October 25, 2025 • 15 mins
What if the map is the problem? We trade tidy outlines for living curiosity and show how “getting wild” can rescue a flat draft, reroute a stuck project, and even clarify the self that’s been hiding behind a careful plan. Wildness here isn’t chaos. It’s the deeper order you notice when you pause the algorithm, walk into unfamiliar streets, and let the work speak first.
We start with light and shadow—the inner contradiction that powers real art—and a coffee shop moment that reframed preparation as playful wandering. From there, we unpack Song in Space as a jigsaw without a box image, exploring how to avoid predictable escapes by spinning the dial, shifting rhythm, and throwing new spices into the creative stew. You’ll hear practical moves: switch mediums when you stall, change environments to rewire attention, follow a string of “what ifs” until a dead end turns into a hidden door. Travel stories—riding subways you can’t read, surfacing in neighborhoods you didn’t plan to visit—become a metaphor for building work that breathes.
We also tackle the pressure to fit inside digital conformity while sounding original. The answer isn’t louder rebellion; it’s permission to dismantle old temples and rebuild them in strange, honest forms. Wildness lets you see your shadow without flinching, and that meeting often reveals the voice your audience has been waiting for: not the expected perspective, but the unexpected one only you can offer.
If you’re craving a path back to freshness, come wander with us. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s stuck in a box canyon, and leave a review telling us the rule you’re breaking this week. Then put away the compass and see what the work wants from you.
Thanks for listening.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rita (00:00):
Ah, creativity.
Everyone tells you to make aplan, stick to the plan, follow
the plan.
But what happens when the planis rubbish?
Or when you'd rather tear upthe plan and dance barefoot in
the dark?
Today on CreativityGGG, Christakes us into the wilderness.
No compass, no luggage, no tidymap, just the raw art of going
(00:21):
wild.
Chris (00:22):
I had a conversation with a friend recently, and they
exuded this spirit, uh, thissort of a piece about them, like
a calm.
And uh I first met this personwalking in the park, and they
were standing there looking at atree.
They were enraptured by thistree, and I thought, oh, you
(00:45):
know, I struck up aconversation, and we became
friends.
So this is a while ago, andthen uh the other day I met them
at a coffee house.
We were uh talking aboutsomething.
Now, I've always found that uhpeace can mass turmoil.
(01:08):
I mean, it's hard to describewhat I mean, but you know, deep
wounds sometimes are coveredover, and peace can be a
compensation.
And I always get quiet andlisten when I meet priests or
somebody I think is a prophet orsomebody might be a saint.
Because behind the lightthere's there's always a shadow.
(01:29):
Behind the light there's alwaysa shadow.
Think about it.
When next time you meet asaint, I mean there's more
saints in the world than youmight think, but uh the darkness
is what leads us to light.
I think is what I mean.
In other words, if you havedeep wounds in your life, or
(01:53):
you've you've had trauma, andyou work on that, trying to find
your way through it, you willeventually get to a place where
you have that under control.
You're controlling it throughprayer or however you're doing
it, and there'll be a calm and apeace about you, but underneath
(02:15):
that is a shadow, a shadow.
I mean, we've all got them, butI think it's more noticeable in
saints in a lot of ways.
The darkness is what leads usto light.
But people hide the darkness,and uh you have to watch
(02:36):
carefully to see it, and I thinkit's important to see it
because the shadow is what showsus the full person, not just
the one you're having aconversation with.
So we're sitting in this coffeehouse and we're talking about
something that's in my futurethat I have to kind of deal with
(02:58):
some stuff, some wounds, someuncomfortable stuff.
My friend said something thatthat caught my ear.
Uh they said that theirtechnique uh for getting ready
to deal with things was to getwild.
I mean, I didn't know what itmeant, but it really caught my
(03:21):
ear to get wild.
And uh we talked about that,and she told me what she meant,
and what it meant was uh tofollow no path, uh put away the
compass, and wander.
Oh, I loved it.
I mean, I mean, I loved itbecause uh I realized that um
(03:46):
I've been doing the same thingsince I was a kid.
No plan, no luggage, no map,just go, just get wild.
That's kind of like what I'vebeen doing.
So putting together a show likeI'm doing with this uh show
Song in Space is is trying tosolve a jigsaw puzzle with no
(04:07):
final picture on the box.
Uh there are pieces everywhereand you want them all to fit.
But uh what if the logic isthere is no logic?
What what what if you took thatapproach?
Instead of trying to beanalytical and logical, just
(04:29):
accept that that there's nologic at all.
The puzzle will take its ownshape, the story follows its own
song line.
