I was lying in bed thinking about important issues, "Why do bears hibernate?" In my limited understanding, I imagine a bear preparing for the winter, eating, fattening up, before going into a cave and sleeping for months. Intuitively, they know when to wake up, live their best bear lives, until it's time to hibernate once again. Why do bears do this? How do they know to do it? Nature is WILD (obviously).
To further satiate my curiosity, Google came to the rescue and delivered some interesting articles from the National Forest Foundation and the North American Bear Center.
The first article I came across was 5 Stages of Activity and Hibernation from the North American Bear Center. It describes not only hibernation, but the four additional stages bears go through: "1. hibernation, 2. walking hibernation, 3. normal activity, 4. Hyperphagia (getting fat!), and 5. fall transition." Okay, so bears don't immediately go from living normal lives to hibernation, there are transition stages. Good to know.
But then my mind was expanded by Do Bears Really Hibernate? by the National Forest Foundation: Bears don't fully hibernate and instead "enter a lighter sleep-state called torpor." Similar to hibernation, torpor is all about surviving the harsh conditions of winter when food and other resources are scarce. But here's the most fascinating part—other than this glorious sentence, "Bears can actually turn their pee into protein"—hibernation is a voluntary process, while torpor is not.
At this point in the newsletter, I want to ease your mind and answer the pressing question, "Where is this going, Chris?"
Whether you describe yourself as an artist, creator, creative professional, or creative entrepreneur, there will be seasons of creative hibernation throughout your career, a voluntary state of existence where you rest and recover from your work.
Maybe you'll take your cues from nature and rest every year. Perhaps a decades-based approach works for you. As you leave one decade of your life and enter the next, you spend a period of time in recovery and preparation. Regardless of duration, there is a lesson here for our creativity, especially in an era when machines can work endlessly without exhaustion, and we are expected to do the same.
The secret to our wildly infinite creativity and curiosity is creative hibernation. But don't forget to also learn from the fives stages of hibernation listed above. Give yourself time to transition from creativity to rest.
Newsletter Notes:
Inspired by Wheel of Prog – Devin Townsend (Albums Tier List) by The Prog Report, I've been diving into Devin Townsend’s discography. Today's sonic soundtrack is Ki by the Devin Townsend Project.
Midjourney generated the background image above with the following prompt: sleeping bear in a cave, hibernation, in the style of rembrandt --ar 16:9.
I set today's title in Dunbar Text Extra Bold Italic. I love the lowercase b.
What an interesting piece. I think I could use a little hibernation right now. There are times when I feel like I'm burning the candle at both ends and I feel so tired that it's hard to get things done on a consistent basis. It's hard to remember sometimes that we all need to rest. We keep thinking we can push through this but when we do we still don't take time off, especially if we're self-employed. I've been going through this a lot lately. I think your piece here just gave me permission to hibernate a little so I can come back fresher (and perhaps hungrier just like a bear).
Thanks for this Chris.