Want to Be More Creative? Take a Walk (2014)
I've been thinking recently about the ratio of time I spend thinking about thoughts other people have had vs thinking about my own thoughts.Social media & modern recommendation engines have made thinking other people's thoughts seductively easy. Modern apps give us an infinite feed of semi-engaging thoughts to consume in any media we want - from tiny text messages on Twitter to 30 hour audiobooks on Audible. Movies on netflix, short movies on youtube, not to mention podcasts and so on.And no question, lots of it is fantastic content! Its just - all the things I'm most proud of doing have needed way more of my own thoughts than the thoughts of others. At least 10x as much time genuinely thinking and creating vs time spent in consumption mode. But with so much great content out there, I doubt many of us take the time to do enough thinking. I know I don't, and it chills me to the core.So I'm not surprised that taking a walk - an activity during which its hard to consume the thoughts of others - leads to an increase in creativity. I would expect that anything which disconnects us from recommendation engines and notifications would be rehabilitating for our inner voices. And what is creativity but our inner voice given form in the world.