You're just going into thewilderness, you're just getting
lost, you're just going wild.
(04:49):
So when you work throughmultiple drafts of a script,
it's it's easy to uh lose yourway, and it's easy to uh write
yourself into a box canyon.
I mean, uh the character songin Song and Space gets stranded
on an asteroid uh and you planfor her escape a certain way,
(05:10):
but it feels predictable.
That's maybe when you spin thedial.
Let something open.
Ask, what if what if until youfind a new way through?
What if the canyon itself has adoor I never saw?
How do you uh keep thingscooking?
(05:31):
Well, you add spice you'venever used before.
A rhythm, a character, a twistin the harmony.
Suddenly the draft tastesdifferent.
Suddenly the canyon isn't adead end.
It's a secret passage.
You've gone wild.
You've gone wild.
That's what going wild does.
It saves the story from itself.
(05:53):
Uh that's what going wild does.
It saves you from yourself.
I can't tell you how many timesI've gone wild in my life.
I I like traveling without anydestination in mind, and I've
done it.
I don't like plans.
I don't like making dinnerreservations.
(06:15):
I don't like deciding where I'mgoing to go.
I like just going.
Uh, one thing I do as I wanderthe world and go into different
um uh cities and places I'venever been before is I just get
on a bus and just go where thebus is going and get on a train.
I went to um Tokyo, and uh Ididn't speak the language, and I
(06:40):
didn't read the language, andthe language wasn't readable in
the most basic sense to me, um,because of the way it was
written with characters.
So I ended up on the subwayactually having no idea even
where the exit was.
And I just kind of went withit.
I took the subways that camein, and I got off when I felt
(07:00):
like getting off, and I justtook the direction and I
wandered around the tunnels.
Uh, and then I came up into thestreets.
I had no idea where I was.
I was completely lost.
And I loved it.
I really loved it.
It's dislocation, it's walkingthe maze.
You can use going wild to getpast roadblocks to find
(07:24):
inspiration in a drought touncover different perspectives,
uh reveal the true center of thestory.
Oh, well, you know, what canthat look like?
I mean, what is what can goingwild look like in your
(07:48):
creativity?
Well, you could change yourmedium.
Uh suppose you're playingpiano, um, and uh you're kind of
bored with that.
So try um getting a piece ofcharcoal and and doing a sketch.
You know, it's it's almostbetter to not have any training
(08:09):
and doing a sketch, but just gowith it.
Uh everybody can draw whetheryou think you can or not.
Everybody can play the piano,whether you think or can or not.
Uh get on a bus without havinga clue where it's going.
Switch buses at random, talk tostrangers.
That's one my wife does a lot.
(08:29):
And to me, it's it's a it's askill, a miracle.
She meets people wherever wego, not just meets them, but
gets to know them, becomesfriends with them.
She's just open.
There's a sort of certainwildness to it.
I've lived a wild life.
(08:49):
I've traveled my whole life.
I started traveling when I wasa kid.
I was traveling last week.
It's like a whole lifetime oftravel.
I've been in places I shouldn'thave been, and I've been in
places that I didn't want to go,and you know, there's always
something, no matter where youare, for you to learn.
(09:12):
It can be not easy to live thatway, to kind of just go and
just get lost.
People don't always accept yourwild ways.
I mean, you go out to the asmall town in Australian
Outback, and you know, you sayto them, Oh, I just kind of
wandered here, and they look atyou like you're crazy.
(09:32):
Like, they don't want to bethere, and they don't know why
you want to be there, and you'rethere, and you're like, no,
this place is cool.
This place is beautiful.
And they're like, this place islike a street with four
buildings on it.
But somehow dislocatingyourself gives you a different
view of it.
But the people that are there,they may not accept that.
(09:53):
There are people like us outthere, lots of people,
wandering, living a wildlife,listening to song lines, finding
new paths.
You know, when you're workingas an artist, finding a new path
is sort of like, you know, abreakthrough is exactly what
you're supposed to be doing.
(10:15):
I've always exercised mycreativity as many different
ways as I can.
I've been a lighting designer,I've been a set designer, I've
been an advertising copywriter,I've been a jingle writer, I've
been a composer, I've been asongwriter, I've been a
performer in coffee houses, youknow.
I've written novels, uh,written business books, I've
(10:38):
been a speaker, uh, but morethan anything, I think of myself
as a traveler.
Just a traveler, just kind ofgoing places and finding things.
We did it a couple weeks ago.
We went, we didn't know wherewe were going.
And um, you know, we had wedidn't, you know, we we just
drove and then at around four,because the sun was going down
(10:59):
and I don't like driving atnight, we'd look for a place to
stay.
