I’m very excited! I figured out why pretty much all “frameworks” can never spark creative work. They all look exactly in the wrong direction.

They address the Digital Brain rather than the Analog Brain.

Better frame: They address the Computer Brain vs. the Bonfire Brain.

Admittedly, I never got through Twyla Tharp’s book, The Creative Habit, but I’ve realized that you only really need the very first couple of pages where Tharp talks about GETTING WARM.

Getting Warm is about the Bonfire Brain and it’s so exciting I can’t contain myself.

So I have some bad news about the Computer Brain, but it will be accompanied by some world-changing, joyous-reunion-of-peace-love-joy-and-everything-transcendent good news about the Bonfire Brain.

Computer Brain: It can process tasks, hold about five things, but beyond that…

  1. It’s always the same, in all contexts, and as long as you’re awake, it works… fine.

  2. It never changes. It’s always just as you left it.

  3. It doesn’t actually know how to do or create ANYTHING.

Most task systems/habit frameworks/productivity hacks focus on the Computer Brain and try to satisfy its binary bits in the hope that if it can somehow just be clean/organized/processed/planned enough then the Bonfire Brain will be freed up to get going.

This is FUCKING WRONG.

Computer Brain can NEVER get Bonfire Brain going. It has nothing whatever to do with it. It produces no heat, no signal, nothing analog at all. It’s pure binary. Done/not done. On/off. Yes/no. 1/0.

Computer Brain won’t be satisfied. It doesn’t even have feelings to satisfy.

So that’s the bad news about Computer Brain… It can never spark or warm up the Bonfire Brain. It’s got nothing. And yet pretty much every framework being sold in the Productivity Porn Industrial Complex targets the Computer Brain.

Here comes the good news about the Bonfire Brain.

The Bonfire Brain is analog, messy, chaotic, and generative. It knows how to do EVERYTHING. And here’s the amazing explode-the-whole-universe Good News about the Bonfire Brain: All it needs is heat and fuel. And it already has unlimited fuel.

SO ALL IT ACTUALLY NEEDS IS HEAT.

The heat that Bonfire Brain needs isn’t something you can just turn on the way you can turn on Computer Brain. You need to warm it up. But here’s the AMAZING THING:

  1. You can warm it up with ANY sustained creative or embodied act.
  2. It heats up faster/better with LESS difficulty.

When I say “creative or embodied act,” this applies to everything from walking to writing to singing.

The first few steps are stiff and cold. Once you get warmer, you could go forever. This is an analog process. Take it easy and it will burn brighter and brighter all on its own.

I won the fire-building contest every year at nature camp as a kid. A well-tended bonfire can get as big or as hot as you like, and it takes care of all the hard parts itself. You can use yesterday’s embers to start today’s big blaze. The hotter they remain, the faster it goes.

Forget habit trackers and todo lists. JUST GET WARM and stay warm. When you cool off completely, just get warm again. Something easy, and if it’s ANY EFFORT AT ALL, even easier.

Before you know it, you’ll have a blazing, magical Bonfire that can create absolutely anything.

By the way, the Bonfire isn’t “you.” It’s the same thing we all have access to. All it needs is a gentle little spark and some very light tending and it’ll keep itself going.

The even more positive news is that it’s going whether you’re all caught up in your Computer Brain or not.