Big Bang or Black Hole Pressure?

Big Bang Tension >> Big Bang Creation

That experience in art class was about half my lifetime ago. Many times in my life, the sentiment that constraint breeds creativity has come back to me and helped me find my way forward.

When I notice I am feeling creatively stuck, I write down the constraints for my project or situation:

• What’s the timeline?

• What’s the budget?

• What’s the desired outcome?

• What resources to I have/not have?

These might be the questions anyone asks at the start of a project. But the difference is in the perspective and approach I take towards working with them.

I visualize all of these details in my head like a box. I let them swirl around while I look to the murky center waiting for the solution to emerge. As I think about the constraints, I feel the tension growing. And in my mind’s eye, they start compacting, getting more and more pressurized. Then, eventually, that murky middle bursts into an explosion and suddenly I see the solution. The constraints are blown away by the blast and completely out of focus. All of my attention goes to the solution vision and that spurs my creation and work.

Do you know what that sounds a lot like?

The Big Bang!

I highly doubt that that metaphor would have ever come to me on my own. Thank you, Nieves, for sharing your idea with me. <3

Big Bang Energy or…?

This idea of Big Bang energy and creation has been on my mind all week. I’ve let it simmer and spin in my mind, waiting for that murky center to clarify for me. It didn’t happen until I sat down to write today.

In fact, it was after I wrote that line above, “The Big Bang!” that my idea had it’s own Big Bang moment:

Big Bang or black hole?

Last weekend, my husband and I watched Oppenheimer. I was too caught up in the storyline of Los Alamos, New Mexico developing (I live in NM!) that I didn’t make the connection between the theory of black holes and my thinking on the Big Bang until today.

As soon as my brain had it’s Big Bang moment, my time to complete the thought was gone.

My son walked into the house from the backyard, soaking wet. It was time for baths.

After getting the baby out of the tub, I sat on the floor and rested my chin on the edge of the tub, eye-level with my older son.

I said, “The Big Bang came from extremely high density and burst into the entire universe. But black holes happen when a star gets so dense that it explodes on itself and becomes a vacuum.”

”Yeah.” he said.

”How are there such opposite outcomes from the same thing?”

”And then the blue truck goes down, down, down the rocks,” he said.

“One creates everything. The other swallows everything.”

He looked at me then swallowed a gulp of bath water & pee from a toy. 😅

Is your pressure leading to a Big Bang or a black hole?

How do you know if the tension and pressure you’re feeling is leading you to a Big Bang, or a black hole?!

This seems incredibly important to figure out.

This is all metaphorical, of course.

I don’t know enough about science or stars to delve much deeper into the galactic side of the metaphor, so I’ll offer my reflection on the creative tension side of it.

Big Bang creative tension is how you feel when an idea is brewing. When you’re feeling things that you need to express, even if you don’t know how to yet. It feels like unrest. Like an urge. Like a longing so deep that it is painful. It’s uncomfortable, like an itch you can’t scratch. Like your mind might explode. It’s expansive. You see patterns, have ideas and get curious about things as you try to make sense of all of it. It bounces around in your body until it finds a channel to escape through.

The black hole creative tension is what you feel when you’re lost. The feeling of being disconnected from yourself. From longing to be creative but not even being able to muster the energy to think of what that might look like. Similar to burn out. It feels like a hole you have to dig yourself out of before you can get to a baseline from which you might be able to think about creating something. It’s consuming. The thoughts and feelings you have are overwhelming and sink down a seemingly bottomless pit in your chest.

How to shift the tension in your favor

I know both of these forms of tension well.

The black hole variation can seem hopeless at times. It’s just so exhausting.

But, what if it feels like a black hole not because it’s emptiness, but because it’s limitless?

What if defining some parameters, some boundaries, some constraints, was all you needed to shift things in your favor to create the tension that leads to a Big Bang?

You could go from darkness, to utter brilliance!

That sounds worth it to me. ✨

Big Bang Announcements

I have two quick announcements!

1. I am launching my new and improved coaching program, Career Change Catalyst on April 8! If you know any creatively inclined people in your life that is burned out and wants to radically improve their career & relationship to creativity — send them my way!

2. I am working on a premium version of the Rekindle newsletter that will be available to paying subscribers. If you’ve been loving Rekindle, what would make it even more amazing? What would you love to see that would make $9/month or $90/year and easy yes for access? Reply and let me know!

Notes:

• Every time I wrote “Big Bang” here, I first typed it out “Bing Bang.” My fingers have a mind of their own sometimes! 🙃

• Also, I was getting really confused about when to, and when not to, capitalize Big Bang, so I just kept it caps all the time.

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As always, thank you for being here! If you know someone looking to add more creativity to their life, or whose on the journey to build/rebuild something, please share Rekindle with them.

Warmly,
Jennifer