You know, we'd look around.
Where are we?
Let's find a place near here.
And we found some great hotelsand great little motels, and you
know, met some people and uhate in some really cool
restaurants, and none of thatwas planned.
You take apart your temples,you take apart your ideas, and
(11:21):
you rebuild them in strange newforms.
Life, kind of like a montage.
Life is just triangles andsquares and circles that you can
kind of put in different umdifferent arrangements, and you
can take the word forbidden andyou can rewrite it as
(11:44):
permission.
You can go wild.
We're at a moment in historythat's pretty odd, you know.
I mean, I'm a student ofhistory, I've studied history in
depth my whole life.
And uh, we're at this reallyodd moment that I can't quite
(12:07):
find a an example of it.
I mean, we're we're um, youknow, there's just been nothing
like the digital world andsocial media, and you know, I'm
not a big fan because as theseuh Dijirati have taken control,
the world has become kind ofyucky, to be honest with you.
But but everything tells us tofit in, but we don't fit in.
(12:35):
Everything tells us tosurrender, but we don't really
want to surrender.
We want to sing harmony, but wemay not want to sing it in this
choir, we want to sing it inthat choir.
We are wild, all of us, and Ithink if we accepted the
(12:55):
wildness in ourselves, and if weaccepted the wildness in
others, the world would be alittle bit better place.
But what I'm really talkingabout is wild in your
creativity.
Just getting outside theenvelope, going wild, getting
lost, taking a new bus.
(13:17):
I think that was the truth wewere talking about at that
coffee shop.
Wildness isn't chaos, not thewildness we meant, it's not
chaos, it's the deeper order ofthings, the current underneath
the map.
When we put the compass away,when we dare to wander, we
(13:45):
discover.
We put the puzzle together anew way, we find a new end for
the story.
I've never really been lost atall, even though I have a life
of being lost behind me.
I think I was just always readyto get wild enough to see the
(14:13):
world the way the world wantedto be seen by me.
It's my perspective thatcounts, that's different, that
is what the world is asking for,not the perspective that's
expected, but the perspectivethat's unexpected.
(14:33):
Get wild.
Just get wild with yourcreative.
Go on.
Get wild.
But why?
Why do why do you want to getwild?
Well, when you get wild, you'regonna get to a place.
And what are you gonna findthere?
What are you gonna see?
You are gonna see your shadow.
(14:57):
Your shadow.
And when you see your shadowwith the clarity of being lost,
you're going to find yourself.
Rita (15:14):
So, today you've been reminded that sometimes the box
canyon isn't a trap.
It's just waiting for a newdoor to be drawn.
And yes, Chris will probablykeep tossing mystery spices into
his creative stew until the potboils over.
That's what wild ones do, Iguess.
No map required, no recipefollowed.
This has been Creativity GGG.
(15:34):
Now off you go.
Wander, stir-scribble, sing,and don't forget to get wild.
And if you're ready to wandereven further, visit
songinspace.com.
Join us.
Become an audion.
It's the wild thing to do.
Ah, creativity.
Everyone tells you to make aplan, stick to the plan, follow
the plan.
But what happens when the planis rubbish?
Or when you'd rather tear upthe plan and dance barefoot in
the dark?
Today on CreativityGGG, Christakes us into the wilderness.
No compass, no luggage, no tidymap, just the raw art of going
(00:21):
wild.
Chris (00:22):
I had a conversation with a friend recently, and they
exuded this spirit, uh, thissort of a piece about them, like
a calm.
And uh I first met this personwalking in the park, and they
were standing there looking at atree.
They were enraptured by thistree, and I thought, oh, you
(00:45):
know, I struck up aconversation, and we became
friends.
So this is a while ago, andthen uh the other day I met them
at a coffee house.
We were uh talking aboutsomething.
Now, I've always found that uhpeace can mass turmoil.
(01:08):
I mean, it's hard to describewhat I mean, but you know, deep
wounds sometimes are coveredover, and peace can be a
compensation.
And I always get quiet andlisten when I meet priests or
somebody I think is a prophet orsomebody might be a saint.
Because behind the lightthere's there's always a shadow.
(01:29):
Behind the light there's alwaysa shadow.
Think about it.
When next time you meet asaint, I mean there's more
saints in the world than youmight think, but uh the darkness
is what leads us to light.
I think is what I mean.
In other words, if you havedeep wounds in your life, or
(01:53):
you've you've had trauma, andyou work on that, trying to find
your way through it, you willeventually get to a place where
you have that under control.
