Moving your idea machine
Moving your idea machine
Breaking my writing silence with a dream
Today’s post is brought to you by last night’s dream. It’s not every day that I wake up with a topic and a title ready-to-go, and after an unintended Substack hiatus it’d be foolish not to go with it.
(Well…the dream happened about a month ago now, and this post has been half sat in my drafts since then, but that sentence didn’t flow quite as well…)
It feels a little ironic that I was at my most stationary when my brain delivered this type of information to me. But maybe that was the point - I obviously took notice.
“Press the button if you have something to share” - I was sat in a circle with other creatives, with the leader of the group sat to my left instructing everyone to begin.
Within a matter of seconds I’d reached my hand out to press the circular plastic button in the middle of the room, as though we were all on some 90’s gameshow and I’d found the answer first. Except I hadn’t, and there were definitely no prizes up for grabs. There was something I wanted to say. A feeling I needed to share.
It didn’t take long before my words fizzled into pauses and erms, and I found myself finishing sooner than I thought. The room had begun to feel empty, causing me to halt my words and retreat back into my seat. Any enthusiasm I began with had completely disappeared.
“When you press the button make sure you actually have something to share,” - words of supposed advice coming from our supposed leader. It was spoken to the group, but it was clearly to me - to my fumbled, erm-filled, half attempt at a — a what? A speech? Whatever it was, it was gone. I watched as various members hesitated, stopping short their own enthusiasm before leaving the button untouched. A ripple of deflation throughout the room, and everyone still.
It’s all I could think about - how physically still we all were. Sitting. Our bodies and thoughts just as unmoved as the button.
“But we don’t always know what we’re going to say until we begin. Also, if we want to express ourselves, we need to move” - my frustration moving me to plead with the leader, hoping for her to see how stifling her approach was. She didn’t budge.
With nobody listening and me feeling unable to change anything, I woke with this line in my head - move your idea machine. A title that my daytime brain wouldn’t usually go for, but I’d like to honour my dream for this one post, and actually I can see where it’s coming from - we often treat our ideas like they should just be ready to be switched on, like a machine separate from our bodies. But our bodies need to move in order for our ideas to be felt and realised.
I emptied my dream into another machine to try and make sense of it all - my notes app on my phone.
My dream self wasn’t wrong - sometimes we don’t know what we have to say until we open our mouths, until we write, until we put the marks down, with whatever tool and in whatever form. I wonder if the leader in my dream was representing my own perfectionism and illustrating the consequences of waiting until ‘the right time’ - reminding me of the loss of connection and expression that inevitably happens.
The main thing that made me reach out and press the button was a feeling. I pressed it while feeling something - and I trusted that whatever was inside would come out. I had pieces of thoughts that were enough for me to start something with. I had no script, no neatly packaged parcel of information. I didn’t know if it was good or not. I felt something, but not only that - I felt safe to share it. Initially, anyway.
The more I wrote about the dream in my notes app, the more I saw the link with my relationship and writing - with how I convince myself that I won’t be able to find the end of my thoughts, that they’ll be left in my mind in pieces, never reaching a conclusion of any sort, and so I don’t even begin. Rationally I know this is nonsense - and besides, the goal isn’t always about finding endings - but I still manage to get myself fooled. By myself.
And then my dream self intervenes. And it’s a bloody good job - my Substack was getting lonely.
We’d like to believe it’s more complicated than it actually is, when often all we really need to do is move. We can’t believe how simple it is. It’s a blessing how simple it is. Not only in acting before you think you’re ready - but also in movement with things that don’t seem relevant; doing the dishes cleans up my sentences, I go for a walk and I return home with the words. “So, tell us more about that piece of writing you did?” - oh, yeah, I finally did the dishes and it all came together! It just doesn’t sound that impressive, does it? Or believable? Surely it came to you when you were thinking very very hard, and in the right way? Nope, some soap suds took me there. I placed one foot in front of the other. I jumped in the shower and the river in my head finally opened.
But then a new day arrives and I seem to forget this, treating my ideas as though they should be able to form inside me with no movement needed; that surely if all the words were in there I’d know them by now. A walk couldn’t possibly change anything! Given how deeply I like to reflect on things in life, it baffles me how rigid I can sometimes be with this.
Maybe the button in my dream also represents Instagram, the place our perfectionism seems to multiply like nowhere else. I remember how much I used to freeze when sharing my work online - I look back at early posts and I see in the captions how I’d paused the writer in me, refusing myself access to who I could be. That dream leader was definitely sat on my shoulder back then.
There are still moments when I freeze - whether it’s on Instagram or while I’m creating privately - and some days the thaw comes quicker than others, but I’m just thankful that it comes at all.
Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement. - Alfred AdlerThe dishes, the showers, and the walks no doubt help me to shift something, but after that it’s music that gets me moving in a deeper way - here’s a little something that might send you on your way today, whichever way that may be. A beautiful little nudge for your idea machine:
It feels good to be writing again, I vow to have no more three month breaks ;) (if you see me skiving, please message me and tell me off).
In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below or in a reply if you’re reading via email - what helps you to press the button, literally or metaphorically? What thoughts or things help you not stay frozen for too long?
