Have you ever sat down to read a book, watch a show, or make something you really wanted to make, only to find that 83 other things are competing for your attention?
Welcome to Reports from the Creative Closet! In this dispatch, I explore Presence, the fourth area of practice in my Restorative Creativity Framework™. Between our phones, our responsibilities, and the feeling that we have to squeeze something productive into every spare minute, how often do we actually notice the world around us?
From sunlight through a pine tree to the scent of lavender in New Zealand, I’m exploring what happens when we pay attention—and how creativity can help bring us back to ourselves. We’ll also look at alternatives to traditional meditation and some extraordinary words from pianist and educator Karl Paulnack about the power of art to sustain us through difficult times.
In this episode, I discuss:
- The Things We Stop Noticing: What might we discover if we stopped trying to fill every moment and paid attention to what’s around us?
- Presence Without Perfect Concentration: How can photography, coloring, and other creative activities help us be present, even when traditional meditation is difficult?
- Art, Presence, and Being Human: What can Karl Paulnack’s words about art and survival teach us about creativity’s power to sustain us?
Chapters:
0:00 – Why is it so hard to pay attention?
3:47 – What happens when we start noticing?
8:59 – Seeing the world through a camera
12:50 – Meditation, coloring, and finding your own way
16:11 – Karl Paulnack and the power of art
20:40 – What sustains us when the world is difficult
I’m Nancy Norbeck, your Messy Muse Mentor and creator of the Restorative Creativity Framework™. I specialize in using creativity to reconnect people with themselves, so you can make room for things that interest and delight you and feel like you’re actually alive again.
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- Send your inner critic to summer camp for an hour: Join the Creativity Circle here.
- Have a question for the Curiosity Clinic? Submit it here.
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- Catch up on earlier Reports from the Creative Closet here.
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Why It’s So Hard to Pay Attention | Report from the Creative Closet #14
Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. You didn’t lose your creative spark. You were taught to leave it behind. I’m creativity expert Nancy Norbeck, and I’m here to help you get it back. Let’s go. Welcome back to this week’s Report from the Creative Closet. And I just gotta ask you, am I the only one who notices more and more often these days that it is harder and harder to sit down to try to do anything? Read a book, watch a show, write a poem, do your drawing. Anything that you’re trying to do that requires the tiniest little bit of focus and find that focus.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:40]:
Like, you want to, you really want to, but the second that you try to find that focus and do the thing you wanna do, there are 83 different things in your head all competing for your attention. Seriously, I am patient zero for this, as I am for many of the things that I talk about. And I strongly suspect that many of us have, at the very least, some kind of weird learned version of ADHD, thanks to these things that we carry in our pockets all the time that want all of our attention. There’s a reason why I have all of the audible and most of the visible notifications on my phone turned off because they make me crazy. But if you’re wondering what’s wrong with you, I think that that’s it. Now, obviously, there are different forms of neurodivergence that factor in here. As someone with a late ADHD diagnosis herself, I don’t discount any of that. But I think that there are some things that we can do to try to help with that.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:39]:
And I know from my own experience that coming into a state of presence, even briefly, helps a whole heck of a lot. Bet you can’t guess what we’re gonna talk about this week. Presence is indeed the next piece of my restorative creativity framework that I wanna talk to you about. And it’s all about coming into that moment that we tend to ignore. And it’s not just the phone in your pocket that’s the culprit. It’s all of the messages from the people that you work with, all the things that your family needs, all the things that you need, all the stuff that’s going around all the time that is constantly demanding our attention. I’m old enough to remember when it wasn’t like this, and yet the older I get, the harder it is for me to remember how it used to be. It kind of feels like this mythical fairyland where you didn’t constantly have somebody trying to demand that you be available at all times.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:33]:
It’s like factually, intellectually, I know that it existed, and yet it’s hard to fathom that it was real. Is it just me? I kinda don’t think so. But I will tell you that when I take the time to really make an effort, it makes a big difference. Now I’m not saying that it’s gonna happen automatically all at once and you will suddenly be able to sit down like the Dalai Lama and be completely peaceful, equanimous, and, oh, I butchered that word, equanimous. Something like that, calm and altogether in the moment and never be distracted by anything again. I will bet you even at this moment that the Dalai Lama himself probably doesn’t always reach that mythical state anymore because it’s still just barely 2026, and we all live in the real world. But here’s my question to you. Think about the last time you went for a walk in your neighborhood, in the local park, wherever you might go for a walk.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:47]:
The last time you went for a walk, did you notice what was around you? Did you stop to pay attention? Now I’m not necessarily talking about when you went for a walk in a hurry and you were really pressed for time and you were dodging people on the street if you were in a city, you know, that kind of circumstance. I’m talking about going out for a walk because you wanted to, because you had some time and you wanted to just spend some time outside. When was the last time you went for a walk and you paid attention? Without listening to a podcast, without running through all of the things in your head that you needed to take care of, just to go for a walk and enjoy the quiet and the sounds of what was actually around you and to observe what you could observe. You might have to think about it for a while because with the advent of these lovely little things that we carry in our pockets, it’s become harder and harder to do that because we think that we have to maximize our time. We think we have to listen to music or a podcast or something like that even when we go out for a walk so that we can catch up on the thing that we haven’t listened to yet because we’re trying to fit everything in. I know I can only speak for myself here, but I’m sure I am not alone when I say that I often feel like I am trying to pour all of the information into my head all the time because there are so many things I don’t wanna miss. You know, I missed this episode of this podcast. I wanna catch up on this audio from this course.