You're controlling it throughprayer or however you're doing
it, and there'll be a calm and apeace about you, but underneath
(02:15):
that is a shadow, a shadow.
I mean, we've all got them, butI think it's more noticeable in
saints in a lot of ways.
The darkness is what leads usto light.
But people hide the darkness,and uh you have to watch
(02:36):
carefully to see it, and I thinkit's important to see it
because the shadow is what showsus the full person, not just
the one you're having aconversation with.
So we're sitting in this coffeehouse and we're talking about
something that's in my futurethat I have to kind of deal with
(02:58):
some stuff, some wounds, someuncomfortable stuff.
My friend said something thatthat caught my ear.
Uh they said that theirtechnique uh for getting ready
to deal with things was to getwild.
I mean, I didn't know what itmeant, but it really caught my
(03:21):
ear to get wild.
And uh we talked about that,and she told me what she meant,
and what it meant was uh tofollow no path, uh put away the
compass, and wander.
Oh, I loved it.
I mean, I mean, I loved itbecause uh I realized that um
(03:46):
I've been doing the same thingsince I was a kid.
No plan, no luggage, no map,just go, just get wild.
That's kind of like what I'vebeen doing.
So putting together a show likeI'm doing with this uh show
Song in Space is is trying tosolve a jigsaw puzzle with no
(04:07):
final picture on the box.
Uh there are pieces everywhereand you want them all to fit.
But uh what if the logic isthere is no logic?
What what what if you took thatapproach?
Instead of trying to beanalytical and logical, just
(04:29):
accept that that there's nologic at all.
The puzzle will take its ownshape, the story follows its own
song line.
You're just going into thewilderness, you're just getting
lost, you're just going wild.
(04:49):
So when you work throughmultiple drafts of a script,
it's it's easy to uh lose yourway, and it's easy to uh write
yourself into a box canyon.
I mean, uh the character songin Song and Space gets stranded
on an asteroid uh and you planfor her escape a certain way,
(05:10):
but it feels predictable.
That's maybe when you spin thedial.
Let something open.
Ask, what if what if until youfind a new way through?
What if the canyon itself has adoor I never saw?
How do you uh keep thingscooking?
(05:31):
Well, you add spice you'venever used before.
A rhythm, a character, a twistin the harmony.
Suddenly the draft tastesdifferent.
Suddenly the canyon isn't adead end.
It's a secret passage.
You've gone wild.
You've gone wild.
That's what going wild does.
It saves the story from itself.
(05:53):
Uh that's what going wild does.
It saves you from yourself.
I can't tell you how many timesI've gone wild in my life.
I I like traveling without anydestination in mind, and I've
done it.
I don't like plans.
I don't like making dinnerreservations.
(06:15):
I don't like deciding where I'mgoing to go.
I like just going.
Uh, one thing I do as I wanderthe world and go into different
um uh cities and places I'venever been before is I just get
on a bus and just go where thebus is going and get on a train.
I went to um Tokyo, and uh Ididn't speak the language, and I
(06:40):
didn't read the language, andthe language wasn't readable in
the most basic sense to me, um,because of the way it was
written with characters.
So I ended up on the subwayactually having no idea even
where the exit was.
And I just kind of went withit.
I took the subways that camein, and I got off when I felt
(07:00):
like getting off, and I justtook the direction and I
wandered around the tunnels.
Uh, and then I came up into thestreets.
I had no idea where I was.
I was completely lost.
And I loved it.
I really loved it.
It's dislocation, it's walkingthe maze.
You can use going wild to getpast roadblocks to find
(07:24):
inspiration in a drought touncover different perspectives,
uh reveal the true center of thestory.
Oh, well, you know, what canthat look like?
I mean, what is what can goingwild look like in your
(07:48):
creativity?
Well, you could change yourmedium.
Uh suppose you're playingpiano, um, and uh you're kind of
bored with that.
So try um getting a piece ofcharcoal and and doing a sketch.
You know, it's it's almostbetter to not have any training
(08:09):
and doing a sketch, but just gowith it.
Uh everybody can draw whetheryou think you can or not.
Everybody can play the piano,whether you think or can or not.
Uh get on a bus without havinga clue where it's going.
Switch buses at random, talk tostrangers.
That's one my wife does a lot.
(08:29):
And to me, it's it's a it's askill, a miracle.
She meets people wherever wego, not just meets them, but
gets to know them, becomesfriends with them.
She's just open.
There's a sort of certainwildness to it.
I've lived a wild life.
(08:49):
I've traveled my whole life.
I started traveling when I wasa kid.
I was traveling last week.
It's like a whole lifetime oftravel.
