This period of my life is highly reminiscent of the last years of my
Ph.D. program during which I was setting up to make major changes in my
professional and personal life. Almost a year ago, Laura and I got
married, already bringing about major personal changes. On the
professional side, as I have previously alluded to in Back to blogging, many, many things are also changing.

When confronted with change-inducing circumstances, I fluctuate between
clinging steadfastly to the status quo to dreaming of a utopian life
revolution. Since I currently feel optimistic about the future, I am
taking some good time right now to fundamentallly re-examine and
redirect my work. Times such as this also call me back to books that
have been my past companions and guides. I pulled Carol Lloyd's Creating a Life Worth Living
off my shelf a couple of weeks ago, carried it around with me, and
finally started re-reading it in earnest several days ago. I've already
become re-acquainted with very helpful notions, including the ""daily action", which Lloyd describes in this way:

The daily action is
fifteen minutes of a focused activity performed every day at the same
time of day. Choose an activity that creates an empty, space where your
creativity can reassert itself. Let the action be solitary, and process
oriented. You are giving yourself fifteen minutes of emptiness within
the blur of living. Some examples of daily actions are dancing alone in
your living room, meditating, walking, writing in a journal, drawing
without purpose, singing improvisational melodies, doing yoga and
gardening.

I have experienced how such seemingly small disciplines as the daily
action can set one free to be creative. (Isn't the intertwining of
discipline and freedom paradoxically fascinating?)

This morning, I lingered over Chapter 4, in which Lloyd presents a
typology of creative modes or profiles that she splits between
"collaborative" and "individualistic" (p. 65):

• Collaborative creativity

• Leader

• Teacher

• Realizer

• Healer

• Interpreter

• Individual creativity

• Generator

• Inventor

• Maker

• Mystic

• Thinker

This chapter reminds me to honor the particular creative predilections
that I do have, whether or not they are held in esteem in various
contexts in which I participate. For instance, I am much more of a
generator than a maker. I need to find a place where I can generate
ideas and be valued for doing so. Those places might be rare, but this
is the time to look for them.