Resting Into Writing: An Interview with Jared Glenn
A Creative Interview with Author Jared Glenn, Exploring Devotion To His Craft
Happy Wednesday!
Today, I am so excited to share this conversation with my friend, writer extraordinaire, and fellow existential ponderer—Jared Glenn!
When I started my substack for The Art of Rest over a year ago, the segment I was most excited to eventually grow has been the Community Wisdom segment. My tender hope is to start brining in as many stories from real-life people to talk about how art, rest, mastery and creative processes coalesce in their lives. These different perspectives are real stories, from real people to inspire us. I think you’ll find Jared’s words around art and rest inspiring and helpful to reframe what we think of as rest—I certainly did.
If you’re interested in exploring more of Jared’s work, or reading his brand new book coming out September second, scroll down to a few of the links below.
Also, if you know you’re ready to dive into Jared’s book, look no further…
A Bit About the Community Wisdom Interviews
A little over four years ago, before The Art of Rest was officially in the making, I was existentially toiling about how to bring all of my worlds together: evidence-based sleep science, creative practice, dreamwork, as well as storytelling and community wisdom. These things intrinsically made sense to me, in my own head, but as I was crushing through a million academic papers in my program, I couldn’t quite puzzle-piece the ideas together. Academics were too dismissive of my creative longings, and some of my more creative “seeker” type community members often expressed an inherent distrust in westernized science—finding it cold, prescriptive, and not useful to navigating their unique lives.
The truth is, to flourish as a whole community, we need all ways of knowing.
Yes, certainly, most of us tend to favor one way of knowing over others. It’s likely that each of us have inherent gifts in navigating the world around us through a particular lens. Many of us choose to lean into our inherent gifts and practice mastery where our skills lie in order to enrich the broader community.
In other words, often times, my logic-based friends lean into their logic skills, and my artist friends lean into their creative practices. At the core, I think this is beautiful. The research folks I know are incredible minds, and the artists I know are brilliantly generative. I’m astounded at how similar these groups of people are, and I am frequently left feeling confused when they don’t see their own overlap in making the world a better place. I’m even more confused when they don’t seem to celebrate each other’s gifts.
In this conversation, Jared and I nod to this at times, and at other times take turns beating a dead horse with this concept (just kidding, no horses were harmed in the making of this episode), but we both agree that hearing the stories and perspectives of people who are different for us is exactly the thing that grows us into more vital, interesting, creative people.
I hope you give this conversation between the two of us a listen, and I would love to hear what this stirs up in you as you do. Where do you see yourself in Jared’s words? Does a traditional view of rest work for you? Are you able to shift into your passions and projects and also keep an eye on your attention and where your vital energy is moving to and from as you do?
There are no wrong answers here, only great questions.
Again, if you enjoyed this interview and hearing Jared’s words—pick up one of his books or engage with other forms of his writing. I’ve really enjoyed working with him creatively and I imagine you’d get something nourishing out of it, too.
This conversation is a little bit more in the form of a long-form podcast, so don’t be scared off by the hour-long format. It’s juicy and engaging. You won’t regret the full listen.
As per usual,
Thank you for being here.
It feels great to belong with you all.
Yours,
Dagny Rose
Find More of Jared’s Work Here
Substack: The Absence Of Light
Author of Left Unsaid - A Love Story
This sub-section of The Art of Rest, is all about threads that hold us together—The Community Wisdom.
Here the Art of Rest honors and acknowledges there is no “one” right way that works for everyone. There are so many valid ways of knowing, and we need each and every one.
We believe deeply that a diversity of thoughts, creative practices, and perspectives is what keeps our lives rich and evolving. In this section, “Community Wisdom” is where we post short interviews with creatives, scientists, and restful people4 so that we might continue to learn from each other’s inherent and earned wisdom.