Inspiration Cards
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The School of Life Inspiration is a toolkit for generating new ideas: 52 exercises designed to foster an inventive frame of mind. With this to hand, we have no more need to wait for inspiration to strike; we can kindle it and deploy it as we require it.
Each exercise prompts...
The School of Life Inspiration is a toolkit for generating new ideas: 52 exercises designed to foster an inventive frame of mind. With this to hand, we have no more need to wait for inspiration to strike; we can kindle it and deploy it as we require it.
Each exercise prompts us to work on a particular creative muscle and helps us to establish the psychological conditions for original work.
Drawing insights from the worlds of art, music, psychotherapy and innovation, this is an invaluable resource for creatives and professionals alike, helping our minds to become more reliable lightning rods for our numerous flashes of inspiration.
How to Use the TSOL Inspiration Cards
1. Select an exercise at random from the box.
2. Follow the instructions and complete the exercise, either on your own or as part of a group.
3. If you’re still stuck, select another – and keep going until a given project no longer feels so daunting.
Example Cards
Sensory Deprivation
Removing distractions and external stimuli can allow our mind to wander more freely. That’s why ideas tend to come to us in the shower, or just before we fall asleep. Sensory deprivation tanks are an extreme (and expensive) way of quieting the outside world. Create your own makeshift sensory deprivation tank. Find a spare office or free room and close the door. Turn out the lights, close the shutters or blinds, and switch off any electrical appliances. If it’s still noisy, use ear plugs or play white noise through some headphones. Stay in there for at least 10 minutes, or as long as you like. Use the time and space to think about your project – or try to think about nothing at all, and allow your mind to drift.
Paint Like a Child
Pablo Picasso spent his career developing his painting in an increasingly abstract direction. Near the end of his life, he remarked that although he was a technically accomplished painter at fifteen, ‘it look me a lifetime to paint like a child.’ Try to recall the person you were at five years old. How might you look at your work differently? What might strike you as humdrum, and what as exciting? What rules might you be prepared to break to honour the five year-old you?
Details
Counts 52 cards
Measures 15.5 x 11.5 x 3.5 cm
The School of Life at Misc-store Amsterdam
At Misc-store we carry three Writing as Therapy Journals: Journeys, Night Thoughts and Projects. We also carry their prompt cards for confidence, self knowledge and even career crisis, and we love their books on Small Pleasures.
The School of Life is devoted to developing emotional intelligence through the help of culture. We address such issues as how to find fulfilling work, how to master the art of relationships, how to understand one’s past, how to achieve calm and how better to understand, and where necessary change, the world.
We love The School of Life because their items make a great gift for ourselves and others. Back in 2013 we started with a range of The School of Life items in store, and we are so happy that we can extend our range with all their new items, focusing on the job we have, appreciating small pleasures and the things that might go unnoticed.
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About The School of Life
Alain de Botton founded The School of Life in 2008. His aim was to make philosophy — long seen as the inaccessible, inauthentic stuff of academies and archives — a functional aspect of modern life. The care with which ancient philosophers thought about their lives remains a valuable antidote to the generalised anxiety of our era.
The school thus posits that ideas of Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics are as relevant to us today as they were in ancient Greece. Even if Epicurus never had social media burnout, understanding his thinking can lead us to a healthier relationship with , for example, our phones — and by extension, with one another.
We began stocking The School of Life’s series on work, gratitude and pleasure as a way of thinking through modern day issues. We admire their series for the capacity to stimulate reflection, and their ability to give a new perspective on age old problems. At its core, it is a set of strategies for finding meaning in the modern world — so that we can appreciate small pleasures and the things that might go unnoticed.