Curiosity Unleashed: Embracing Stupidity as a Gateway to Creativity

Learning to learn, reading to write and making my notes pretty.

Hey buds,

I'm excited to share with you that my time away from streams has been spent learning and creating.

Ok, honestly, a lot of my time has been spent just kinda keeping up with life and the random tasks that pop up throughout my day, but realizing it helped me identify more changes that need to be made.

I don't want to be pushing myself into further states of anxiety, and I really want to make good use of the time I have, especially because some of the other things I've learned recently have been incredibly helpful in my work.

Which is why I'm working on:

Becoming a creator instead of a passive consumer

I'm getting the fuck off social media, again. Holy shit is it capable of zapping my energy so fast.

Being a passive internet consumer is exhausting and opposite to my actual goal of being a creator. Not only is it opposite, it's also a hinderance to the actual creating itself because it generates anxiety and quickly shuts down any creative impulses.

Comparison is everywhere and seems to punch me straight in my creativity every time. The news is still focused on the "if it bleeds, it leads" kinda vibe, which pushes me right into fearful mind-states. People on social platforms tend to gain the most from being the loudest and meanest, rather than kindest and most informed. It's essentially nonstop bad and sad with a dash of memes, fuckery and food.

Speaking of, this is my favorite meme from this week:

I love his smile so hard. (Meme courtesy of Instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0.)

Literally, as I sat to write this newsletter I realized social media usage is breaking my brain and if I don't step away from it and get way more intentional about usage, I will never get anything done.

I had recently heard of this app called "One Sec" that you set up through the shortcuts on your phone and it forces you to stop and do a short breathing exercise before you can open the app.

I already love it. I think this will help me a lot. Previously, I moved all my social media apps into a folder called "why" and that would, for a while, slow me down. Then, I created app limits which close the app after 15 minutes and keep it “locked”. It’s still too easy for me to just tap “15 more minutes” and keep going indefinitely.

Thumb want Instagram. Thumb want Threads. Thumb want TikTok.

No más, thumb. No más.

HaHAAA, take THAT, thumb.

Frameworks for Learning

As you hopefully know by now, I love finding systems and frameworks that can help me in life. The universe recently blessed me with the discovery of a new framework as I progressed in the book "The Art of Impossible", by Steven Kotler.

The 5 Books of Stupid

The idea is that you read a full 5 books on whatever subject you're trying to study, and throughout the entire process allow yourself to feel stupid. Essentially, you're telling your brain you don’t expect it to “get it” right away, and you're committed to 5 books before you'll have even a basic understanding of whatever it is you're studying.

Without self-judgement, focus and take notes on these 3 things:

1. Historical narratives about the subject, things that give you a sense of where it came from.

2. Repeated technical terms. When you read an unfamiliar technical term, look it up and write the definition down in your notes. Every time you come across that term in the future, review the definition in your notes as you read.

3. Anything that excites you. If you feel a little tickle in your nethers as you read an interesting fact or bit of information, write it down. I, uh, don’t think this applies to all the books you’re reading. If you spend a lot of time on BookTok, you may be feeling those “tickles” more frequently, and it may not be from finding interesting technical tidbits.

What you're really looking for is the ability to build a technical foundation while learning how to follow your curiosity and excitement. Learning is better received when we're enjoying any part of the process.

Kotler also offers a suggested outline for book types, based on his 20+ years of journalism experience and research work.

The Order for Your 5 Books of Stupid

1. Seek out the most popular, bestselling book you can find on the topic. Doesn’t matter if it’s fiction. Just have fun. Gain familiarity. 

2. Next find a popular book that's a bit more technical. It should still be closely related to or directly about the subject of investigation. With this one, you're still trying to generate excitement for the learning process.

3. After that, next up is a semi-technical book. It should be readable and interesting but maybe not a page turner. The information should build on the first two. At this point, you're getting the "shadowy outline” of the big picture. Look for something with a wider view, if possible.

For example, if you're trying to learn about trees, at this phase maybe you'd study systems ecology. If trying to learn about relationships, maybe social psychology. 

4. Now it's time to find a hard book on the subject. Not necessarily a fun book, but one that gives an intro to the challenges in this space. Where does thinking begin and end? What do experts think is crazy? Why?

5. Finally, we look to find a book directly about the future of the topic. Where it’s heading, when it’s heading. 

This approach allows you to grow your understanding of a subject in a more relaxed manner. You're not expected to be an expert after these 5 books, instead you'll likely be ready to start asking your own questions, seeking experts to answer those questions and selecting your next 5 books.

As someone who has very little formal education and loves the hell out of learning, this idea was thrilling for me. Repetition is incredibly helpful for learning, and the dopamine hits you get from following your excitement and curiosity are too.

My First Book of Stupid

I spent probably 2 days trying to determine where to start with my more intentional reading experiences, and landed on learning about writing, since it impacts basically everything I'm trying to do. (I basically hate dislike everything I've written so far.)

