I thoroughly believe that in order to feel balanced and grounded in ourselves we need to produce as much as we consume. What that means is that in this world where we are constantly plugged into and consuming content we should also put out content of comparable weight in terms of our efforts and devotion.

It seems to be pandemic in our society that we never turn our attention away from the world. Our energies are constantly used absorbing and reacting to trivial stimulus. My challenge to you is that in the next three weeks plan out a process that will help you cut loose from the constant inflow of meaningless information and create something you find worth-while. It can be a large project or a succession of small ones, the process you go by is your own, all that matters is that you put back into the world what you receive.

For the purpose of leading by example, I will layout my plan for this month on what I want to work towards. I am thinking of it on terms of a weekly basis where every week is dedicated to a different mind-space, a different task, and a different goal that all culminates in the last week as a final product.

I have a variety of outlets through which I produce. I write, obviously, but I also paint and make art. I haven't had the incentive to dedicate time to make art this semester so I plan for this project to lean heavily towards artistic expression as a way to bring back that incentive. In terms of your own Cleanse it can be anything you do that is creative; whether you dance or sing or make clothes or whatever, just do it in a way that brings you back into focus. The method is as important as the product.

For me, week one is about refreshing the skills I have lost touch with. Like a muscle I'm going to stretch my abilities out and reopen them so that I can channel them later. What this means is pure and loose practice. Im going to scribble and doodle and mix paints together on paper but not produce much of anything. I’m warming up my vocal cords, stretching before a dance, priming my mind and body for the creativity that I am about to manifest.

Week two will be about collection and direction. I will pull together an array of things that I want to draw from as inspiration. These things can come from the outside or from within. Write down ideas, read books, listen to new songs and just pull all of these things together into one space. I’m going to define what I make off of this collection.

Week three is the production. Since I plan to make an art piece I need to gather my resources to follow the plan I laid out in week two, then it’s as simple as execution. I warmed up in week one, found my direction in week two and now its time to put something out there.

Remember that the purpose of this excursive is to feel like you are making something, I’m particularly fond of it because frequently the information that I am constantly reading and processing leaves me feeling empty of purpose. Pulling things together and producing gives me that purpose. Additionally the work I produce for school often times feels void of energy and passion, so perhaps drawing together specific content as a means to recharge can also be important to rejuvenating some of the monotonous aspects of generating content. Perhaps the inverse of this article will be the topic of my next article, until then be safe and create!