What Fairy-wrens Know About Creative Rebellion
What do fairy-wrens, fallen books, and analog notebooks share? They're nature's conspiracy to remind you, creativity is your birthright. Here's how we reclaim it.
What if I told you that your creative block isn't writer's block at all, it's neural hijacking?
That the fairy wren outside your window is delivering messages your screen-addled brain can't decode? That somewhere between your seventh hour of scrolling today and that notebook gathering dust on your nightstand, lies the difference between a creative life and watching it slip away. One notification at a time.
This week, we're staging a quiet rebellion against the forces that profit from your fragmentation.
Where Is My Mind?
When the Pixies sang "where is my mind?" first the very first, they couldn't have imagined this particular moment on our planet. But it could well be an anthem for this age.
Your creative mind is under siege. Seven hours of daily screen time (the global average) isn't just stealing your day, it's rewiring your brain. Here's what's happening while you scroll:
Your cerebral cortex is thinning — that's your memory and decision-making headquarters
Gray matter is shrinking — goodbye emotional regulation and smooth movement
Dopamine is crashing — hello restless craving for the next digital hit
Dementia risk is climbing — 5+ screen hours daily significantly raise your odds
South Africans are the global winners coming in just over 9 hours daily. Americans hit 7 hours 3 minutes. Your nervous system is drowning, making it nearly impossible to recognize that creative spark trying to break through the noise.
The Answer Isn't Digital Detox
Let's be real, screens aren't disappearing. They connect us to infinite knowledge, community, and creativity. The answer isn't digital abstinence; it's intentional balance.
Research shows stepping away from screens for just two weeks improves mental health equivalent to being 10 years younger. Who wouldn’t want to trade place with themselves 10 years ago? I've experienced a new level of clarity firsthand. Bookending my digital day with analog rituals, giving my brain predictable breaks from relentless stimulation.
Creativity Needs Space to Breathe
Your fragmented digital life rarely provides the spaciousness creativity demands. When you engage in analog activities:
writing by hand,
drawing or doodling
crafting and collaging,
different neural pathways activate, fostering deeper thinking. Your brain, no longer hijacked by notifications, can finally hear itself think.
Journaling by hand is particularly powerful because it combines analog benefits with cognitive reflection. It creates mental space for original thought while building connections between ideas over time, the very skill digital consumption erodes.
Your Creative Rebellion Starts Small
You don't need to become a digital hermit. Start here:
Bookend your day analog — mornings and evenings screen-free
Keep a notebook handy — catch those transient ideas as they drop in
Begin with gratitude when nothing comes to mind
Index your insights — there's gold in your archive
These aren't productivity hacks. They're acts of neurological rebellion that help you think like a human again, and reclaim your creative mind.
Journaling Prompt: Complete these two sentences
“When I write by hand, my thoughts feel like…”
“When I’m scrolling through feeds, my thoughts feel like…”
Notice the difference in your metaphors and how they make you feel.
the birds: The Splendid Fairy Wren
I threw a Coming Out Party for myself recently, and invited the whole Substack Community.
I can’t say how long I’ve been a closet Bird Lover, but the signs have been there for a long time. An accumulation of the “tools of the trade”; my grandfather’s binoculars, a growing library of Bird ID books and a sharping of my ear to birdsong. Anyhow, (bad) dad jokes aside, I am celebrating by sharing some of my bird pieces.
Today’s feature is a collage of a Splendid fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus), made from scraps of my watercolour paintings in 2020.
These small Australian Natives (13–15 cm long & 7.5–11.5 grams) are quite flashy in their breeding habits. The males outside breeding season, look similar to females with brownish feathers. However they lay on the charm when they’re looking to get lucky.
Step 1: Dress To Impress - The blue feathers of breeding males are highly iridescent and reflect ultraviolet light. Fortunately the vision of Fairy Wrens extends into the UV spectrum, the extravagance isn’t wasted.
Step 2: Bringing The Gifts - Males perform a unique courtship ritual by plucking pink or purple petals and presenting them to females to impress them.
When they do mate, they’re well… fluid. Splendid fairy-wrens are socially monogamous but sexually promiscuous. Pairs form bonds, but both males and females often mate with others, recruiting helpers assist in raising chicks from their dalliances.
