First off, I wanted to say a thank you to those of you who’ve continued to read this blog even though I’ve kinda let it fall apart a little lately. It means a lot to me to look and still see the large number of people coming here every day- and definitely inspires me to keep writing. So, thanks!
This weekend is something special for me (Mike.) It’s the first new ‘creativity workshop’ that a team of us here in Madison are putting on and I’m really excited to see how it goes and learn from it.
We’re holding weekend retreat-style workshops at a local farm that bring people together to work on passion projects they have and get inspiration, insight and motivation from being part of the group. These projects can be anything from writing a book to painting to solving math theories to making videos- and we even have a full music recording studio set up. We have a program including yoga and meditation, group meals, and working on the farm to help keep people moving in between work time.
The motivation behind the weekends is to take advantage of the neuroscience and other emerging research behind creativity to give people who normally don’t get to do what they love the chance to tap into the potential of their passion. As I’ve talked about some before, a few major things that help creativity are getting away from your normal routine, being in an open and supportive environment, and being surrounded by various types of other focused people. Check out Create-Madison.org or like us on facebook.com/createmadison
We’re keeping this first weekend small to test out our concepts in a Lean Startup mentality, and it’ll be more of an open-house where we allow people to come for just a day if they can’t make the whole time. We’ve partnered with Vitruvian Farms, which is a new but already successful organic farm growing premium greens run by four 24-year-olds. They’ve always wanted to foster community and set up a space for artists, and loved this idea. I can dig their style.
My project for this weekend is to finish an outline for the book I want to write about the nature and context of human consciousness. Basically, I’m writing about two patterns: 1, how human consciousness can be visualized as the 5th dimension; and 2, how life has evolved in complexity and where it’s headed. To me, these two patterns reflect the basic duality in almost all people: that there’s an internal and external world and happiness comes from having a balance or harmony between the two. It’s still very disorganized, but I’ve realized I have over 1,000 pages of writing and I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to get feedback on what makes sense and what doesn’t :).
The bus continues to get good use as well- giving presentations to student groups and conferences, and going on a trip to WI Dells for Sam’s birthday. Let us know if you have a cool event to host it at as a creativity station in the Madison area. We’d love to come!