Massimo Curatella

Tag: free-flowing

  • Idea Curation, Visual Note-Taking, Conversational Explorations

    Idea Curation, Visual Note-Taking, Conversational Explorations

    Watch CREAZEE Sprint 3 with Quinten Lockefeer.

    I met Quinten in Ness Labs, a community of creatives. I proposed a book club on “The Uncertainty Mindset” and we started to zoom-meet every week.

    It was about three years ago and we never stopped since.

    Quinten is a Joyful Creative Enzyme. We never had to plan our conversations. The sole fact of being online connected sparked in us the urge to talk.

    About what?

    Watch the video to have a sample. Consider it an excellent representation of what Q & Max do every week for one hour.

    Among the topic we touched on was content curation, visualizing conversations in real-time (as in this case), collaboration, Personal Knowledge Management, and note-taking, the role of AI in learning.

    We also discussed my experience with the CREAZEE Daily Writing Habit Challenge which involved about 15 people in 2021. We wrote about 500 articles in a month, one article per day, every single day.

    It’s a long video, consider it an invitation to be part of a meeting between friends with an unstoppable desire to share their enthusiasm for knowledge and for life.

    Watch the YouTube video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGBR0gg2cP8

  • Explaining the reason for a failure is illuminating

    Next week I’ll be ending this experiment. I’ll be concluding my 365 days of posting on my blog, every single day. I’ve listed a lot of the lessons, considerations, implications of this long challenge, I don’t know what to add. I feel like I am already done, today, seven days in advance.

    And this is the “old” me talking. The “me” before the effort of forming a habit, of making a more disciplined approach to creativity. I had no due dates, no commitments and any side project would have been good for wasting time. And that’s exactly my battle: avoiding dispersing energies mindlessly, throwing away time because “I am too tired” and “I just want to get rest”.

    So, once again, I am acknowledging my illusory defeat, I am clearly stating that I don’t have anything to write. Thing, which, is false since I have found so many ways to avoid that from happening. And especially false because I had interesting experiences to talk about.

    The effort that would require me to recollect all of my thoughts, put them in a meaningful way, extract the good parts, and put them in a usable format is exactly the work I am not doing.

    359/365.

  • Reflecting on voids and missed opportunities (draft)

    Filling voids.

    Catching up with missed opportunities.

    Superficial impression of order.

    Going to the root causes: why did voids create?

    It’s in the behavior: a sequence of actions leading to order or disorder according to different points of view.

    Side note: using WordPress editor as an outliner. Paragraphs can be easily reorganized by drag-and-drop.

  • Ultimate Testing

    When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

    –Sherlock Holmes

    Testing it, is the last thing you have to do just to confirm the deductions.

  • Relax, don’t do it

    If you write or not write, nothing is going to change today. You were about to build a habit before completing your daily task and you are confirming you are continuing your streak. There may be none or few consequences of your breach and it might matter to nobody. But you are the only one responsible for this and the only one receiver of either the benefits or the damages.

    So, better put your thoughts together and, even if admitting an illusory defeat, declare your emptiness with a clear and determined voice.

    Here it is, my non-article for today. It’s a free-flowing exercise, I wrote it as it came, flowing, and I didn’t go back to edit any part of it.

    It is what it is. And it’s the no. 342.

  • We Need More Scientific Attitude

    To have a scientific attitude we need to: observe, measure, verify, investigate, confront and, also, use our creativity, imagination and fantasy. It requires effort and presence and can help us in mitigating bias, reducing prejudices and setting the right expectations when observing and experience reality.

  • Deeply Immersive Stolen Sleep

    Sleeping when you are not supposed to sleep is like going on a prohibited journey. If you accompany your nap with an immersive audiobook then it’s like living another life. You need a book well narrated with a warm and rich voice. When you wake up you feel like you’ve been away, far away, to a distant place. And also your body is exceptionally regenerated, you’ve just added extra recovering time. That sensation! Of being well-rested while you seem to still hear the figments of the story playing in your ears. I love to steal sleep.

  • Free-Flowing Explanation of the Free-Flowing Practice

    Free-flowing means writing whatever is coming to your mind and passing through your mind. Without stopping. Without looking back. Not knowing exactly what you are going to write. Not even approximately, actually. The trick is to transcribe your thoughts, not to think about what you might think. Or you might want to think. You are actually thinking about what you are writing.

    That could be a nice, impromptu explanation of what a free-flowing practice could be. I find it fantastic to warm up my fingertips and my neurons. Usually, it takes me from five to fifteen minutes to get in the flow. But if practice and I get accustomed to this way of creating spontaneously, then, I could be in the flow after a few dozens of seconds.

    The point is: what are you going to expect from this when you are in the flow? You want to go beyond the rust and routine and, slowly, gently, reach out to your inner self and really touch your deepest thoughts. If you have the patience and the guts to keep on writing, at a certain magical point, you will forget about your surroundings, reality will fade away and leave space for the sound of your thoughts forming on the screen.

    It’s not easy, the first time. And it’s really difficult to maintain concentration. Even the faintest noise could break the spell. Don’t stop. Insist and persist. During several months of practice, one day, you will discover yourself taking an inner journey into your thoughts with an unbreakable concentration. There will be no family member, no dog, no bill, no ugly noise able to get you out of your creative tunnel.

    Try.

  • The Bassline Baseline

    46 days to go. 46 more articles to write. “articles”, what a big word.

    I’ve received one of the best gifts I have ever had: a bass guitar. I have fingertips at both of my hands hurting and I am proud of that. When you play an instrument or try to play, you listen to music in an entirely new way. What before was something visceral and part of a group of sensations, now has become the result of different efforts that are merging into harmony. Looking at the tablature for a blues-rock bass solo is now for me like having found the Rosetta Stone. I’ve been desiring for years to play a specific monumental bassline and thinking I can now actually pursue this dream is exciting as few little things have been recent.

  • A.I. isn’t as Advanced as I Need It, Yet.

    I would definitely love AI to write this post. What if it knew what I know, how I feel, what I want and what my goals are here, and it wrote this post for me. What would it write?

    If I could ideally separate my thoughts from my feelings I would have done some research on my interests and I would have isolated a nice, specific, little topic. I would have defined it according to several sources. And I would have explained at least a couple of possible applications or real examples. That would suit me.

    When can I get such technology?

    I need it now.