Maple Spring: The sapping of a digital life
The best thing about working digitally is that I can occasionally slip into playing digitally. This week the TeachersFirst servers went down for much more than a hiccup, forcing me to work on other things. I have long to-do lists, but I chose to spend 15 minutes on Twitter, feeds, and the various bookmarks strewn on my desktop. I was seeking inspiration and an excuse to digress. I turned on the Spigot to feel this confluence into my creative buckethead:
Ingredient 1: This video from Eddie Wright about 29 Ways to Stay Creative. Especially ponderable: #4: Stay Away from the Computer (Ironically, I excitedly bookmarked the entire blog to be sure to come BACK to it on the computer!)
Ingredient 2: This post from George Couros, which made me ponder whether living and working digitally “humanizes” or dehumanizes ME — and what impact it has on the creativity conversation in Ingredient 1.
So often I reach the end of my workday exhausted and devoid of any remaining creative impulse. While that is not so bad for the people I work with or for the TeachersFirst audience, it does take a personal toll. The irony is that the same screen that has filled my eyes and sucked everything from my brain throughout the day also offers the connections and inspirations to restart the drip-drip-drip of creative juices.
I am maple sap in the spring.
At night, I drip
a constant tap-tap-tap into that bucket,
ready by morning to be hauled to the sugar shack and boiled for hours.
I am grade A amber, ready to add flavor. I am never Fancy.
I am the ever-boiling pot that needs new sap.
I am the storage space where this season’s syrup rests, ready to curl the tongue in sweet surprise
months from now.
The web exhausts, collaborates, invigorates, and I am grateful.
