Well by now a lot of you know, I am not a big fan of snow. I know God is a great artist and he has good reasons for snow, and it is very pretty but I much prefer when he works in his green palette. This year in this part of Pennsylvania, we had very little snow, as a matter of fact we had quite a few days in February where it was near 70 degrees. It was awesome, but now… this…
We are in blizzard conditions, the snow is falling horizontally and piling up in huge drifts. It’s pretty wild out there right now. It seems like we were on a snow diet all winter long and now as we near Spring it’s time for a “snow binge.” It reminded me of an important concept for all of us. The concept of moderation.
So often, in our creative lives we have ebbs and flows, times where we’re blocked and times where we can’t create enough and in both those times, moderation is a key. I have a feeling the reason we get blocked is because we burn out in the times of inspiration. The thing is neither of these things is good. Creative block can be mentally and Spiritually agonizing, but those times of creative excess can be times when we don’t do our best stuff because we just feel so busy. We need moderation.
It’s this simple, your body and mind need rest. There seems to be this “make hay while the sun shines mentality that comes with creative booms. We have to create when we have the inspiration because we’ve all been through those inspiration famines and as soon as I thought of that term, I got the solution. In the Bible during times of famine, there was usually one option, starve and hope you make it through to the next bumper crop, but then we hear from a guy names Joseph. God showed him a famine was coming and told him what to do, and as a result, he not only went from a slave, to the second most powerful person in the most powerful nation on earth at the time, but he also saved many lives including the lives of God’s chosen people. The answer was simple. Save up in times of plenty so that you have something for the times of famine.
When you are in those times if inspiration plenty, what if you saved up some of that inspiration for times when inspiration is lacking? It’s fairly easy to do. You just need a notebook, a sketchbook or some kind of electronic device to store the ideas. Then when the ideas are sparse, you just refer back to them and keep right on going. This is really just good stewardship and faithfulness. After all maybe the reason you’re blocked is because you haven’t followed through on something God gave you.
The bottom line is if we work in moderation, we’ll be healthier and more creative, doing better quality work and we’ll (at least theoretically) never run out of ideas. Well out to shove up some of this snow. There’s more coming, but I don’t want to have to move it all at once. See that, I’m practicing moderation.
AMOKArts 