This all new information to me. I know them as busy little birds, bouncing and hopping around, feeding and twittering restlessly. There is a reason for me choosing the Splendid fairy-wren for this feature. The morning after my Bird Lover coming out, three little birds (just like the Bob Marley song) popped onto the railing of my bathroom, bounced and twittered as if to say “well done” and then left.
Random event? I think not, have you every had a synchronous bird encounter? I’d love to heard about in the comments.
The Book That Threw Itself At My Feet
In the dying days of last century, before Audible or podcasts, Radio National was my studio companion. A national broadcaster whose programming of arts, culture, and social issues made perfect background for creative work.
That's how I first heard about Bruce Chatwin and his controversial book "The Songlines." Radio National featured it as book of the week with several readings. I added the title to my "Must Read" list, particularly curious about songlines and First Nations culture myself.
A month or two later, during a trip to Brisbane, I visited my favourite bookstore, Bent Books in West End. It's still the most beautifully curated second-hand bookstore I've ever found. With no real agenda beyond browsing, I'd forgotten about my Must Read list and "The Songlines." Perhaps if I'd checked my Moleskine notebook (this will be important later), I would have found it listed there.
As I pushed open the red wooden door, a book plummeted from an eye-level shelf, crashing onto the carpet centimetres from my feet. Mildly embarrassed in that hushed environment, I quickly picked it up. Turning it over to see the cover took my breath away. It was of course "The Songlines." Not only as this title I’d been looking; it seems the book wanted to come home with me too.
The Enigmatic Mr Chatwin
Bruce Chatwin was a former Sotheby's art expert, something that instantly fascinated me about him. He left the art trade to become a celebrated author who redefined travel literature, blending autobiography, anthropology, and fiction.
An avid traveller obsessed with the human urge to wander and belong, "The Songlines" follows Chatwin's attempt to unravel Aboriginal creation myths and the deep connection between landscape, language, and identity in Australia's heartland. A meandering meditation on belonging, a beautiful combination of art, earth and consciousness itself.
The Moleskine Connection
I told you this would be important. Although I had a Moleskin with me that day in Bent Books, I had no idea Chatwin was directly credited with the resurrection of the Moleskine notebook.
In "The Songlines," he described his beloved black oilcloth-bound "carnets moleskines" from Paris. as essential to his writing process. When he learned the French manufacturer was closing in 1986, he tried to buy up all remaining stock.
His mention of "moleskine" was the first time the name appeared in print, directly inspiring the modern Moleskine company founded in 1997.
The Controversy
"The Songlines" faced significant criticism for its extractive approach to Indigenous culture.
Many scholars and readers argue that Chatwin appropriated and romanticised First Nations beliefs without giving proper voice or agency to the people themselves. His blending of fact, fiction, and personal myth has led to accusations of misrepresentation and epistemic violence. Raising important questions about the ethics of writing about marginalised cultures.
Would I Read It Again?
As a matter of fact, I have many times. I still own that same copy that I found in West End all those years ago.
While the book gave me deeper insight into Indigenous culture, its controversy created a deeper awareness of the inherent extractive mindset of colonisation. Chatwin's prose, like his life, is peripatetic, exciting, rich and sometimes hard to follow. He was definitely a man who believed in the old adage: "Don’t let anything stand in the way of a good story."
The synchronicity of that moment in Bent Books still moves me. Perhaps books choose us as much as we choose them, and sometimes the universe conspires to place exactly what we need directly at our feet.
Poetry: Words That Breathe
Poetry has a way of cracking us open to truth we didn't know we carried. It awakens our wild, sensual side that remembers we are nature itself embodied. Here's a sensual poem I wrote sometime ago, any resemblance to your own midnight musings is purely intentional.
eros manifest
she danced nude,
naked in every sense of that word
baring everything to the mountain and the moon.
turned on by life itself. she was
eros manifest
Perhaps the deepest truth hiding in these stories is that we are nature having a human experience, not humans trying to connect with nature.
The Splendid fairy-wren's iridescent courtship dance, the Aboriginal songlines mapping sacred country, a hand moving across paper in a quiet morning ritual. There are all the same creative force expressing itself through different forms.
Your creative practice isn't self-improvement; it's world healing.
This is such a beautiful story, Dean, I loved the Bent Bookshop and in particular this quote from your article: "Your creative practice isn't self-improvement; it's world healing."
Joining you through the revolution <3