Creative Freedom in Everyday Life
Flourish: Picking Up the Thread
Hello my friends. How are you?
Thank you, truly, for still being here.
It has been a while since you’ve heard from me inside FLOURISH, and in that time the world has not exactly become a gentler place. This year has felt heavy on so many fronts—globally, politically, environmentally, personally—and like many of you, I’ve been trying to keep my head above water while still making things, caring for people I love, and paying attention to my own nervous system.
I won’t give you a big list of excuses, because the truth is simpler: I ran out of words. Or maybe more accurately, I needed to listen more than I spoke. I found myself questioning what “flourishing” even means in a season that feels so exhausting, and I didn’t want to send you something that sounded like a pep talk from a parallel universe.
What I do know is that I still believe in what we started here: a small, human space to explore creative power, not as a performance, but as a way of staying awake and alive in difficult times. I’m grateful that you chose to support this work with a paid subscription, and I want what lands in your inbox to feel worthy of that trust.
So instead of trying to catch us up on everything or offer a grand plan, I want to simply pick up the thread of our shared curiosity and start again with a small, real story about reclaiming creative power in everyday life.
Being Alive Is Better Than Staring at a Cell Phone
There have been countless instances this year where I’ve found myself immobilised, only my thumb exercising, trying to take in the existential crisis endlessly pushing itself onto whatever screen I have in front of me. I’m not particularly proud of this, but it’s a fact. The doomscroll pulled me back, over and over, away from my own power and my own joy. I’ve felt the weight of it in my shoulders and in my hip joints, the wasted hours. There hasn’t been an actual point where I’ve said to myself, “Alrightee. That’s enough of this bullshit,” and thrown the phone out the window. But I’ve become increasingly aware of just how much I don’t want this anymore, and how much more I’d like to recommit to things that make me feel less captured and more free. Less anxious and more free. Less burdened.
And more free.
It’s not anything new, but what is new is artificial intelligence that thoroughly understands our best and worst inclinations—and feeds both.
I think about this a lot. Doom thinking, I suppose. But I am well aware that the only way away from that kind of thinking is to consciously omit the source of it from my day, for periods of time, and reclaim my own power.
An example. I take my phone with me when I walk long distances. The pretext is to see how many steps I’m getting in. But I know now from experience how many steps are in a kilometer, and I’m smart enough to multiply.
But then—what if I see a flower and want to take a picture?
I don’t think I could possibly count the number of flower photos I’ve taken, and wouldn’t it just be much nicer to think in my actual brain while I walk?
My phone and I have an unhealthy relationship. I really, really want to check it when it lights up or pings. I feel the serotonin pulsing into my veins when I check it. I say I don’t care—and I mean it. I really don’t care. But I check it because I’m a well‑trained monkey controlled by a system that knows me almost better than I know myself.
The only real value in having a phone on a long walk has to do with personal safety. And that counts for a lot. So I bring the phone with me, and work on exercising control over my own impulses to use it. The first step to solving a problem is to admit you have a problem.
I have a problem.
I’m leaving the phone out of the studio more often, too, which means no music, no podcasts, just me and my brain humming away in a zone so focused I can easily forget where I am.
I don’t bring the phone anywhere near the living room in the evening, so that my husband and I can talk or watch a film without it glaring down at the table every time it lights up. Because when the phone lights up, even if the ringer is off, I look at it. I want it BAD.
That being said, it’s amazing how quickly I forget about it when it’s in the other room.
My phone does not go into the garden with me anymore. It’s tried a couple of times, but now I make sure I slam the door before it can come out and start pinging at me.
My phone often keeps me from flourishing. It has too much control over me and my time. In order for me to flourish and to create I need for my brain to be free. And my brain can’t be free if my day is one long checking‑in session.
This does not mean my phone doesn’t have its place. I love creating content on my phone. I just don’t want it to be an out‑of‑control monster anymore, one that I look at expectantly, waiting for what? God only knows.
I just want to create and enjoy being healthy and happy. And free. There is enough going on in this world for us all to feel like we’re spinning on a top that is going nowhere but down. But it feels that way often because that’s what we’re fed. We are what we eat. If we ingest doom, we become doom. If instead we ingest from our spiritual (or actual) garden and create art and touch the deepest part of our creative beings, we become that.
A small experiment for this week: Choose one walk, one hour in nature, or one simple household task and do it without your phone in the room. Notice what your body does, what your mind starts chewing on, and what you see or hear that you would have scrolled past. If you feel like it, hit reply and tell me what you noticed.
This entire post is a careful dance around the subject of AI. While I’m a forward‑thinking, pro‑technology person, I believe the ethics around AI are probably the most important discussion that we should be having with each other right now.
To that end, I’m sharing what I think might be the most important podcast I’ve ever listened to, hoping against hope that when you have the time, you’ll listen too. And if you like it, please share the link with others. Steven Bartlett from Diary of a CEO interviews Tristan Harris, a technology ethicist who has been sounding the alarm about how AI systems, left to pursue profit and engagement alone, can undermine our attention, our mental health, and even our democracies—and what a more humane path might look like.
Thank you, lovely people, for being here.
Diana
This is a wonderful and important topic, I’m glad you addressed it. I can always tell when people spend a ton of time on their phones- their Instagram stories are varied and packed each day with 5, 10, 15 shares. I’ve had to mute so many people I follow on Instagram for their art or design because they constantly post stories on topics not at all relevant to their content and it stresses me out completely. Anyway, I am not a phone addict, I was on that path, but I took a few drastic measures to stop it. First, I shut off all notifications EXCEPT my alert tone if someone is calling. My son calls me, my husband, and friends who have something important or urgent to share (otherwise they WhatsApp me). My reasoning is that if everyone close to me knows they can CALL me to get immediate access, then whoever is texting me on WhatsApp isn’t urgent enough for an alert tone to disrupt me. I check my WhatsApp now when I remember too. I don’t even have the notification showing the number of messages waiting for me on the WhatsApp icon. So I have to open WhatsApp to even see if new messages are there. It’s a game changer to shut off all WhatsApp notifications and let loved ones know to CALL if there is an urgent need. Takes so much stress out of my day. Next thing, I have all app notifications OFF. Including Substack and Insta. I check them when I think to check them. I stay in control. If you’re able, give it a try. It’s a good time of year to test this and see if it works for you. Notifications off on everything EXCEPT phone calls. Try it!!! Then you can feel a bit more or that freedom you crave.
First of all, yes. All of this, yes. The state of the world and the never-ending stream of bad shit to tune into it at any given moment is mesmorizing. It's also debilitating. Several weeks ago, I found myself in an all-out funk. I was uninspired, dispirited and discouraged. I had to dig deep and literally will myself to do something... anything... different, in order to shift my focus away from everything "out there" and back to "in here".
We weren't meant to live like this. Our nervous systems weren't designed to deal with this much information and noise. I suppose we'll evolve eventually, in one way or another. In the meantime, I'm doing what you're doing... I'm focusing on those things that keep my train on the tracks, which is to say I'm doing my level best to invoke my creative thinking skills, as opposed to those that want me to be fearful/anxious/neurotic all the time.
For what it's worth, your other posts, both here and elsewhere on social media, really do smack of the happy, healthy freedom that has always been such a big part of your life and your persona. Your art, the reorganization of your website, the (eh em) recent real estate purchases. There's joy there. It's palpable. I hope you see that and feel it. All that to say, you're doing it, my friend. You're walking your talk. And that matters a great deal. Thank you.