The vast brain of no ideas
...and all the ideas.
It’s not that the brain has no ideas, it has all of the ideas.
I’ve been writing notes on substack twice daily for about a week or so now. Simple things that I hope are inspirational, modeled on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s book of his “G’morning, G’night!” tweets that he published about eight years ago.
Here was today’s “g’morning”:
G’morning. Don’t know what to write? I hear you. I’m there myself. Sometimes all the prompts in the world can’t save you. And then you’re on your own. Swimming in your vast brain of no ideas and all the ideas.
Keep swimming. You will stay afloat. And you will live to write again.
❤️
Adam
The vast majority of writers know what this is, to be left adrift in your brain, dog-paddling through endless waters of no thoughts, no ideas, no insights. It feels dark and cold in there, like Jack hanging off the door frame, slowly freezing to death as Rose sees her new happiness slipping away. (Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic, but it can truly feel lonely in there...)
But as I was going about my morning, making meals, getting the little one to an appointment, I realized that my problem wasn’t that my brain was a vast sea of emptiness, but a crowded port hosting a dizzying amount of ideas, zooming around like speedboats in every direction. It’s not that the brain has no ideas, it has all of the ideas. And choosing can be near impossible, as they move so fast that it’s difficult to grab and keep hold of any one thought.
Whether it’s death (an uncle’s recent passing, on top of a dear high school friend succumbing to cancer, and dad still feeling like he’s just a phone call away four years later), illness (it seems to be creeping up on more and more loved ones), Disney parks (the obsession continues), Taylor Swift (that’s more my daughter’s, but she still takes up a remarkable amount of my mental real estate), food, food, food…you get the idea.
And this shows up in Every Day, Luv. There are a lot of poems about not knowing what to write. Or that what I’ve written may not be good enough.
Luckily, today’s swim through the vast brain of ideas has yielded…this. What you’re reading. And if you’ve made it this far, love you.
Come back Friday at 12:30pm for our live show with theater management nerd (and Program Chair in Theater Management at Yale) Joshua Borenstein!
❤️
Adam