Don't pick a lane

Variety is the spice of life.

Some brains need focus. Other brains need multi-focus. 

Some brains are really good at and need to do one thing. 

Other brains love to juggle and have a lot going on at once. 

One isn’t better than the other but “pick a lane” is a thing our culture likes to say. 

They like to act surprised when people have varied interest. 

I’m surprised when people stick to one thing.

Varied interests make people interesting. 

Arguably, varied interests make people’s output more interesting, too.

I would never tell someone to pick a lane.

Creativity happens at the intersection of lanes. Novelty stems from the crash of cultures, ideas, skills, mindsets, interests. Picking a lane doesn’t get you there.

“I have an octopus brain” I said about myself in an interview one time. I got the job.

Many arms make many connections.

Everything we do is sacred

Every action is shaping and reshaping the world around us.

It’s like the butterfly effect where the flap of the wing changes the weather halfway around the world. [Andrea Gyorody]

If everyone plants a single flower for a butterfly, what happens next? The revolution can begin with the little things. Everything is connected—you’ll see how quickly it will spread, from you to me to the oak trees. [Desireé Reneé Martinez]

The greatest good is the knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole nature. [Baruch Spinoza]

Our individual separateness is in a sense illusory; we are parts of the great stream of law and cause, parts of God; we are the flitting forms of a being greater than ourselves, and endless while we die. Our bodies are cells in the body of the race, our race is an incident in the drama of life; our minds are the fitful flashes of eternal light. [Will Durant]

Not everything that happens during the day is an open portending a good or evil development in the future, but everything has meaning to one degree or another, for the world is an ever-weaving tapestry from which no thread can be pulled without destroying the integrity of the cloth. The breadth of Creation makes it impossible for us to step back far enough to see the story that the tapestry tells; the intricacy of it, from the macro to the micro to the subatomic, makes it impossible for us to comprehend the megatrillions of connections between the threads in just one small fragment of the whole. [Dean Koontz]

Encourage yourself

Self-praise activates: 

  • Love

  • Trust

  • Joy

  • Excitement

  • Oxytocin 

  • Abundance 

Self-criticism activates:

  • Fear

  • Anger

  • Disgust

  • Shame

  • Sadness 

  • Scarcity 

Under praise’s spell, no one’s light can diminish our own. We need to bask in that shit.

On the other hand, criticism is contracting and makes us small. Small is not who we are.

Remember a time when you felt encouraged, seen, loved. Sit with that. How does it feel in your physical body? In your emotions? Mind? In your Spirit?

If you’re like me, you can feel it best in your physical body. I stand a little taller. Maybe my shoulders drop.

“Good job, Joce” I say to myself as I post this. 

Get out of your logical mind

Here’s another way to say it:

Take a bird’s-eye view. 

From high up, details fade and we can access the big picture. This vantage point can lead to fresh ideas and inspirations.

From here we can: 

  • free-associate

  • harness our emotion + intuition

  • feel our gut feelings

  • access the creative well inside

I’ve been a bit under the weather. Yesterday I had just enough energy to make an ikebana arrangement.

Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arranging. The practice roughly translates to “making flowers come alive.”

You could call these arrangements abstract. They aren’t trying to achieve a particular design or mimic something in nature. 

You could say they don’t “make sense.” 

And this is the exact source of their beauty.

They are unconventional, each botanical given the space to be, and, when successful, to also be in harmony with one another. 

Beauty doesn’t need to make sense.

When it rains

Well, you know, it pours.

It’s been windy this week. I regularly drive by the coast in Ventura, CA. When the wind picks up, so do the tides. They become choppy and white-capped.

I don’t love the wind but we need the wind, I heard myself saying.

Wind in the spring:

  • disperses seeds + spores

  • drives ocean currents

  • powers renewable energy sources

Wind has purpose. Like rain.

Like bad art.

Like “failure”.

Taken figuratively, the idiom suggests a wave of bad luck. It can also be used to suggest a wave of good luck.

Either way, it’s a wave we ride to get from one point to another.

Good or bad, growth is what we want.

Let it rain.

What you notice you create more of

What you focus on expands.

If what we really want for our lives is the same as what we are telling ourselves (and others) we want, things can happen in our favor. 

