How to Create Order From Chaos; with Philippe Petit Video Lecture | Confessions of an Outlaw: A Creativity Workshop - Self Help Learning

I kind of welcome chaos at first as the power
of my creativity and then by itself, with
a little help from me, the chaos becomes order
and then, of course, I have a plan and I acquire
the ingredients that the plan needs like you
know making a dish.
One good way to put chaos into order is — and
it works for me and one should try it; maybe
it works for you too — is to make a list.
A list of subjects, for example, if I’m
about to write a book or a chapter of a book
on something, I’m going to put a list of
the thing that I have to talk about and then
the list becomes unbearably long of course.
And how can this stupid list which is unedited,
how can that list be distilled and help you
as a writer in my example to arrive to starting
to write clearly and succinctly a passage
of your book.
Well then there is the process of editing.
So maybe it’s not editing. Maybe it’s
more compressing or revisiting. So I take
this ridiculous list and I start scratching
things that really came from my mind, but
are to be deleted. Or I start associating
those three items, actually they’re only
one. So I compress. I associate. I cancel
certain things. Also of course more words
or more, you know, thoughts would come. And
then at the end that list becomes very naturally
a blueprint, a synopsis, a guideline and if
you have a blueprint for an architect you
can start doing a three-dimensional model
to show the constructor how you want your
house built. So as a writer if you have a
synopsis, you can start writing because it’s
a skeleton of your thoughts.
It distills things. I think personally my
head is really exploding in all directions
when I am about to embark into let’s say
a piece of writing. You can hear in my voice
I am getting excited talking about what people
sometimes fear which is a blank surface or
a blank calling and what can you do. So that
list and later on the arrival of reflection
moment is what I need to start being intelligible
on the page.