I've been in places I shouldn'thave been, and I've been in
places that I didn't want to go,and you know, there's always
something, no matter where youare, for you to learn.
(09:12):
It can be not easy to live thatway, to kind of just go and
just get lost.
People don't always accept yourwild ways.
I mean, you go out to the asmall town in Australian
Outback, and you know, you sayto them, Oh, I just kind of
wandered here, and they look atyou like you're crazy.
(09:32):
Like, they don't want to bethere, and they don't know why
you want to be there, and you'rethere, and you're like, no,
this place is cool.
This place is beautiful.
And they're like, this place islike a street with four
buildings on it.
But somehow dislocatingyourself gives you a different
view of it.
But the people that are there,they may not accept that.
(09:53):
There are people like us outthere, lots of people,
wandering, living a wildlife,listening to song lines, finding
new paths.
You know, when you're workingas an artist, finding a new path
is sort of like, you know, abreakthrough is exactly what
you're supposed to be doing.
(10:15):
I've always exercised mycreativity as many different
ways as I can.
I've been a lighting designer,I've been a set designer, I've
been an advertising copywriter,I've been a jingle writer, I've
been a composer, I've been asongwriter, I've been a
performer in coffee houses, youknow.
I've written novels, uh,written business books, I've
(10:38):
been a speaker, uh, but morethan anything, I think of myself
as a traveler.
Just a traveler, just kind ofgoing places and finding things.
We did it a couple weeks ago.
We went, we didn't know wherewe were going.
And um, you know, we had wedidn't, you know, we we just
drove and then at around four,because the sun was going down
(10:59):
and I don't like driving atnight, we'd look for a place to
stay.
You know, we'd look around.
Where are we?
Let's find a place near here.
And we found some great hotelsand great little motels, and you
know, met some people and uhate in some really cool
restaurants, and none of thatwas planned.
You take apart your temples,you take apart your ideas, and
(11:21):
you rebuild them in strange newforms.
Life, kind of like a montage.
Life is just triangles andsquares and circles that you can
kind of put in different umdifferent arrangements, and you
can take the word forbidden andyou can rewrite it as
(11:44):
permission.
You can go wild.
We're at a moment in historythat's pretty odd, you know.
I mean, I'm a student ofhistory, I've studied history in
depth my whole life.
And uh, we're at this reallyodd moment that I can't quite
(12:07):
find a an example of it.
I mean, we're we're um, youknow, there's just been nothing
like the digital world andsocial media, and you know, I'm
not a big fan because as theseuh Dijirati have taken control,
the world has become kind ofyucky, to be honest with you.
But but everything tells us tofit in, but we don't fit in.
(12:35):
Everything tells us tosurrender, but we don't really
want to surrender.
We want to sing harmony, but wemay not want to sing it in this
choir, we want to sing it inthat choir.
We are wild, all of us, and Ithink if we accepted the
(12:55):
wildness in ourselves, and if weaccepted the wildness in
others, the world would be alittle bit better place.
But what I'm really talkingabout is wild in your
creativity.
Just getting outside theenvelope, going wild, getting
lost, taking a new bus.
(13:17):
I think that was the truth wewere talking about at that
coffee shop.
Wildness isn't chaos, not thewildness we meant, it's not
chaos, it's the deeper order ofthings, the current underneath
the map.
When we put the compass away,when we dare to wander, we
(13:45):
discover.
We put the puzzle together anew way, we find a new end for
the story.
I've never really been lost atall, even though I have a life
of being lost behind me.
I think I was just always readyto get wild enough to see the
(14:13):
world the way the world wantedto be seen by me.
It's my perspective thatcounts, that's different, that
is what the world is asking for,not the perspective that's
expected, but the perspectivethat's unexpected.
(14:33):
Get wild.
Just get wild with yourcreative.
Go on.
Get wild.
But why?
Why do why do you want to getwild?
Well, when you get wild, you'regonna get to a place.
And what are you gonna findthere?
What are you gonna see?
You are gonna see your shadow.
(14:57):
Your shadow.
And when you see your shadowwith the clarity of being lost,
you're going to find yourself.
Rita (15:14):
So, today you've been reminded that sometimes the box
canyon isn't a trap.
It's just waiting for a newdoor to be drawn.
And yes, Chris will probablykeep tossing mystery spices into
his creative stew until the potboils over.
That's what wild ones do, Iguess.
No map required, no recipefollowed.
This has been Creativity GGG.
(15:34):
Now off you go.
Wander, stir-scribble, sing,and don't forget to get wild.
And if you're ready to wandereven further, visit
songinspace.com.
Join us.
Become an audion.
It's the wild thing to do.
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