Creativity Notebook #1

I love learning. I go through books, articles, videos, etc. as if I'm starving for the information they contain. It's probably some people's favourite and most annoying trait of mine as I also share these out among my friends, family and colleagues. I've been downloading the Acumen+ Series on Udemy as they've gone on sale over the last 6 months or so. Today I finally decided to start digging into these 1-2 hour online courses with Elizabeth Gilberts' Creativity Workshop. 

The workshop is a mix of short "instructional" videos and prompts for exploring further. At the end of each section there is a creativity notebook to complete and to share back with others taking the course. I thought my blog would be a great vehicle for this. Elizabeth's definition of living a creative life is to choose the curiosity over fear and to do this everyday. The first workbook is about exploring this curiosity further. 

Curiosity Notebook #1

1. What was the last thing you really wondered about? 

The Atlantic slave trade and slavery. I watched the mini-series The Book of Negroes (shout out to Canadian public broadcasting for giving us this!) yesterday and found myself going deeper and deeper into wikipedia links on this topic and others related to it. I learned a lot about how something like this could have existed even though I still can't fully understand it.  

2. What did you love to do most of all when you were 8 years old?

This is tricky. It's hard to pick one thing so I'll go with three. I loved reading. I would wake up early and read in bed for hours and hours pretty much every weekend. I loved spending time with my family, especially playing outside. I loved singing whether it was pop songs in my bedroom or hymns at church, I got a lot of joy out of sharing my voice in this way. 

3. What are your superpowers? 

Being genuine, which in turn gives me a superpower of connecting with others. 

4. What would you do for a living if you were not afraid of anything? 

I would help more people see what is possible in the world. I would just listen to people tell their own stories. I love learning about someone else. I would also find more ways to connect people together and help increase their understanding of one another. 

What themes do you see from these? What is exciting? 

I'm very curious about people and their story. I love understanding someone's backstory and seeing the thread that connects their past to what they are creating today and then through to their dreams for the future.  I think I loved reading so much as a child because I was immersed in a story whether it was fact or fiction. I loved being immersed in the lives of others and seeing the world through someone else's eyes. The songs that I loved to sing also told a story or expressed a lot of emotion. 

What's exciting about this is thinking about how to explore story. How to use story to bring others together and where song might fit into this as well. 

What do you want to use this course to start pursuing or to start creating? 

I've been staring at my keyboard in my bedroom for months. For awhile I was practicing each week, at least a little. I've gotten away from this though and I think I'm feeling some energy and something sparkly about starting this again. Maybe it will lead to sharing some stories through music. I also want to try to figure out how to experience and share more stories from perspectives that are from different mine.