Nope

When reminders and challenges become nagging.

It’s fun to get "throwback" reminders. Today’s, from the journaling app, Journey, was "Nope." Funny that I even remember what I meant by that.

I’d turned on Journey’s reminder notifications, in order to build a habit of journaling daily. It didn’t work. "Nope" was my half-hearted, half-assed attempt to conform to "the letter of the law" I’d set for myself, but my spirit was rebelling. It had nothing to say, and it wasn’t coming out to play. "Nope."

Well. So much for that, and for most similar "challenges." Write a blog post every day: "Nope." Write a story every day: "Nope." Draw something according to the daily prompts, every day in October: "Nope." But sneak up on it - say, "Draw when you feel like it, but incorporate these prompt words" - and little stories start to happen.

I wonder if there are any children out there who lack imagination and creativity, or do some just have it sucked out of them earlier than others? Do the frameworks - the habit-building, formulaic "challenges" - set up to encourage creativity actually stunt and stifle it with demands? Not constraints - no, I think constraints can provoke rebellion and creative thinking quite well. Formal verse, for example - how creative and original can you be, building to spec on the latticework of a sonnet? But could regular, habit-building, “creative challenges” have a detrimental and decidedly uncreative effect, instead?