Strong intention (what we want) + sufficient action (acting on what we want) = greater chance of things moving in a good direction.

Put another way, our intentions are strongest when what we want in life aligns with our life choices.

Aligning the head and the heart isn’t easy. 

An action/vision board can help. So can writing about what you want. 

But here’s the thing: you have to be honest with yourself.

In my life as a freelancer, if I don’t tell people I’m looking for work, I stand no chance at finding work. 

The same goes for—anything. 

“I’m officially looking for my dream man!” my friend declared over coffee the other day.

We have to:

  • imagine 

  • focus our attention

  • alert the Universe

  • ask/act/declare

Our brain-bodies don’t know the difference between sitting on an actual beach and imagining we are on that beach. Our physiological response to these is the same.

It’s like they say: dress for the job you want.

Actions are signals.

Tara Swart:

When you allow your brain to be conscious of and focus on what you want in life, the raised awareness that results will work in your favor to automatically bring opportunities into your life. It’s not magic —it’s just that you are able to see the possibilities to move forward with your dreams in a way that your brain was hiding from you previously.

It kind of does sound like magic. Worth a try? 

Just get the words down

This came to me in a dream. 

Process > perfection 

Here’s another one: 

Failure > Not having tried

Taking a risk is like anything else: it gets easier with practice. 

Letting go of perfection allows the process to unfold in beautiful and unexpected ways. 

Just get it down:

  • the idea

  • the words

  • the drawing 

SFDs, my daughter calls them. 

Shitty First Drafts. 

You gotta start somewhere.

Why not here? 

Be a self-enthusiast

Nothing grows without delight.

Growing up I was taught that pride was bad. It is when it tips over into arrogance or disregard for others.

But pride is not actually a sin. Pride is neutral and an important human emotion.

At its basic, pride is the natural sensation of delight in growth. We delight ourselves because we did something we didn’t know we could do.

Gardeners know this feeling. Artists know it. Friends know this, too.

Last week I had coffee with a friend. At the end she hugged me goodbye and said “I delight in you.”

The feeling was mutual.

Showing delight in someone gives that person fuel to keep going.

Pride and gratitude are bedfellows. Both give us courage.

Enthusiasm for our own progress might be the most powerful motivator we have.

  • When have you felt most proud?

  • What makes you hold your head high and stand up tall?

  • What makes you want to share your good news with others?

  • What makes you proud of you?

Let’s feel good about feeling good.

Passion and practicality

It’s a both/and situation.

Passion without practicality is not sustainable. Practicality without passion is not rewarding.

Neither precludes the other. Neither is better than the other.

Both are necessary to cultivate if you want to live a big, creative life.

Passion gives us: 

  • Purpose

  • Meaning

  • Joy

Practicality gives us: 

  • Stability

  • Structure

  • Safety

Finding the balance is the key to building a life of meaning. This is not static, but an ever-changing work in progress.

Without artists we have no art

It’s obvious but it needs to be said.

This morning I read that Napster was recently sold for 207 million. 

Napster was a file sharing service where people uploaded and downloaded music illegally. 

Napster claims they “changed the music industry.”

They did. For the worse. 

What they started and what followed as a result, put my indie label, Lujo, and other labels like ours out of business. 

It was the heartbreak of my life. 

Since then (and even well before) my battle cry has been INVEST IN ART and ARTISTS. 

Lujo did 50/50 deals with our artists.

The profit shares for artists with music tech companies? Disgusting.

I don’t want computers making me playlists. Human taste and our ability to appreciate art is a developed skill. 

Imagine what taste makers and artists could do with 207 million. 

In my town of Ojai, just outside of LA, I am joining a team of folks reviving our outdoor live music venue, Libbey Bowl. 

You don’t go into music to make money.

You go into it because you believe in art and its ability to uplift and hearten and make us better.

David Lynch: Music is one of the most fantastic things. Almost like fire and air and water.

Energy is contagious

“Either you affect people or infect people.” —T. Harv Eker

Energy comes in the form of: 

  • People

  • Experiences

  • Social media

  • Food

  • Drink 

This impacts our: 

  • Mood

  • Thoughts

  • Inspiration

  • Productivity

  • Direction of our lives

Energy also comes in the form of:  

  • Beauty 

  • Community

  • Connection

  • Art

  • Love

This impacts our: 

  • Mind

  • Spirit

  • Creativity

  • Peace

  • Reality

Good energy is as contagious as bad. Be mindful and be after the good.

