Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Step Away from the Coffe Pot!

I confess that I slide out of bed every morning like the next girl and hightail it over to my coffee pot. I need that jolt to get me to the studio and give me the necessary creative focus for whatever projects I have in the works.
Every once in a while though, I find myself a little too focused on finishing one of those projects, a little too intent on filling in that row of storefronts in a cityscape. The concentration is there. I am a frackin machine! And maybe that's the problem.
This New Yorker article claims that all that caffeine could be killing my (and your) creativity. In the words of the author, "we do know that much of what we associate with creativity—whether writing a sonnet or a mathematical proof—has to do with the ability to link ideas, entities, and concepts in novel ways. This ability depends in part on the very thing that caffeine seeks to prevent: a wandering, unfocussed mind."
So I am interested, Friends: Do you do your best creative work with a cuppa joe in your system?  Or do you find that caffeine gives you a type of intensity that keeps you too busy to create?

4 comments:

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  2. Ooo that is a good question, many writers drank wine or booze while writing to sort of get the juices going. I'm thinking of Chesterton or Hemmingway (maybe a little too much with him..).

    I wonder if alcohol has the opposite effect on creativity than caffeine. I always feel that when my creative juices are flowing, I don't really need caffeine to keep it up.. It's like it's own rush.

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  3. I feel like I reach for caffeine on a daily basis in hopes of achieving the creative goal, but most often that burst gets in my way. If I allow myself to wake and let the day unfold naturally I get a true output of what I can give.

    If I wake and achieve nothing artistically I look harder at my lifestyle. I tweak, I go to bed earlier...I swap yerba mate for coffee.

    I'm not famous yet, so obviously I'm a work in progress...

    Can we get together for a juice box?

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  4. Kathleen,I know what you mean about that creative rush...and wine for keeping the flow going ;) Carrie,
    I always wanted to get into yerba mate, but tea or juicebox, getting together with you always inspires me to go make things!

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