working on new stuff, will come out soon. till then, here’s a piece the NYTimes said they “had no idea existed.” There’s a certain voice I hear in my head whenever I’m creatively stuck. It’s loud and sounds like Batman. “Just do it,” the hyper-macho gravely voice barks, “do the work.” “Ah great thank you Batman, I hadn’t thought of that! Wow, problem solved.” Yuck. No thank you. I know this ‘suck it up and do it stop being a baby’ advice is not helpful and yet - and yet! - my head is full of it. Don’t you see, I am a baby. A sensitive lil baby who longs to share his sensitive little thoughts with the world. Isn’t that basically the point of art?
Take this meme that instructs you to do ‘it’ even if you’re scared. I mean…maybe? Certainly not always. “Consistency is the key,” Batman screams, but consistently doing what, exactly? Consistently beating myself up when already deep in the caves of my own self-loathing? Yea, no. Not doing it can itself be doing it. Here I fixed it:
Not doing it can also just be not doing it! Not everything has to be done as a means to the ultimate end of “creating something.” We don’t always have to be productive and we don’t always have to justify our rest (he says entirely to himself). As the Tao Te Ching says, “Do nothing, and everything gets done.” Classic Tao stuff tbh. We need advice that points toward a different path. A gentler way for the sensitive souls. I made this moodboard for Sublime’s newsletter (where I work!!) and wanted to share it with y’all cuz I feel like BATheads would dig it too. It’s there below for ya. Enjoy. But what’s Sublime, you ask? (here’s a lil ad for this thing I genuinely really like using)It’s basically a knowledge tool for creatives. Besides using it to collect inspo and save cool stuff (Pinterest for ideas), we’re seeing people most using it to actually help them Make Stuff. Especially writers and strategists and anyone else whose job it is to connect the dots, share ideas with others, what have you. Aaaanyways - Sublime is still in private beta but your ol’ pal Al has a lil invite link for you here, so sign up and give the free version a whirl and lemme know what you think. ALSO: I’m gonna do a lil live zoom call soon specifically for BAT readers where I share how I use Sublime to work on essays, develop my ideas, etc + share how other people are using it too. We might even do some sort of lil accountability thing with people to help them actually do stuff? It feels a lot like a real workshop which I hate and so I’ll probably make fun of those the whole time too. Should be fun! Dates are TBD but if you wanna sign up or if you have questions just add ur info here and I’ll let you know when it goes live etc. ok here’s the moodboard lol
To see all the ideas I gathered in making this collection, check out the Sublime collection I created for this post, everything, in time - creative inspo when stuck. Comments!
Moodboards GaloreSpeaking of, here are some other moodboards we’ve created in the past at Sublime!
Check out the rest here. You're currently a free subscriber to Both Are True. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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