We are in an era of engineering “monk mode” to ward off all distractions for creation.
This digital age Walden Pond practice has become a calling card from many a self-help guru:
“I dare you disappear for a year!”
A noble suggestion in a digital environment of derivative, diluted, and regurgitated content that needs your originality.
The need to disconnect to produce original thinking has been a necessary part of human advancement since the dawn of time. These innovators, rebels and pioneers strayed from the crowd to detox from external influences, hear their own thoughts, and reconnect thinking in new ways.
Today’s solopreneurs often call it “monk mode” or “separation season” = when you purposefully seclude and double down when others might be taking their foot off the gas over the summer. Now we go into monk mode with a large cable still plugged into our brains rather than the true blank canvas of pen and paper ready to synthesize new connections. Or even the luxury of wide open space to be with our thoughts until something new emerges.
With the pressure to move fast, our Walden Pond is more like a Walden Tsunami. It’s a different beast altogether when we harness collective stimulus and elicit an ai synthesis of all that’s been said — adding our slightly new emphasis to meet the shock and awe effect required in a noisier marketplace. To the point where even the call to “Authenticity” is overdone!
These days…
Most people…
Can’t read a post…
Without it being a few words widely spaced out.
To pay attention and grok it.
As if the spaces were visual aids for the brain to take the natural pause that used to happen just staring at a paper page full of words in a quiet room. Is that how weak our ability to focus on one thread of thinking has become? Reading a coherent argument in paragraph form begins to strain the eyes and tire the brain.
(Next dopamine hit please. CLICK)
People don’t seem to want in-depth analysis that can been synthesized and integrated.
(Gimme the MAGIC MONEY MANIFESTING METHOD now!!)
Precisely the time where some believe long-form original thinking as a thoughtful opus of work (and not daily marketing drip) is what will distinguish between the masses and the masters.
If I think on all the posts I actually curate and soak up — they are original words. They have a distinctive style and sound. At some point you can just tell if a script got the ChatGPT facelift…perfection can be flawed too. (Not that there isn’t room for Ai-assisted curation and editing > a necessary leverage piece today and one I experiment with myself for inspiration).
More than ever though, we are in need of the imperfect beauty and precision of true craftsmanship. Be that of any medium from which you desire to create.
So on your next “monk mode” retreat — reconsider the pull towards producing voluminous derivative work just to get eyeballs. It just fills the ether with more noise. Inspiration will always seep in if you give it the time and space it deserves. Consider letting it stew the old fashioned way – from your intuitive senses and through your system – before it makes its way to the page.
How will you set up a practice of creating unique content?
