There are times I wish I worked on an assembly line, or mowing lawns or painting houses, or even greeting patrons at the local big-box store.
Oh, I have too much ambition in me to be satisfied in the long run with such a job, to be sure. And I'd have some financial issues if I weren't paid as I am at my current white-collar, desk-bound position. So I'm not suggesting it would be a perfect situation. But it would afford me one thing that is seriously lacking in my life at the moment: downtime for the brain.
I microblogged the other day that I couldn't understand why I always seem to get good ideas in the shower, the one time in the day when my laptop is never to hand. I think I somewhat understand now: in the shower, my mind's not occupied at all, so it's free to wander, and when it does that, it tends to explore the dark nooks and crannies it hasn't ventured into before, and that's where all the fun stuff hides.
So if I could spend all day behind the wheel of an eighteen-wheeler, or leaning against a shovel watching other guys in orange vests dig and/or fill in a big hole in the middle of the highway, I might be able to exercise my mind more freely. Said another way, I believe the frequency at which I generate good ideas is inversely proportional to the level at which my full-time job engages my faculties.
This conclusion is a horrible one to draw, because there's no real solution I can see, except to quit my job and sink deeper and deeper into debt as a means to jumpstart my muse. Currently not an option, so on to brainstorming more ways to be creative while still trying to maintain the lifestyle to which I've become accustomed. Perhaps they're just incompatible goals?