Holly Wren Spaulding (hollywrens) is
a writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist and author of ‘Familiars’ and
other books and the founder of Poetry Forge.
TRANSCRIPT:
ZAK: Whether you have five minutes or five
hours, today's advice is to create your own autonomous zone.
HOLLY: In other words, to have free spaces
in your life free of other people, free of the profit motive, you know the
pressure to be earning a living during that time. Free of interruption. Free of
social media. Free of duties and obligations that impinge on, for one thing,
the imagination. And the way in which this is practiced in my life most
diligently is in the morning hours from 7-10 am, I treat as sacrosanct. There's
no appointments, no e-mail, no social media, no interaction family members.
That's my writing time.
ZAK: Do you think for people that don't
have a creative practice, there's value in creating these autonomous zones?
HOLLY: Absolutely. And that's why I think it
is, at its core to me it's about a couple of different things. It is about
practicing being free. Like, who am I and what do I care about when I'm not
sort of being...sort of bounced from obligation to obligation or duty to duty.
My life is not free of those things. Yours isn't. They exist. I think of this
time as helping me be more well-resourced for when I do have to go engage with
the drudgery or make a living or whatever it is. But this idea that we can get
to know ourselves in that free space...have a secret life...like a life that
doesn't belong to anyone else that we don't easily give up. And that's a big
deal I think. And then also to find out, like, there's something arising in me,
maybe, that is as interesting or compelling as what's happening in the outside
world. So, like, what is putting pressure on your imagination? What is stealing
your time? What is costing you greatly in terms of your, you know, the bandwidth
you have to make whatever you want to make? It is frequently the allure of
what's happening in the outside world.
