Creativity is inherently anti-authoritarian. As in: to be successfully creative, you have to shed the part of yourself that desperately wants reassurance. It’s only then that you can escape cliche and escape paradigmatic thinking.
— bookbear
The kitchen now, for me, is a place of ownership and control and (very very low-level) mastery in a way it has never been before. Plop me in the middle of it and I am certain I can make something delicious in 20 minutes given whatever is at hand. I have never felt this way before, and may never have gotten to this place without forced isolation. I’ve cooked every meal here for the last two months. It has unlocked a delight and culinary eroticism that was hitherto a great self-mystery, but now I get it I get it. The kitchen, food, owning this space — this is the grit of life. And I realize how “sheltered dumb” this sounds, like I’m some ding-dong that just discovered that water is delicious when slaking thirst, but — ye upon your high horses — I have been “cooking” (almost) daily for decades. The point is: I had never taken whatever that next step was towards full ownership.
This reminds me of meditation practice (or any practice, for that matter) as well. Once a week for decades gets you almost nowhere (I know, I’ve done that); allows at best for you to say “I do meditation” and acquire the requisite mats and towels, sitting pillows, singing bowls. Whereas ten hours a day for ten days straight can provide you with a tool for life.
Not just big-loop repetition, but tight-loop, highly iterative, sustained repetition.
— Craig Mod, Boules, Earning Tools, Photography News, Repetition