The Creative Misogi
From the Inspirational Thought Unit
There's a Japanese Shinto practice called misogi which literally translates to "water cleansing." Misogi involves ritual purification of the mind, body, and spirit through physical and mental challenges. In practice, people do a yearly pilgrimages to frigid waterfalls, lakes, and rivers and cleanse themselves in them. The aim is to scrub yourself clean of the contamination caused by modern conveniences.
In recent years there's been a growing base of people who have adopted elements of the misogi practice to give them a single memorable experience each year in nature that not just challenged them, but pushed them farther than they've ever been able to go before. These are year defining experiences like climbing a mountain, running a marathon, biking across a state, or in one wild example, a group of guys took turns carrying an 85 pound rock underwater along the coast of Santa Barbara Island.
In short, when looking back over your life and someone asks what you did in 2024, you might not remember anything that happened this year, but you'll be able to recount your misogi.
This got me thinking. I suggest that each year you do a creative misogi.
I've been practicing this for about 30 years now, but didn't know what to call it. The idea is that every year you take on a creative challenge that pushes you harder than you've ever been pushed, something that changes you, and that defines the year for you.
Examples of creative Misogis might be something like:
Do all 30 days of an art challenge
Do a 12 episode podcast about a subject that you find fascinating
Make a short film
Design a board game
Draw a graphic novel
Make 100 drawings of a single subject matter
Design a website
Paint a whole set of Warhammer 40K miniatures
There's 3 rules:
Rule 1: Make it creative
The root word of creative is create. Not revise. Not remix. Not update, reboot, or rehash. Your creative misogi should put something into the world that hasn't been seen before. Make it unique, and special to you. It should be the kind of thing that could only come from you and no one else.
Rule 2: Make it uncomfortable
This has to push you to the edge and beyond your current comfort zone. There should be a chance of failure. Through the process of doing this challenge you discover new potential in yourself that was previously unlocked.
Rule 3: Make it contained
Your creative misogi should have a finished created thing at the end of it. Something you can hand to someone. Something you send a link to. Something a person can experience. Something that has a beginning, middle, and end.
The point of all of this is that too often we push off our creative dreams until next year because we think we'll be more prepared or have more time to work on them. Too often one year turns into two, then five, then you get to the end of your life and you're haunted by the things you never accomplished when you had the strength and time to do so.
By taking on a creative misogi you're washing off apathy, indecision, comfort, and complacency to come out the other side a more passionate, decisive, ambitious person who can handle hard things.
Something to think about....
1) What was the last project you finished that really pushed yourself out of your comfort zone?
2) Are there any dream projects you want to do, but have been pushing them off because you feel like you aren't ready for them yet?
3) If you were to finish a creative misogi this year, what would it be?
-Jake
