The custom of creativity

Thinking some more, this morning, about creativity and its roots in custom and habit. Younger Daughter just texted me the image of some jewelry she's designed (and sold!), now that she's a college grad she's got time to be creative. 

I was already thinking about creativity in writing and thinking, after talking yesterday with another new grad. He's much further down the path, decades further than her, and with a decade even on me; but with more decades still ahead, I'm quite sure. He thinks I'm going to deliver his eulogy. We'll see. (Well, one of us will.)

My friend mentioned that my colleague, another of his recent teachers, had instilled in him the habit of journaling. That reminded me of Emerson's seminal question to Thoreau: "Do you keep a journal?"

And that reminded me of Emerson's eulogy for his friend.

Mr. Thoreau was equipped with a most adapted and serviceable body. He was of short stature, firmly built, of light complexion, with strong, serious blue eyes, and a grave aspect,—his face covered in the late years with a becoming beard. His senses were acute, his frame well-knit and hardy, his hands strong and skilful in the use of tools. And there was a wonderful fitness of body and mind. He could pace sixteen rods more accurately than another man could measure them with rod and chain. He could find his path in the woods at night, he said, better by his feet than his eyes. He could estimate the measure of a tree very well by his eye; he could estimate the weight of a calf or a pig, like a dealer. From a box containing a bushel or more of loose pencils, he could take up with his hands fast enough just a dozen pencils at every grasp. He was a good swimmer, runner, skater, boatman, and would probably out-walk most countrymen in a day’s journey. And the relation of body to mind was still finer than we have indicated. He said he wanted every stride his legs made. The length of his walk uniformly made the length of his writing. If shut up in the house, he did not write at all.

I totally get that. The best time to write in your journal is after a walk. Or maybe before. Either way, it needs to be a daily habit.