Greetings, denizens of the digital deadline! Last week, we transformed the blinking cursor from a symbol of pressure into a drum roll of potential, reframing a blank page as an exciting, to-be-written composition. Did you try a cursor movement meditation to embrace what's now rather than what's next? Maybe you put yourself into that little screen and saw the world from the cursor's perspective. Even if the song you produced with the cursor's cadence only lives in your head, I am glad you had a chance to let go of your to-dos and embrace a few what-ifs.
This week, we're leaving the clean, sanitized world of your computer for something far older, quieter, and life-sustaining: moss and lichen. As someone who makes art outdoors, I have witnessed firsthand their quiet presence on trees and rocks—a miniaturized version of the philosophy "“slow and steady wins the race."
These are parts of the world not investigated by people most of the time. Or thought about. Before writing this column, I thought moss, lichen, and fungus were all three names for the same thing.
Like our creative minds, these life forms are associated with spaces that don't get much sunshine, a condition that can be both helpful and harmful. My best creative work happens in the quiet hours, away from the glaring pressure of an audience. I find wondering if I'm "seen" an obsessive distraction—something moss and lichen made peace with eons ago!
Other times, that solitude becomes isolation and can feel like stagnation. This is where science can help our artistic mind: while a fungus is a single organism, a lichen is actually a symbiotic partnership between a fungus and an alga or bacteria. It is the ultimate creative collaboration!
Moss, on the other hand, is a simple plant—a quiet maker that prepares the ground for other life. In our creative practices, we too can be solo artists, or we can find strength in symbiotic partnerships of collaboration. I see these weekly nudges as a form of symbiotic partnership, creative efforts supported and inspired by one another's attention to taking time for a little inattention. Let's try to be better together and bring one or more of these creative nudges into the light:
Field Guide (Observation & Exploration): On your next hike, pause to look at the ground. Observe a patch of moss or lichen with the curiosity of a child. Use your phone's camera to zoom in on its miniature world. Sketch or describe what you see, using as much detail as possible, as if you were creating a tiny field guide.
Serial Symbiosis (Narrative & Collaboration): Lichen is a partnership between two different life forms. Find a creative partner—a friend, a family member, or even a generative AI—and each of you create a character or a concept. Then, without telling the other your idea, write a short story or poem about how these two disparate elements must come together to survive.
Silenced Spring (Auditory & Imaginative): What does a place covered in moss sound like? Is it muffled? Does it absorb sound? Close your eyes and imagine the soundscape of a room or your car's interior covered in moss. Construct a sculpture based on the auditory feelings of a quiet, damp, and ancient place.
Parallel Lives (Conceptual & Self-Reflection): Think about your own creative ecosystem. What life forms benefit when your creative practice is thriving? Is it your family, your community, your career, or your inner child? On a piece of paper, map out your creative world, using moss and lichen as metaphors for your own quiet habits and partnerships.
Green Zone (Design & Philosophical): Consider the relationship between a human and generative AI. Is it like a fungus and an alga working together? Design a new type of creative lichen, with the artist as one part and the AI as the other. Draw or describe what this "hybrid" creative process looks like, what it produces, and what unique challenges it might face.
The world of moss and lichen is a quiet, ground-level testament to the power of patience and interconnectedness. They remind us that creativity doesn't always have to be a loud, glaring process happening in the full light of day. Sometimes, the most meaningful growth happens in the unseen, damp corners of our lives, where we form symbiotic relationships with others or quietly pave the way for something bigger.
Taking time with a creative practice helps us remember that even in places that seem barren, life thrives and propagates life all around it. By really noticing these life forms, we can learn to nurture our own creative practices in the places they can best take root, finding restoration, beauty, and purpose in the quiet, unassuming parts of our own artistic ecosystem.
This column was written with the help of Google’s Gemini Advanced, a powerful generative AI writing tool.
