I’ve been trying to run the Silverlake reservoir with some consistency. It’s a roughly two mile loop, manageable, but there’s a part where I always want to stop. It’s this uphill portion, that, depending on your starting point and direction (clockwise or counterclockwise), feels anywhere from challenging to excruciating.
At the same time, I attempt this thing I call “no skips,” meaning I don’t skip songs on the playlist I’ve put on shuffle. It’s not like radio or anything, where all you can control is the station, but it does feel a little like I’m succumbing to randomness rather than the algorithm.
Once I’ve committed to these things— completing the loop, no skips— my mind is free to wander. Theoretically. But then, that damn hill. The slowest songs loove to hit as soon as I get there. “Oh God, not ‘Scarborough Fair!!’” I lament, gearing up for the incline.
If you’re ever experiencing a bout of crippling perfectionism, if you’re ever stuck in a deep rut, run until you’re done. Or, if you’re less of a masochist, do some continuous line drawings. The only requirement is to not lift your pen.
Blind contour is good too— where you don’t look at the page— but I prefer to look and commit. It’s thrilling to decide, in the moment, where the picture is going.
Continuous line drawings have been used in introductory art classes for decades. The message is: release yourself from getting it right. Just draw.
I don’t know if there is an equivalent in music or in performance art, but for me, the freedom and simultaneous restriction of one-line drawings helps loosen my grip.
It can be bad. In fact, sometimes it’s better if it is. There’s a quote from the movie 20th Century Women that comes to mind, where Annette Bening’s character makes a comment about the band The Raincoats. “They're not very good, and they know that, right?” To which Greta Gerwig’s character responds: “Yeah. It's like they've got this feeling, and they don't have any skill, and they don't want skill, because it's really interesting what happens when your passion is bigger than the tools you have to deal with it. It creates this energy that's raw. Isn't it great?”
You want to talk about raw? Get a load of these twins: