If I tried to describe the way that I think, a “wild mind” is way down on the list of words I might use. I know people with wild minds, and they’re incredible to be around, but that simply isn’t me.
However, a quote from Jon Acuff’s book “Soundtracks” gives a slightly different spin on things where he says “Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye“. Taking it further, it’s explained like this:
The wild mind means you give yourself permission to put a thousand different ideas in your head. You notice a song lyric, a comment from the mailman, a sign at a coffee shop, a question your curious toddler asked, and an article in the New York Times. You collect anything that is remotely interesting to you. Then you look at that vast collection of unrelated ideas and have the discipline to see the connection between them in a way no one has before. I use this approach to write books, articles, and speeches.
From that perspective, perhaps I do have a wild mind. A few years ago I compared consistent blogging to being like you’re on a photo walk, and Acuff summarized it similarly in the quote above. I give credit to tools like Tana, Obsidian and Roam Research for helping to connect those various threads and bring them to life.
You can certainly do it other ways, and I’m not sure what Acuff uses, but having some method to connect the dots between wildly different experiences can lead to fun new insights. The second part of this post explains a fun example of that, and I love seeing how those kinds of things can come together.
My mind is still less wild than some others in my life, but perhaps more wild than I give it credit for.
