Timeless Creativity versus Digital Politics

And the Analog tools that help foster the former.

Nestled between two hurricanes, serene clarity. I'm alive, and those around me are alive, and we're all locked in a perpetual embrace.
 

Last night, I was writing when my daughter sauntered in and said 'you're not a writer.'
 

I said 'What do you mean? I write every day.'
 

And she said 'Writers write all day. You only write at night.'
 

Ouch.
 

I mean, I've published a few books, and I write regularly, but she was right:
 

I'm not living the full writer's life.
 

I decide to change that now.
 

Is change possible?
 

Well, I've helped clients transform their lives in the somatic healing space, so I believe it is possible.
 

The trick is to invite the body into the healing process, and to ignite its wisdom.
 

As one of the most profound philosophers in history wrote:
 

“There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.”

― Nietzsche, Friedrich, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
 

To think, going into the head-centered rationalizations far enough to wind up back at that seminal realization.
 

The body matters.
 

When I was in graduate school for fine art, I was at odds with my body, and so was every other artist. In fact, it was uncool to take care of the body at all. Downright non-intellectual.
 

So I spent some years healing and re-working my conception of the body. I also worked as a somatic therapist, broke my neck, meditated for thousands of hours, practiced Tai Chi and made love (probably not enough of it to tip the scales of war).
 

Now I realized how profoundly head-centered creativity differed from embodied creativity. Most writing is head-centered, because of the nature of the tool(s). Of course, you use your body while writing on a computer, but the movements are subtle.
 

That's one reason I love writing on a typewriter. The writing for a few reasons, and one of those reasons… the writing is better because the body is involved. More senses are involved. More focus.
 

I also write standing up a lot of the time, to accentuate this process.

A pen can work too: taking it out into nature, in particular.
 

Better?
 

What I mean by better is: more delightfully surprising, and clearer.

Art is really the translation of an inner state so that it can be interpreted by another person or other people.
 

The best poetry achieves almost a luminous status because of its clarity. Boom, new line, boom.
 

Haiku comes to mind... there is no separation between form and meaning: one is as essential as the other.
 

Sat to type.
 

Every time I sit to type, a startling surprise shows up within a line or two. It's a surprising fact about myself or the world.
 

This is one of the reasons that I'm adjusting my life to focus on writing more:
 

Writing allows me to understand my life, and understanding my life allows me to live more.
 

By contrast, staring at a screen causes confusion about life, which in turn draws me further away from what is most real.
 

How will it be done?
 

I'm going to focus much of my attention on book writing again, and writing a paper newsletter. If you're getting this missive, you'll hear more about those soon.
 

I want YOU to be surprised and startled by it, and to be inspired to partake in this creative beautiful revolutionary act. A soul remembers Hiroshima
 

Dolores Cannon wrote a book, A Soul Remembers Hiroshima. In it, she follows a soul across a few lifetimes, by hypnotizing a subject. Most of the lifetimes are fairly non-eventful; until she comes to the one where an old Japanese man, a potter, is destroyed by the bomb at Hiroshima. The woman being hypnotized remembers it vividly.
 

I mention this for a few reasons:
 

Your body possesses a host of memories you're unaware of: bring it out.

You've probably used a typewriter in a past life: tap into the familiarity to see what happens to your writing. (Whether you believe in such notions or not, things happen). Perhaps this is why some of us feel this odd nostalgia for the old beasts?
 

I also mention it because, in order to get a sense of the time frame, she asks N. what the emperor's name is.
 

He says: "I don't know his name. He is the sun. Who follows politics? Following politics makes you stressed."
 

So he went on making his pots and a bomb fell.
 

Most of us focus on news too much, particularly news over which we have zero control. Sometimes, a bomb falls or a hurricane strikes. It is good to be prepared, but to live in fear perpetually destroys the creative impulse. Because we mistake creativity as a superfluous act, rather than the essential act it is. By way of this, the human race continues.

Hurricanes come and go: art lasts forever. As the old Greeks put it:

"Ars longa, vita brevis."
 

It roughly translates to "skillfulness takes time and life is short". The aphorism quotes the first two lines of the Aphorisms by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates: "Ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή"

It's also translated as: art is long, life is short.
 

Forever words. Will you die with yours still in you?
 

So I'm realizing that I spend too little time creating my life's work that lasts forever. It's a certain quality, an outpouring of the soul, that I am familiar with. It is the opposite of scrolling finite events and thinking about short term politics.
 

It is the notion of:
 

My soul came to this earth to create something: what will I be proud of when I move on, when I leave this body?
 

This way of being is exactly counter to where most people spend most of their time. It can be glimpsed during deep work. However, most people are mired in minutia, and don't get a minute to stretch their proverbial wings.
 

I don't want this fate for you. Not by a long shot.
 

So I'll be pouring writing into a non-digital newsletter, and using non-digital tools to hit a deeper level of thought and creativity.
 

I'll be using an analog knowledge tool to accomplish this, and a few analog tools, like a vintage typewriter and a pen.
 

I am a writer, dear daughter, as you will someday see.
 

Write on,
 

Steven Budden Jr.
 

The Classic Typewriter Company + Existential Detective + Writer

A 1960’s Classic 12 in Glorious Array. We deliver machines like this into the hands of hungry writers every day. Will yours be next?