{"id":2585,"date":"2024-01-11T17:48:48","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T22:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/?p=2585"},"modified":"2024-01-11T17:48:48","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T22:48:48","slug":"i-thought-it-was-just-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/?p=2585","title":{"rendered":"I Thought It Was Just Me"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Singer songwriter Cindy Walker’s Typewriter at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As I write this blog post, an episode of the long-running British murder mystery show Midsomer Murders<\/a> is streaming on my iPad. I have seen this one before, probably multiple times. Actually, I have seen all of them but don’t always remember them. This one is familiar although I am not sure I could name the killer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, I digress. I am only half or maybe a quarter paying attention. It is entertaining the part of my brain that would prefer to be doing anything except writing a blog post. Food TV, the old version where people cooked rather than competed, was a favorite while I wrote my doctoral dissertation. I always felt a little guilty about this practice, as though I wasn’t fully concentrating on the writing, but it worked for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I felt a little vindicated when Bren\u00e9 Brown, in the section on boredom in Atlas of the Heart<\/em><\/a>, described her writing process:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A big part of my book writing routine is watching super predictable, formulaic mysteries–even ones I’ve seen ten times. These shows would bore me to tears if were in a normal mental space. But when I’m coding data and writing, something weird happens. It’s like the shows lull the easily distracted part of my brain into a rhythmic stupor, setting free the deeper meaning-making part of my brain to engage and start making connections between things that don’t seem connectable. I actually sit on my couch with a notepad next to me because the more bored I get, the more ideas bubble to the surface (p. 40).<\/p>\nAtlas of the Heart: mapping meaningful connection and the language of human experience, bren\u00e9 Brown<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Early January has had moments of boredom for me as I few commitments compared to the busyness of the fall. Life is a little dull, frankly. And yet, my writing and other creative pursuits seem to be thriving. Ideas, as Brown describes, are bubbling up and I am taking time to pursue them. So, while boredom opens the door to creativity, I am giving myself permission to write about what interests me, in a way that I hope connects with others, sharing larger lessons learned from my experiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who knows? I may even write about Midsomer Murders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I write this blog post, an episode of the long-running British murder mystery show Midsomer Murders is streaming on my iPad. I have seen this one before, probably multiple times. Actually, I have seen all of them but don’t always remember them. This one is familiar although I am not sure I could name … Continue reading I Thought It Was Just Me<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[42],"tags":[694,693],"class_list":["post-2585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-boredom","tag-brene-brown"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4X3L0-FH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2587,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions\/2587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}