Bypassing Blockages
Current location: Milwaukee, WI, USA
Reading: The Shame Machine by Cathy O'Neil
Listening: Landers by Seconds
(if you have a moment, reply with your own 3-item status)
Bypassing Blockages
The benefits of traveling are myriad, and I'm an enthusiastic proponent of visiting even the nearby, the perceptually humdrum, the everyday and mundane-seeming because although many of us have been sold on the idea that travel needs to be exotic and expensive, it needn't be either of those things to be valuable and fulfilling.
Taking a quick drive or bus-ride to the next town over can be just as enriching as hopping an international border, and visiting a park or hole-in-the-wall bar can be just as enlightening and enlivening as visiting a museum, ski resort, or other aspirational destination.
The benefits of moving around—to whatever degree is feasible for you and your situation—extend still further, though.
When I feel creatively or productively stuck, I find that relocating to another context (working from the library instead of my desk at home, for instance) often jolts that blockage free.
This works on a smaller scale, as well: changing locations within my own home, or opting for a different seat than usual at a familiar coffeeshop tends to put me in the right state of mind for making, learning, and feeling inspired, even if I start out feeling stopped-up and limited.
You can get even more granular with this approach, though, swapping out your visual or aural environment by changing your computer's desktop wallpaper, hanging some new posters or artwork near your desk, or opting for a different playlist, radio station, or environmental soundscape (nature sounds, traffic sounds, no sound) than usual.
Research related to this "change your context" approach to dealing with mental barriers suggests that because our brains want to relax and use as little energy as possible, and because familiar environments and habits and routines allow them to do so, they'll sometimes flip to autopilot-mode when our environmental variables are familiar and predictable.
This is wonderful in some ways, as it can allow us to relax and get cozy, wriggling into a sort of chilled-out cognitive blanket, but it's less ideal for deliberation-dense situations in which we need to have our wits and creative faculties operating at full-tilt.
Upending our familiar variables, fortunately, can push us in the opposite direction: our brains go into data-collection mode, and even seeing the same room from a different perspective—sitting on the floor, moving one's chair to the opposite wall, etc—can trigger this response.
It's possible the Doorway Effect also plays a role in this response, as we sometimes use our environments to store information (as sort of a "mind palace" means of attaching cognitive data to geographic spaces) and by perceptually shifting to a new space, we reset our thinking patterns in such a way that we can approach problems and projects from new angles—because we're literally looking at them from different positions.
Whatever psychological and/or neurological mechanisms are actually involved here, this type of mini-travel does seem to at least semi-reliably bear fruit, whether you're plucking at the threads of a knotty problem, mulling over professional next-steps, or futzing around with some kind of creative side-project.
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Projects
Select, recent works from across my project portfolio.
Aspiring Generalist: Cognitive Biases
Brain Lenses: Partisan News
I Will Read To You: The Vanity of All Worldly Things
Let’s Know Things: International Telecommunication Union
Curiosity Weekly / Daily: April 5 / April 4
One Sentence News: April 6 (podcast version)
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Interesting & Useful
As globalization alters our relationship to food, I’m making my way around the world, asking kids to keep a journal of everything they eat in a week. Once the week is up, I make a portrait of the child with the food arranged around them.
Pricing Psychology: A List of Tactics
In this guide, you'll learn 42 tricks to improve your pricing—all backed by research and science. (Note from Colin: also good to know about to avoid falling prey to such tactics.)
Which Countries Feature Women on Banknotes?
Today, only 15% of banknotes feature women. This infographic looks at who these women are and which countries feature them on their currency.
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Outro
I started painting again recently, and it's been an absolute blast.
My technique has atrophied and I feel like I'm fumbling around with my brushes and palette knife, but wow—it's a lot of fun.
I'm using acrylics, and in a past life I was more into watercolors and ink, so this is a rewarding revisitation blended with an illuminating leap across the fence to an adjacent pigmentary substance.
A lot has already come back to me from my visual artist/designer days, though, and I'm excited to see what I can make/do/communicate now that I've had another ten years or so of experience with other mediums, and with life in general.
I've also recently finished a handful of poems, and I'm looking into next-steps related to that realm of creative exploration, as well.
Maybe some submissions, maybe some workshops—it's all new to me, and it's been fascinating learning about this sub-section of the writing world these past several months, but I've got a lot left to learn; we'll see where it takes me.
What are you up to right now? How's life? What's been on your mind?
Tell me what's up and/or just say hello by replying to this newsletter or writing to colin@exilelifestyle.com.
You can also communicate via the usual methods: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or very unsafe children's toy.
If you’re finding some value in what I’m doing here, consider supporting my work: Become an Understandary member / Buy me a coffee