147. How to be free.
this month, I find out.
Dear reader,
Tomorrow I fly away on a much-needed vacation. During this time, there will be no more new episodes of the SneakyArt Podcast. Also, this newsletter will retreat to a weekly schedule.
In today’s post, I want to share my plans for the month, the journey I am taking with SneakyArt Insiders, and the things I will share with free readers.
The SneakyArt Post is a publication about secretly drawn art of the world.
🎙 Writing, the Podcast, and Freedom
For the next few weeks, there will be no new episodes of the SneakyArt Podcast.
While I take a break from my production schedule, I am lining up some older episodes from the archives that are worthy of renewed attention.
Some of them are conversations you may have missed. Often good things are lost in the fast-shifting sands of social media. I hope I can give them a second chance to shine. Some conversations you may have heard. I believe those episodes are deserving of a second listen.
The first second listen was released this morning. We revisit Episode 17 with Roisin Cure!
Learn more about the episode here.
Sometimes working in the creator economy feels like clammering for attention on a tiny stage in a dark, noisy bar. You get the mic for a few seconds, the spotlight for one infinite moment, and you … scream your life’s story.
But maybe nobody paid attention. Maybe something distracted them that very moment. Too bad. So it goes.
“You run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking.
Racing around to come up behind you again.”- Time by Pink Floyd.
I have to remind myself that the act of creation is linked to creativity and, while an artist may be prodigious, creativity itself is not a machine. For one thing, creativity needs time away from creation to replenish itself. For another -
A machine does not have to love what it consumes.
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🎯 The Journey with Insiders
This month I go another step further with my 2022 resolution to learn in public.
While I travel, I will be experimenting with new episode styles. I hope to make one mini-episode every week from my recordings, which will be shared exclusively with SneakyArt Insiders.
The idea is to deploy Insiders as a positive feedback loop around my new (and untested) work.
A positive feedback loop would help refine raw ideas, allowing them to grow beyond the limitations of a single mind. This means bringing attention to things that do not work as much as reinforcing what does work. If this journey is of interest to you, get in the loop.
Last week I met a listener and asked them to list the five most popular episodes of the SneakyArt Podcast. They got all of them wrong.
So here’s the same challenge for you, intrepid listeners:
Name the top five episodes of the podcast, not necessarily in order. Share your answer in the comments!
The first person to get it right wins a free membership to the SneakyArt Insider Club!
On vacation, I am reading …
Isn’t it funny how the big questions of life do not really change, even 2000 years later?
Thank you, dear reader, for your time and attention. Next week I bring you new sights from an old world I used to inhabit.
Enjoy your holidays! That book looks like hard work though
Have a holiday filled with beauty and renewal. We'll still be here the whole time (and enjoying the reprisals!).