When I first started CrossFit, I had no idea what AMRAP meant, what an EMOM was, or what a Hang Power Clean was. In a similar way, people who are new to yoga don’t know what a chaturanga is.
Every hobby, sport, and activity we do in life is and has its own vocabulary and language.
Investing has a language. Road racing has a language. Politics has a language. Journalism has a language. Weightlifting has a language. Creativity has a language. Astrology has a language.
To learn any topic is to learn the language of that topic.
Just like if you were learning French, Hebrew, or Italian, the more you learn the language of a given area, the greater your capacity to engage in conversation with others who are interested in that topic.
Language Crosses Over
The thing about language is that it rarely stays in its own realm. For example, many English words originate from Latin or Greek. There are Hebrew words that originate from English words.
Similarly, there are words and expressions in English that draw from the language of astronomy: a “month” is named because of the moon’s cycle. The days of the week are named after planets.
In the same way, in many parts of life we borrow from the language of fitness. We talk about developing skills or creating a practice as “building muscle.” We might refer to something hard as a “heavy lift.”
Tom Rath’s famous “Strengths Finder” isn’t talking about literal muscle, but emotional strengths.
We also speak of emotional and intellectual flexibility or adaptability.
In the creative process we might speak of the skill of ideation as a “muscle” to exercise.
The Language of Language: Finding Fluency
In a twist, lately, I’ve been using the language of language to describe the physical body. Specifically, the language of fluency.
When you are first learning a language, you speak with hesitation. Words come with great effort as you search your brain to remember them. As you become fluent in a language, you speak it with ease. You don’t have to search for the words. You can formulate sentences without much cognitive effort.
The body is the same way.
Many yoga teachers talk about “hip openers.” This resonates with people who think their hips are “tight.”
The problem is that the hip joint is a ball in socket joint. The femur moves in six different directions. So when we speak about “opening” the hip, what do we even mean?
In my body, the challenge is less about “stiffness” and more about “stickiness” — the ball doesn’t move well in the socket. I often joke that I’d like some WD–40 for my hips and shoulders (another ball-in-socket joint).
My hips are actually pretty flexible, at least passively. What they lack is fluency. Dropping into a squat is a laborious ordeal.
To get fluency in a joint requires warming it up and continuously moving it through all the ranges of motion.
Notice what happens when you stand after sitting for too long: your joints become stiff and it’s harder to move through your hips. In that situation, you don’t really need to stretch — you don’t need “flexibility.” What you need is some metaphorical WD–40: movement through the joint to regain fluency.
Fluency in the Creative Process
This metaphor of fluency feels like a better fit for the creative process.
In the body, flow comes from fluency: when we move well through the joints, we can move with greater ease and in a more dynamic way.
The creative process is the same.
Creativity is like a multi-joint movement, requiring fluency and coordination among many parts.
In fact, we often use the metaphor of flow to describe our creative objectives.
Writing itself is less about developing a “strong muscle” and more about finding greater ease in turning abstract ideas into concrete sentences.
Ideation is the same way. The best way to come up with good ideas is to practice ideation consistently.
Just like in the body, these processes are “use it or lose it.” If we take a break from ideation or writing, we might feel “rusty” when we start up again. It’s harder to “get back into flow.”
Less Strength, More Practice
By thinking about creativity — or any other realm — through the metaphor of fluency, we take it out of a binary of strength. You don’t have to be strong to walk; you only have to practice walking a lot to become fluent in it.
The same is true for creativity. It’s not a muscle. It’s a joint. We can improve our fluency through practice.
Every aspect of life is a language. To move through with greater ease, consider how you can create better fluency.
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