I don't think my perl brain is big enough that I can qualify for scripter's block (before you can run out of ideas you have to run into some first), but generally when I'm stuck on creative / work stuff I agree with the other monks who favour unplugging.

After all, creativity doesn't (mostly) happen at the front of the mind. It's a bit like catching fish from a pool using your hands. You can't stick your hand in and grab - they swim off. You have to let them swim up to your hand by... NOT trying to grab. Or it's like the Looking Glass house, that you can only get to by walking away from. (I say 'you' - of course, I mean 'I'... this is just how it works in my world.)

My own favourites are gardening and cooking. They're both manual tasks and very real - in the sense of being the opposite of virtual. People have been doing these activities forever; they're very tactile; and they don't involve numbers or words. And even if I don't end up cracking the work problem, at least I have a weeded lettuce bed or a jar of houmous at the end of it.

§ George Sherston

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