Why all creatives need to explore, and play.

We’ve just been to Prague for a long weekend.

It’s an astonishingly old and beautiful city, a joy to walk around. So that’s pretty much all we did for our entire time there. 

After nearly three years of not travelling at all, it was glorious to explore somewhere new. Even the supermarkets felt full of surprise and wonder, and a tram ride across the river more exciting than any theme park. 

We sat people-watching in cafes and bars and saw some unfamiliar art. We saw Franz Kafka’s childhood home and went on an imagination-igniting tour of a 16^th century alchemist’s house with secret labs and tunnels below and an apothecary shop at street level, to help disguise the heat and smells wafting up from the hidden cellars.

As we walked, my husband and I also talked. 

There’s something about being in a new place that encourages conversation to veer off its well-worn tracks and into new territory. Especially when you add in lots of excellent coffee and cheap, cold beer. 

We made plans, aired some grievances, made each other laugh, came up with some new solutions to old problems.  And now I’m home, happy to be in my own comfortable bed again, excited and full of new ideas. 

We need this, as creatives.

We need time to play, to explore without a goal or agenda. It’s why I’m such a fan of play dates. It’s a concept from Julia Cameron’s excellent book on creative recovery, The Artist’s Way. 

She calls them Artist Dates. I prefer to stress the play. Either way, the idea is to schedule time every week to do something that rests you, stimulates you, feeds your soul.  Or something that is simply silly and fun.

If you feel you don’t have time for such an indulgence, I’d say that means you need it even more urgently. Even taking an hour out of a busy week can help you prioritise more clearly, focus better, so you can get the important stuff done and let go of the distractions and busywork.

Not all of us can afford to hop on a plane, or feel ready to travel yet. But exploration comes in many forms. 

Here are just a few:

• Read; watch films and documentaries; listen to stimulating podcasts
• Tidy up your workspace. Stop and examine anything interesting that catches your eye in the process. Allow yourself to be distracted. 
• Walk or drive to a familiar place, deliberately taking a different route.
• Or walk a familiar route slowly, lingering in each of your senses in turn. Really notice what you see, then hear, then feel, smell, even what you taste. 
• Go into a museum, shop, the library.. any building that you usually pass by, that might contain something interesting. 
• Cook a new recipe. Lay the table as if for an honoured guest, and serve it with ceremony. Eat it, slowly and mindfully. 
• Sign up to a talk or discussion – online or in real life – on a subject you’ve never examined before. 
• Grow something edible. Especially if you don’t have a garden. A pot of herbs on a window-sill. A tomato plant in a pot on a balcony or doorstep. Then serve your produce Japanese-style, with reverence. Really savour it, and treat it as something precious. Because it is. 
• Try a completely different medium to get an idea down. If you’re an artist, write. If you’re a writer, sing. A singer? Then make something with your hands. It will be messy and imperfect. That’s the point!
• Put aside time to create and try new directions without getting too hung up on the result, or expecting this new work to immediately pay the bills.

Get creative with this.

Train yourself to look for new opportunities to play and explore that fit your time, your budget, your needs. 

Do it regularly, and you’ll probably find you get more productive, and start making new connections, getting new ideas. But you’ll definitely have more fun.

Which is surely the point of your one wild and precious life.