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Rowan Mangan

Writer. Mom. Wild Inventurer.

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Blowing past stop signs 🛑

August 23, 2022 1 Comment

Dear friends,

I have a few ā€œOops, I did it againā€ patterns that play out repeatedly in my life. One of them is dreaming big, overcommitting, and finding myself greedily trying to squeeze two or three lives into the space of this one lifetime I’ve been given.

Luckily, I’m starting to learn to read my own personal ā€œstop signsā€ when they present themselves.

Most recently, I decided to build a creative co-working community online. It was a sexy dream and I still want to do it. But while I was throwing hours into planning and trying to exceed my own technical capacities, I had forgotten something.

This isn’t creativity. This is admin. This is stress.

I’ll admit that I missed the first few Stop Signs. When the quote for the website build was beyond my budget. When I had a little relapse of chronic illness. When I couldn’t seem to concentrate on writing the copy.

But last week, when the technicals flat-out wouldn’t work, and a supposedly simple tweak had stumped not just me but three knowledgeable colleagues and a software help desk, I finally looked up and saw the sign.

STOP, Ro, for the love of all that is holy. STOP.

Meanwhile, my most important creative project ever is in the midst of potty training, is about to start preschool, is needing a lot of love and attention while she deals with some big transitions.

I managed to make this without even building a website or adding PayPal button!

So I turned away from stress and towards home. As I did so, I felt the tug that comes with the season’s turning—my expansive summer mood is starting to tilt towards the more inward months ahead.

I’m feeling the urge to cook a big pot of something hearty and nourishing. I want to be present with Lila in moments like this one, which just happened: she came running (pantsless) across the patio to tell me about a spider she’d found. ā€œThere it is!ā€ She pointed with her pudgy little finger at a daddy long legs on the wall of the house and I’m floored by the moment’s straightforward perfection.

ā€œThere it is!ā€

Folks, it was there all along.Ā  I just wasn’t watching for it as I blew through stop sign after stop sign. And what’s daring in springtime starts to look downright dangerous as fall approaches. I can’t afford to keep missing these moments. Got to slow down, come to a complete stop. Got to look carefully around me before I hit the accelerator again.

The long and short of all this is that I won’t be offering the Creativity Collective this year. I do intend to create it at some future point, because I know that it’s going to be a total blast and I’m going to love sharing space/time/energy with y’all. But I’m going to wait and watch for green lights.

Thanks for bearing with me last week when you didn’t get a letter. I’m back now!

I want to hear about the stop signs you’ve experienced in your life. How do they show up for you? Are you getting better at spotting them?

Love,

Ro

This article originally appearedĀ on Rowan’sĀ Wild InventuresĀ substack newsletter. To subscribe and get all Rowan’s posts in your inbox,Ā head over toĀ Wild Inventures on substackĀ now.Ā 

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  1. Donna Kiel says

    August 28, 2022 at 1:55 am

    Oh Ro!! I just love this post so much. Your words finally named exactly where I am.! I’m not listening to the stop signs or the flashing red lights and sirens. I’ve been trying to rationalize being part of a project that keeps getting stranger and stranger. Rather than stop, pull over and pause, I’m doing the ā€œbut you said you would do itā€ to myself. What I really need is an exit ramp. Thank you for helping me pay attention

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The perfect paradox in the title of Amie McNee’s The perfect paradox in the title of Amie McNee’s beautiful book, We Need Your Art.  New episode of Bewildered out now! šŸŽ§šŸŽØšŸ«¶
You know the story that the culture tells us about You know the story that the culture tells us about art—that it’s only something to do if you have spare time, or it’s only for the idle rich? That’s not actually the culture’s agenda… 

We’re talking about what’s really going on with art in the culture on this episode of Bewildered, featuring our very special guests Amie McNee and James Winestock.

The culture’s real agenda is to get you to stay in the left hemisphere of your brain. 🧠

Why?

Because if you do, then you continue to give your life for cannon fodder and give your labor for billionaires—you aren’t questioning the status quo. 

And as soon as you get out your paintbrush or sit down at the piano, you open up a way of thinking that creates where there was nothing before—that creates everything from amazing art to solutions to climate change. And that’s revolutionary. šŸ‘Š

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You can listen to Bewildered episode 102: We Need Your Art with Amie McNee and James Winestock, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. šŸŽ§
Hey there, Bewildered Cahoot! We have a very speci Hey there, Bewildered Cahoot! We have a very special episode for you today as we’re talking with our friends and fellow creative revolutionaries, Amie McNee and James Winestock. šŸŽØ

Amie is a writer, author, and creativity coach whose new book, We Need Your Art, is out now.
Her goal with this book is to remind you that you are here on this earth to make things and to use your incredible brain to create—and that art isn’t just a hobby, but vitally important work.

As Amie describes her work, ā€œI basically just bully people to make them create things.ā€ (Spoiler alert: It worked for Martha!)

If you’ve ever doubted your artistic worth, this conversation will remind you: The world truly needs your art, now more than ever. Listen to the full episode and let Amie’s contagious passion help you take your art seriously—and help change the world. ✨

You can listen to Bewildered episode 102: We Need Your Art with Amie McNee and James Winestock, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. šŸŽ§ 

@inspiredtowrite
Did you know that true kindness is a superpower? ✊🌼

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Do you want to be really subversive and really sti Do you want to be really subversive and really stick it to The Man? šŸ‘ØšŸ»ā€āš–ļø
(Especially The Man as he is currently configured in our culture…)

Here is how to do it:
Be kind. 🄰

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If something strikes you as interesting, the algorithm will instantly create the impression that everyone knows about this thing that you’ve just discovered—everyone’s talking about it, and everyone has the same concerns. šŸ—£ļø

Then what happens with that impression is that just by the force of the number of people, it makes it seem more credible and true. So even if I’ve only seen 30 people saying the same thing, my impression is that it’s probably about 75% of all people.

And if 75% of people believe something, there’s a very good chance it’s correct, right? That’s just what they call ā€œDoing the math.ā€ āž•āž–āœ–ļøāž—

And not only does it feel factually right, it feels morally right as well.

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ā€œNow I write, talk, paint, connect. I do it to make money. I do it because it lights me up. I do it because that is why I’m here on this earth. Life sparkles, yet I still feel like I'm getting away with something. I’ve snuck around a compulsory part of being a human being, which is doing work that sucks.ā€

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** A note on this episode: We angered the technology gods somehow during the recording of this podcast, and they took away the video we faithfully recorded for you. We are making the appropriate offerings to those specific deities and we’ll be back in your visual field for the next episode! **
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You can listen to Bewildered episode 98: Your Money or Your Life, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. šŸŽ§

** A note on this episode: We angered the technology gods somehow during the recording of this podcast, and they took away the video we faithfully recorded for you. We are making the appropriate offerings to those specific deities and we’ll be back in your visual field for the next episode! **
Our culture tells us that you need to put money… Our culture tells us that you need to put money…

šŸ’µ the making of money
šŸŖ™ the generating of money
šŸ¤‘ the money-making-money-making-money

…at the very center of your attention, if not your entire life.

Now, it may be that at this moment, work and getting money has to fill a lot of our day, but it doesn’t have to fill our attention.

What we’re talking about today on Bewildered is what happens when you pluck the money/work cultural story from the center of your attention. šŸŽÆ

Let’s see what goes there instead. It’s kind of wild…

Join us!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 98: Your Money or Your Life, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. šŸŽ§

** A note on this episode: We angered the technology gods somehow during the recording of this podcast, and they took away the video we faithfully recorded for you. We are making the appropriate offerings to those specific deities and we’ll be back in your visual field for the next episode! **

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