort to win. Infinite players play with the roles and bend the rules, not to win the game but for the joy of playing.” - Nathan Furr

🔗 Infinite Players -

3️⃣ Christian Camp tells us the seven reasons we want to be action-oriented

🔗 Why We Always Want to Lead with Action -

Quote of the Week:

“The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.” - Bertrand Russell

You can find more of my writing at chr.iswong.com.

Questions, suggestions, complaints?  Email me at chris@iswong.com.  Feedback welcome.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with a friend or two.  And feel free to send anything you find interesting to me!

Leaving you in peace,

Chris