Dis/traction: why it's imperative you lose focus sometimes
The creative mind requires curiosity and...
Distraction is dis+traction.
Traction is what every creator wants.
How we love the feeling that something is getting traction.
Sticky.
It’s the thrill of a creative lifetime.
(Traction is related to but not exactly the same as momentum.
I wrote about momentum here.)
Dis/traction.
It’s the small, noisy, shiny stuff
That pulls you away from creating traction
With that big amazing project you are working on.
But traction itself is a word that means pulling.
Tractors…. pull!
Originally traction meant
The pulling of a dislocated limb to reposition it.
#etymologyjunkie;)
So, if traction is pulling -
Pulling in an audience -
Dis/traction is literally
A pulling away from pulling.
No wonder it feels confusing.
And here’s the thing.
As a creative person.
You have to be curious.
Curiosity is the number one requirement
For the creative life.
How would it look if…
What if that character…
How about a book where….
Maybe this is funny…
I wonder how x changed me…
The creative life is a life of questions.
Of curiosity.
Curiosity is connected to care and cure.
Healing words.
To heal, to whole.
To center.
The opposite of being pulled away.
And only you know.
Are you feeding the spark
Or extinguishing it?
And of course
With our curiosity so at the ready
We click.
We scroll.
We subscribe.
We ask in a million ways.
And the opportunities are endless.
And we all walk that fine line
Between nurturing our creativity
And being distracted.
And we have or shortening attention spans to fight.
That pull to check your phone.
The craving to skip away from discomfort.
I almost called it desire.
#cravingisnotdesire
My understanding is that in Buddhism, the 8 fold path
(hello infinite creators. 8 = ∞)
Concludes with right concentration.
Lots of wisdom about meditation in there.
And yes meditation is a great tool for creatives.
I practice Vedic meditation.
The logical extension of my asana practice.
It happens to be the practice that transcendental meditation was built on.
And among its many benefits
Is a more finally tuned ability to focus.
Happy to direct you to teachers.
That link is my teacher’s teacher.
But I also want to propose
You explore a way of thinking about right concentration
That I call right distraction.
As you are working
Staying open enough to the world
That ideas, inspiration, beauty, wisdom, hilarity, tragedy, news
Can find and fuel you and your work.
Seeking traction
Through right focus
Is not the same as rigidity.
One of the main things meditation teaches:
Our minds wander.
And we gently come back to our mantra.
By extension if we drift away from our practice
We gently come back to it.
And by further extension
If we stray from our creative work
We turn back to it.
We re-turn.
We turn off the phone.
Use distraction wisely.
Noticing at what point you run.
And returning easily.
If this post has been your distraction
I hope it was a useful one!
Infinitely Yours,
Beth
PS it helps the algorithm help other creatives to find me if you like and comment here in substack rather than an email reply. But I love hearing from you and of that’s you way the f the algorithm