There's a quote in the chapter that says "Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing." Personally, I can't just "do nothing", but I know what they mean. I think they are saying to do something that doesn't take a lot of planning and forethought, something that is definitely not "work." In my case, I am always in the process of reading a book. I LOVE to read! I also watch a lot of movies—old, new, foreign, etc. Then there's always puzzles (on my iPad and "real"), a few games of solitaire and Sudoku to decompress with. I find these are all really good to play when I just need something "mind numbing". The apps I like to play are called Jigsawed, Solitaire and Sudoku, and they're pictured below.
I also enjoy listening to music, drawing floor plans, building with Legos and coloring. Then there is one thing that I do that takes absolutely no heavy brain work—I deal with my puppy. I have a Siberian Husky, named Freya, that is 12 weeks old. I've had her for five weeks now and am in love with her. She is a great distraction from projects, which can be both good and bad. But, just look at that face and tell me that you wouldn't take a break to play with her, too.
Getting back to chapter five, the author says that it's very important to have a hobby. Again, I agree. As for me, my guilty pleasure hobby type thing would probably have to be video games. I am admittedly a nerd! I have a Gameboy Advance, a Gameboy Advance SP, a GameCube, and a Wii. I love almost all things Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda. I've been known to play Guitar Hero and Rock Band (and their various 1, 2, 3's etc.) until my fingers practically fly off. Then there's Red Steel, a sword fighting game, that I play until I can't raise my arms any more. I know, that's pretty pathetic, but, it's fun and I can't help myself. There's also the Just Dance games. These are fun on a different, completely embarrassing level. Try them, before you judge me, you just might have fun, too!
There are multiple quotes in this chapter, as with all of the previous ones, too. One quote was by someone that almost everyone if familiar with, Steve Jobs, but another is a quote by Maira Kalman that says "Avoiding work is the way to focus my mind." I wasn't familiar with her, but, her quote works in perfectly with this chapter. This led me to do a bit of research on her. I found that she was born in Tel Aviv, but has lived in New York since the age of four. Maira is not only an illustrator, but a writer, too. She has done many The New Yorker covers and has done books for children and adults.
One of the books that she illustrated, which Michael Pollan wrote, is Food Rules an Eater's Manual. This book looks like it's a lot of fun. If you go to her website this book is on her landing page. I started looking at the pictures that she had posted, and reading the captions that went with them, and immediately started laughing. She seems to have such a great sense of humor and her pictures can take a serious topic and make it easier to understand and poke a little fun at it at the same time. I'm definitely going to add it to my library. Below are just a few images from this book. Enjoy!
One more thing, she was married to the designer Tibor Kalman until his death in 1999. As some of you may know, he was a graphic designer and was well known for his work as editor–in–chief of Colors magazine. A couple of his pieces were the ones of famous people if they were born of another race. They were published in an Color Magazine's issue #4 on Race, in an article called "What if..?"
Of course this first one is Queen Elizabeth.
The second one is
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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