On daydreaming
“Idle dreaming is often the essence of what we do.” - Thomas Pynchon
Creating art means giving yourself time to dream.
It means sometimes you have to doodle. Monsters and machines and shapes.
Sometimes you have to sit and stare out the window and do nothing but watch the snow fall softly down.
Sometimes you have to take a long walk in the middle of the night and look at the stars. Sometimes, strangely, this is the deep work of being creative.
Sometimes you have to sip your coffee and do nothing but scratch some stupid poetry into your notebook. Sometimes you have to lazily flip through a children’s book.
Sometimes you have to lay back and put on a record to which you know every word, wandering through aural dreamscapes.
Sometimes you have to talk late with friends about nothing in particular, and about everything at once.
Don’t believe anyone who says daydreaming is for suckers. Sometimes, it’s the only thing to do.
It just requires two things: a sense of wonder, and patience that it all adds up to something or another.