The Three Stages of Creation

You can create things in three easy steps. Here they are:

Consume. Last weekend, I read a 372-page book and a 35,000-word essay and watched several movies. Other ways of consuming include direct experience, ie immersing oneself in nature, hanging out with weird people, seeing a play. In this stage, you are a passive, chewing maw.

Digest. I often spend this stage eating, comatose, or spacing out. Your brain just ate a giant meal. You need to give it a break while your subconscious breaks down the food particles of information that you just consumed. This won't feel like much, but it will be everything.

Regurgitate/Expel. Now that you have taken something in and your body/brain has processed it, it has to go somewhere. This is the creation part. You can verbalize it. You can write it. You can transform it into a piece of sculpture. What comes out is what you took in, made new by you.

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