sherilm

>...examples from art history like Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh, who created their artwork through active imitation of others' artworks even after they became expert artists, suggest that imitation is somehow an effective driver of creativity, even for experts. We may be able to assume that expert artists actively and effectively integrate their own creative visions and influences with others' styles to create new works.

Physical reality is often easier to change than psychological reality, but culture programs us to do the latter.

Riffed on it here: https://www.leadingsapiens.com/changing-your-mindset/

This is more like notes to myself:

1. Expect mundanity. Paradoxically, expecting it to be mundane, makes it less so. In contrast, expecting it to be novel each time, is one reason why we experience it as mundane. We want to go from one high to the next. Of course it never lives up to our expectations.

2. Re-engage at a deeper level. After the beginner’s high with anything, invariably we hit a fork: one leads to cynicism while the other leads to new levels of engagement. Expecting this to happen helps navigate it.

3. Create meaning and purpose. If each step or activity is given a meaning and purpose then suddenly the mundane doesn’t seem to be so. The mistake is to look for inherent meaning. Most of the time there isn’t. We have to give it meaning however profound or banal the activity.

4. Engagement is often a decision rather than a natural reaction or response. Engaging with something more intensely often makes it interesting and vice versa.

5. Keats coined the term "negative capability" back in 1826. It's applicable now more than ever.

Not in the same context but I have written about these in the context of performance:

* On mastery and mundanity: [https://www.leadingsapiens.com/greatness-as-mastering-the-mu...] On cynicism and re-engagement: [https://www.leadingsapiens.com/naivete-in-leadership/] On approaching it as a decision: [https://www.leadingsapiens.com/leadership-and-creativity-as-...] * Keats and negative capability: https://www.leadingsapiens.com/developing-negative-capabilit...

>Indeed, it is one that is eminently needed in this age of ours, an age that reads so much, that it has no time to admire, and writes so much, that it has no time to think. Whoever will select out of the chaos of our modern curricula 'The Worst Hundred Books,' and publish a list of them, will confer on the rising generation a real and lasting benefit.

>Is it wicked to take a pleasure in Spring and other seasonal changes? To put it more precisely, is it politically reprehensible, while we are all groaning, or at any rate ought to be groaning, under the shackles of the capitalist system, to point out that life is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird’s song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenomenon which does not cost money and does not have what the editors of left-wing newspapers call a class angle? There is no doubt that many people think so.

CS Lewis captured this perfectly in his essay " The Inner Ring". TLDR: there is none.

>As long as you are governed by that desire you will never get what you want. You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain.

>If all you want is to be in the know, your pleasure will be short lived. The circle cannot have from within the charm it had from outside. By the very act of admitting you it has lost its magic.

>You merely wanted to be “in.” And that is a pleasure that cannot last. As soon as your new associates have been staled to you by custom, you will be looking for another Ring. The rainbow’s end will still be ahead of you. The old ring will now be only the drab background for your endeavor to enter the new one.

https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/

My experience wasn't anything as bad as yours, but had a similar sense of "rot" that kept gnawing at me. No amount of money can compensate for the "thousand little deaths" you die over time. Finally quit at the ripe age of 41 and reinvented myself...

There are a lot of notions in common culture that's outright misleading.

For eg. Time is NOT money. It's way more than that.There are higher order exchanges than money: time, energy, identity.

The best criteria for the next move is not necessarily the absence of anxiety but rather more aliveness. We keep chasing happiness not realizing, it can only ensue, not pursued.

Sorry if it sounded cliched...looking back there were a bunch of frameworks that became obvious in hindsight...I wrote about them...you might resonate with some of them:

https://www.leadingsapiens.com/essential-career-change-frame...

> Their many modifications included some fine- tuning of the keyboard design in the course of which the "R" wound up in the place previously allotted to the period mark "." Thus were assembled into one row all the letters which a salesman would need to impress customers, by rapidly pecking out the brand name: TYPE WRITER

> Touch typing gave rise to three features of the evolving production system which were crucially important in causing QWERTY to become "locked in" as the dominant keyboard arrangement. These features were technicalinterrelatedness,econ- omies of scale, and quasi-irreversibility of investment. They constitute the basic ingredients of what might be called QWERTY- nomics.

>Technical interrelatedness, or the need for system compatibility between keyboard "hardware" and the "software" represented by the touch typist's memory of a particular arrangement of the keys, meant that the expected present value of a typewriter as an instrument of production was dependent upon the availability of compatible software created by typists' decisions as to the kind of keyboard they should learn.

Full pdf here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305389640_Clio_and_...

The irony of affirmations: Why do I have to remind myself of being something, if I am already that? In effect, I am reminding myself of that which I am not.

Made a pretty big "down" move myself, except in my case I ended up changing careers.

1. I think the biggest challenge in making these decisions is the fear of making the "wrong" move and the fear of "regret". The reality is that there is no one right answer - regardless of what path you take, regret is baked in and guaranteed. The alternate path/s and its possibilities will always go unexplored/unknown. The question is which one are you ok with the consequences, both upside and downside. Which one are you going to regret more in terms of not taking action?

2. You are onto something in terms of money. We forget but it's only one form of exchange albeit one that we easily understand and that's why it dominates our thinking. But there are others not so obvious ones like time, energy, and identity which are of a higher order but don't get as much airtime. Obviously, you can't make decisions in a vacuum given others are dependent on you.

I've written about my experience that might help.

A collection of frameworks to think it through: https://www.leadingsapiens.com/essential-career-change-frame...

Some questions and the framework around money: https://www.leadingsapiens.com/questions-midlife-career-chan...

More questions around mid career dynamics: https://www.leadingsapiens.com/mid-career-mistakes/

I had been tired of the game for a solid couple of years when I got in an accident. Guy ran red light and t-boned my car. Came out unscathed but made me question all the decisions. Still took me another 2 years of figuring out next steps and finally quit.

It wasn't one major thing but several things leading up to a critical mass. During the process, found myself collecting and going back to some key pieces of writing that helped think through the decision. You might find these useful, collected all of them here: https://www.leadingsapiens.com/essential-career-change-frame...

First off, early 30s is young! Some thoughts:

1. Don't take negative thoughts as an indicator of anything. They just are. Using either their presence or absence as some sort of signal is a waste of time.

2. Everyone's winging it to some level. We just don't see it. Meanwhile we are intimate with our own challenges. So cut yourself some slack.

3. Inertia's a bitch. Only cure is action, any action in fact, even when you are not sure whether it's the "right" move or not.

Wrote more on doubt here: https://www.leadingsapiens.com/dont-overcome-self-doubt/

> "As long as you are governed by that desire you will never get what you want. You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain."

>"But don’t hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you’re old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich."