Composure is your creative muse

#2 Ideas on a page

Welcome to the Ideas on a page column, the paid-only section of Wait! Just Listen, on ways we create and express ideas in long-form. It is a space where I share my personal notes on ideation and writing, that I’ve cobbled together through the past decade and a half as a writer and academic. Think of it as a melting pot of literary ruminations distilled into short actionable essays.

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By Ratur

It is not often that composure gets discussed on the same page as creativity. The former calls for a sense of calm and measured acceptance whilst the latter is typically associated with a highly charged and combustive energy that arrives as quickly as it dissipates. In today’s Ideas on a page, I wanted to reflect on why I feel composure is necessary for creativity to thrive. Too often discourse on creativity veers towards the excitable and the exciting without necessarily capturing the role of contemplative solitude - where we ruminate and digest an idea, allowing it to marinate in our mind before it is articulated, in all its glory.

So, why composure?