Cures for the Common Madness

PLUS: happiness rituals, color chart eye candy, and more.

Welcome to Spring, Issue #13 of Making Time. Each week, I share a seasonal perspective on the creative process. If you’d like to follow along on this year-long experiment, you can subscribe for free.

One of the great benefits of travel in my life has been a sort of revealing. Getting away from my usual life – hopefully far away, both physically and mentally – uncovers a truth that’s easy to forget:

The world we inhabit is absolutely bonkers.

When I say “world”, I am referring to the adult human world. I mean this great big construct called modern human society that nearly all of us inhabit.

Whether I’m flying to another continent or just going camping for a night in the woods, getting away reminds me that:

1. The world is vast.

2. Life is incomprehensibly beautiful, varied, and fragile.

3. I spend most of my time oblivious to facts 1 and 2.

It’s easy to forget the trees and streams, the way summer feels, the love you share with another person, all the things that really matter. It’s also easy to forget that it will all be taken someday, maybe sooner than we’d like.

Instead, we get hyper-focused on details like finishing the daily to-do list, reaching some arbitrary milestone at work, getting the laundry done on time, saying the right things to the right people, on and on.

We care about these things because other people care about these things, and that’s just what adults do. It’s a sort of collective madness.

Let me clarify: I don’t mean to say that doing laundry and having a job are insane; those are generally responsible things to do. I just mean that obsessing about all of it to the point that we forget just how fleeting and precious life is – well, that’s some very strange behavior we all engage in.

And that, I think, is why we have art. Like travel, appreciating art can be a transportive experience, reminding you of the depth and breadth of feeling that you (and the people around you) are capable of. It breaks you out of the madness, at least long enough for you to realize that it’s there.

And then there’s the act of making art. I’m mostly talking about art with a small ‘a’, whether a little sketch or a scribbled poem or a quilt or a photo or a handknit sweater. In fact, maybe “art” is too big a word. It’s the act of making and all that comes with it: the noticing, the transforming, the connection between the senses and the hands that takes you away from the empty fretting.

I don’t see the act of making as a panacea for the human condition, by any means. Instead, like travel or reading a great novel, it’s a way we can remind ourselves of just how wide open and rich life truly is.

What do you do to remind yourself that life is actually beautiful? What takes you outside the madness for a while?

Here are some of my reminders:

• Walking outside and really looking/listening/feeling what’s going on

• Making something with my hands

• Reading a good book in the sun

• Intense exercise, epsecially outdoors

• Touching another person with affection

• Meditation

• Cooking a good meal and sharing it

Head, Heart, Hands

Things to make us think, feel, and do.

Old paint color chart, via Art Makes People

• Accessible adventure, because travel is not always an option (and not everyone cares to travel, of course).

• Speed and efficiency are not human values. I try not to spend a lot of time reading about AI, but this essay makes such a great point: it’s not like there’s a shortage of creative work in the world.

• I just love the concept of summer un-schooling. I’ve got my own un-schooling projects in the works for next month, which I’ll talk more about soon.

• Just look at all these pretty color charts! I could stare at color charts all day.

• This textile-based book by Louise Bourgeois is so inspiring. Click on the “35 works” link in the sidebar to see the interior.

• 5 rituals to keep you happy all the time.

• 12 names to know in hand painted (and crafted) homewares - so much eye candy. I love the trend of hand painted homewears, because I love seeing the artist’s hand.

• Why you’re going about recovering from perfectionism all wrong (love this, as I relate to being perfectionistic about overcoming perfectionism).

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