Let it be wild

Happy Spring Equinox. 

Yesterday I made flower sculptures in Lotusland with friends. 

There was mediation and wine and chocolates and botanical offerings pulled from the earth and put into earthen vessels. 

We were encouraged to pay attention. To let the flowers lead. To not be afraid or precious. To not bend the botany to fit our design. To let it be wild and unruly. To fortify stems like scaffolding to hold one another up in jars. 

What we pay attention to, grows.

Deeper attention makes us better stewards: of the land, the flower arrangements, of each other.

Letting go of the need to bend things to our will, allows things to happen in unexpected and beautiful ways. 

The magic is in the mess. 

6 proverb roundup

There’s power in words.

If you’ve ever been called a name, you know this. Here’s a word:

noun: proverb

a simple, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience

A proverb is the ultimate tl;dr (too long; didn’t read). It’s the fortune inside the cookie at the end of a meal. A good one reduces a complex truth into something more, shall we say, palatable?

I’ve been including proverbs at the end of my daily writing. Not on purpose, they’ve just—appeared.

Maybe because I’m drawn to ‘less is more’.

In words, art, life. And I’ve never been one for flowery language.

Or maybe because if we sit with a proverb, if we let the words sink in, they can work their magic on us.

Here are my last six.

Which of these speak to you?

  1. Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

  2. When your intention is clear, so is the way.

  3. Rest is part of the work.

  4. Resist what you need at your peril.

  5. Imagination is everything.

  6. I am the artwork.

I saw Great Grandpa last night in LA. Just, magic. I didn’t take a single photo or video (far too in the moment) so here’s their latest single. Their new record drops next week on Run For Cover and I hope you check it out. Hard to come by authenticity like this.

All is art

What begins in the mind and then is made real is art. 

This goes for a complicated thing like a spacecraft, or a simple thing like a drawing. 

It goes for a cheesecake and a planter box and a fine art painting.

This is what artists do: they take an abstract idea in their mind and make it real.

Eatable, tangible, seeable.

Helena Bonham Carter: 

I think everything in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone, and how you talk. Your smile and your personality. What you believe in, and all your dreams. The way you drink your tea. How you decorate your home. Or party. Your grocery list. The food you make. How your writing looks. And the way you feel. Life is art. 

Proverb : I am the artwork.

You laugh but that shit works

Write it down. 

Everything.

Few things make me feel lighter than when I dump my brain on the page. I’ve been doing this since high school after a camp counselor recommended the practice to me. It’s so helpful. 

The page listens. The page doesn’t judge. You can be your honest, ugly, petty, vulnerable self with the page. 

And then you can move on. Close the journal. Leave it there. Never read what you wrote. Never think about it again. 

There’s another magical thing about the page.  

Writing down goals, hopes, dreams puts them into motion.

Putting these things on paper is a powerful act of focus. It tells your subconscious mind and also alerts the Universe of where to take action. 

Vision boards work like this, too. 

I was talking to a friend the other day who is wanting to make some changes in his life. 

“Make a vision board,” I said.

He laughed.

You laugh but that shit works.

Proverb: Imagination is everything.

Imagination is Everything, collage with found paper, 2020

Opinions are easy

Open-mindedness is hard. 

Yesterday I was asked my opinion on the school my daughter goes to. The person asking is considering sending his kid there, too. 

I found myself answering every question he asked with the caveat, “it depends.” 

Because it does. On so many things. 

Things far less consequential than my personal experience and opinion of the school.

Later I came across this quote: 

Maturity: the confidence to have no opinion on many things. 

When I was young, I used to follow up opinion statements with, “but that’s my opinion, not yours.” My parents tease me about it to this day. As a little girl with a lot of opinions, I seemed to have also wanted to make it very clear that these opinions were indeed not fact or anything to be taken too seriously. 

It seems I wanted to leave room for other people’s opinions.

Even a concept as seemingly agreed upon as love, has so many opinions surrounding it. Opinions about what it is, what it looks like. 

Proverb: Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.