One of my goals in life:
Strive to have maximal energy everyday, and to never weary of my creative pursuits and activities.
How is this possible? Some ideas:
We never weary of eating food
Everyday we get hungry, and everyday we eat.
We never weary of food. However we do weary from eating the same foods [over and over again]. We also weary from eating if we are already full.
Thus perhaps in order to never weary from eating food, HUNGER is essential. And hunger comes in cycles and waves. This means in order to never weary from eating, you cannot always be eating. You must go certain periods while being hungry, or else you will never enjoy the taste of food!
Like Socrates said, ‘Hunger is the best spice.’
How to never weary of making photos
I am a photographer, and my primary passion is to make photographs. However I do go through phases where I weary from my photos (get bored of my photos, or lack inspiration/motivation in my photography). Or periods in which I’m very frustrated in my photography, because it feels it is all in vain (no matter how hard I try, I cannot make a photograph that pleases me).
It seems for myself, I feel most creatively inspired and motivated when I have randomness, chaos, uncertainty in my life. This can mean traveling, living nomadically, visiting new places, or seeing new things. Often I can also discover new inspiration to photograph the same place when I change my perspective (the place doesn’t change, but the way I see changes).
Also which has been beneficial:
Switching up your focal length.
I started photography with 50mm, then went 35mm, then went 28mm, then went 24mm, and currently I am very much enjoying 21mm. It seems whenever we switch up our focal length, photography becomes challenging, interesting, and a bit foreign again — which is good! I don’t think it is good for us to only shoot with 1 focal length for the rest of our lives — it would be too boring.
Furthermore, it does seem that switching up your equipment, camera, gear, etc is beneficial! Switching up or cycling through technology in photography has been a good creative stimulus for myself. Switching from crop DSLR, to full-frame DSLR, to digital Leica M9, to compact digital cameras, to micro 43rds, to Android and iPhone cameras, to digital medium format, etc — there has been lots of creative learning. But so far from my 10+ years of photography, it still seems that the best camera is a digital compact camera (RICOH GR II and RICOH GR III). It seems the best camera has the strongest performance for the smallest size. And being small, lightweight, compact, and always with you seems essential for a camera.
Choice minimal lifestyle
I’ve been wearing all-black clothing the last 5+ years, and the funny thing– I haven’t wearied of the look. I would also imagine I wouldn’t weary if all my electronics, possessions, leather, accessories, and car was all-black. It seems black is the most inoffensive and neutral color.
Just deciding what your ‘uniform’ is and sticking with it seems to be greatly beneficial to our lives: one less decision to make everyday (not having to waste precious energy on deciding what to wear).
Then perhaps to thrive, we need to strive to make FEWER superfluous decisions everyday. The fewer decisions we can make everyday, the more we can focus on our everyday creativity.
This is why living in a hotel was highly beneficial to my creative thriving: the ultimate choice-minimal lifestyle.
Perhaps the real definition of ‘rich’ or ‘luxury’ is being able to make fewer decisions?
Sleep is essential
Nobody could function if they slept 0 hours every night. Sleep is essential to prevent ourselves from wearying.
And my thought:
If you work super hard, you must also ‘sleep hard’.
I know the days when I am insanely active and lift heavy weights, I can use 10-12+ hours of sleep to fully recuperate, to go hard again the next day.
Once again:
The harder you go, the harder you must sleep and recover.
ERIC