Then, I took my notes (which is essentially what I wrote above for 1-5) and threw them at Google Bard (I went with Bard over ChatGPT for this beccause it can access up-to-date info without a paywall.) and asked it to offer me 3 options for books for each type, that could help me learn to be a better writer. After a brief conversation about the pros and cons of each book and taking some time to browse some of the options, I went with a book called Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and it's been great so far.

According to iBooks, I'm 46% through it and it's already offered me some really useful information.

Side note: I'm considering creating a separate section of my Substack dedicated to book notes and reviews, if you're interested in that let me know in the comments, please.

I've already learned a few things I was able to implement into my work right away, and I got a bonus of this delightful quote:

“E. L. Doctorow once said that “writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

I'm not trying to write a novel, but I do need the reminder that it's ok to navigate life without seeing further than my headlights. I wrote it down and posted it up on my bulletin board on my desk.

I've also been spending a good amount of time learning how to learn, but by utilizing free resources instead of books and it's been really enlightening. Effective learning is a mindful act and that pleases my lil heart. I'll share some of what I've learned in another post.

If you have any specific questions you've been trying to answer about learning, let me know and I'll add them to my list.

Creative Explorations

I made a bunch of new food I forgot to take pictures of.

Yep.

Also, I've been recording a lot of video content, but I don't have anything I want to share yet.

I do want to quickly recommend this gadget I got recently, for any of you other content creators especially. (Not sponsored but using affiliate links.)

It's called the AIRSTIK Cradle, and it's a glass mount phone holder. That may not sound thrilling to you, but it's so sturdy and reusable. You can use it to take those great mirror selfies or stick it on a window and get some great naturally lit shots without a tripod. It was only $20.88. I saw it on TikTok because people kept showing videos of how well it worked, and I'm genuinely impressed. For how cheap it is, this thing rocks. It's cool for on-the-go shots in the world as well as doing steady shots around the home.

I probably should have taken a photo with my phone in it, but I didn’t. So here it is.

Obsidian Tickles My Nethers

Creative expression has become much more fun for me lately thanks to the things I'm reading and my ability to work within Obsidian. I cannot state enough how much I adore this note-taking application. The ability to customize it to such extreme degrees is absolutely wild and has genuinely brought in even more excitement to the work I'm doing.

We (Alex) found this great theme for Obsidian from Nicole Van Der Hoeven called AnuPpuccin, and it made my vault and notes so pretty without much effort. I love writing in Obsidian now, the colors help me see my work differently.

This is an example of my Obsidian Vault with a couple notes open side-by-side. It’s beautiful thanks to the AnuPpuccin theme.

When writing, I typically close out both sidebars to limit distractions.

As you may notice, I can easily distinguish between sections, notice my highlights, see the bolded words, and it helps me feel more focused and in-tune with the whole body of the work as I go.

Daily Notes

This video was excitedly shown to me by my partner (Alex showing me incredible, fascinating or useful things will be a common theme here, he should be the one writing a newsletter) a while back, and I've been wanting to implement but didn't until last week. It highlights many ways doing a daily note through Obsidian can be used in the future, and it's incredibly interesting.

Alex reminded me my Obsidian vault can be set to open automatically to that day's daily note, and I finally, almost begrudgingly, set mine up.

HOLY SHIT. I love it. I love having the daily note through there. I created a template for myself based on the things I want to track, knowing I intend to eventually create a data view to display the information in an aggregated way in the future.

What I've chosen to track so far is:

Sleep

Hydration

Air

Diet

Exercise

Stillness

(all of S.H.A.D.E.S)

Tasks

Ideas

Highlights

Mood

My Cycle

and a few other things.

Every task I do throughout the day, whether intended or not, I'm adding to my task list and checking off so I can see where my time was really spent. Since it opens up every time I open Obsidian, and I do that frequently throughout my day, I have opportunities to update my note with more data for future-me, each time.

This has already helped me in a very obvious way.

I was mid-project yesterday, feeling a bit discouraged and wanting to quit because I thought I had put way more time into my work and should have been further along.

I reviewed my daily note from the day before, saw how many things I did, remembered that they took up a lot of the time I had previously allocated for my project, and immediately felt relief. I wasn't failing at the work, I literally had not been doing the work for as long as I thought.

The realization perked me right back up and I got back to it.

Tracking this much information in a daily note may not be something you're interested in, but I'd encourage you to figure out what type of data about you would be useful to you. Some of the info may be useful for self-reflection, some may be helpful to remind you you've been more productive than you thought, some may be a way to help you stay on track with goals.

I'm excited to see how this information proves to be beneficial as I continue to add to it.

My Gratitude for You

Thanks to everyone who has been reading these, and thanks to all the folks who chose to show support by pledging to this Substack. I'm going to be enabling monetization in the near future, and I think it's possible some of the book reviews and/or other comprehensive notes I have on learning will end up there.

As you move through the rest of your week, I hope you remember to slow down and check-in with yourself often.

You do not need to earn your rest.

You are not defined by your productivity, your job, your relationship, or any of those external aspects of your existence.

What matters most is what matters most to you.

Take some time to consider your own needs and wants in the days ahead.

Be kind to yourself.

Blessings and fart noises,

- Jessica / Snaps