There is more to see, if we are only willing to look at the world differently.
Mindful in Muse comes from my desire to to put thoughts into existence; my hope for this website is to create a space for co-inspiration and co-creation.
I find writing to fulfill both the entrepreneur and artist in me. In my love of writing, I see the parts of me that loved grade school show-and-tell and giving my sister “arm tattoos” with imaginary pens.
I am fascinated by how the world can give us very ordinary experiences for us to transduce into thoughts and actions. There is so much “world” to write about that I forsee myself never running out of blog ideas.
But I think writing is dying. Not because there aren’t enough people writing (thanks to social media, I don’t think it will ever die), but because we are regurgitating when we write more than we are creating with it.
Through Mindful in Muse, I also want to bust some writing myths:
1: Writing should be professional. When we write in reaction what we feel, we tend filter out a lot of what we are actually feeling. We don’t want to sound too mushy or vulnerable or pensive, and least of all like a cliché quote. However, I think this “reactionary writing” is very accessible. By writing something relatable, at least we are creating some good.
2. Writing isn’t important anymore. With other modes of sharing ideas rising in prominence, it can be hard to see the purpose in writing. It doesn’t help that the process of writing can take a long time. We’ll often fret about not using the right words or worrying about words being taken out of context. But by writing anything at all, we are translating feelings – at their barest, hormones and cognitive associations that exist inside our minds – into shapes and giving them an existence. We become parents to things even more infectious than viruses, more powerful than large bombs and more unsurmountable, unstoppable, than the power of the sun: ideas. Ideas don’t need to be complex or fully formed to be impactful.
3. You need authority to write. Before we write, we tend to think: “well, I’m not an expert. Where would my subject matter expertise come from?” When I want to write about technical topics, I’ll often think the same. We’ll proceed on to research and write until we’ve cited enough sources to confirm that our writing is correct. But in this modern day, anyone with access to a book and a notepad can do that. It takes more bravery to create thoughts and publicize them.
4. Anyone can write about what they feel; anything I write will be saying what people already know. There’s a reason why people say travel makes you richer: it exposes you to more customs, lifestyles and worldviews. The same goes for writing. When we write, we infuse a bit of our unique selves into our words. There’s a reason why two people can look at the same item and have different things to say about it. So the more writing exists, the more we’ll learn.