Nancy Norbeck [00:05:27]:
I wanna do all of these things and I wanna go for the walk. So I’m gonna listen while I go. That means I don’t hear the birds. It means I don’t catch the random bits of conversation from other people who are out for a walk in the park. It means I might not see the deer. I might not hear the birds. Oh, I said that already. It means I might not notice the trees and the sun in the trees.
Nancy Norbeck [00:05:51]:
Means I might not notice a lot because we’re all just kind of on autopilot these days. But when I do stop to notice what’s happening in the park, when I do turn off the audio and just listen to what’s going around me, the wind blowing past me, even if it’s just a little bit of a breeze, the bits of conversation, the birds, the dog… Dogs barking, all of that. There’s a whole other world around me, and I catch things that I might not have seen before and noticed. And, I mean, there there was a night a while back when I went out for an evening walk in the park by my house and just happened to look up as the sun was coming through this big pine tree along the path in the most spectacular way. Now would most people notice that pine tree? I don’t know, but I did. And then the thing in my pocket became useful because I pulled it out and I snapped a photo that I could take with me and say, wow. Look at that photo.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:56]:
Look at the way the sun came right through the branches on that pine tree. Aren’t I glad that I was happily there to catch it? And now I can look back and remember this whenever I want, or I could have just remembered it up here in my head the way we used to back in the old days when I was a kid. Either way, it was a moment of presence and awe and even perhaps a bit of curiosity going, oh, woah. Look at that thing that I wouldn’t have had if I had just been walking around the park listening to a podcast, staring at my feet to make sure that I didn’t trip over them. And I’m not sure we do that often enough. In fact, I’m usually pretty sure that we don’t. We think that everything around us is ordinary, but we think that because we aren’t paying attention. And we think that we’re familiar with everything.
Nancy Norbeck [00:07:50]:
We think we’ve seen it all before. But when we stop and we look at the things that are around us, a lot of the time, we notice things that aren’t ordinary at all. I remember once thirty years ago walking into a parking garage at the end of the workday with a friend and pointing and and kind of not shouting shouting, but crying out and saying, oh, look at that leaf. There was a beautiful red autumn leaf that had glued itself to the inside of somebody’s wheel well in their car just where you could see it. And it was beautiful in the most random place. And she turned and she looked at me and she said, you’re the only person I know who would have noticed that, which made me a little bit sad. But when you start to notice things like that, you will notice them more because I am a Gen Xer. All of this makes me think of a line from a very Gen X movie, life moves pretty fast.
Nancy Norbeck [00:08:59]:
If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. Now I have to say, I do personally recommend having a camera with you at all times as a way to get practice noticing things. That’s why I… It’s the good side of having a camera on your phone at all times because when you start to see the world through the lens of a camera, you will start to notice more things that are worthy of being seen through lens of a camera. Like the autumn leaves on my front sidewalk right now. They are also a tripping hazard on a rainy day, so you need to be careful. But they can be strikingly, strikingly beautiful. For something a little bit more dramatic, when I was driving around in New Zealand nine years ago, I saw things that, for the first time in my life, made me wish that I had a dash cam because they were so unbelievably gorgeous.
Nancy Norbeck [00:09:52]:
I always say, anyone can take amazing photos in New Zealand because New Zealand does 99% of the work for you. Unfortunately, New Zealand roadways don’t always make it easy to pull over and take pictures. But, still, it was almost impossible not to be present while driving in New Zealand because everything that you see in front of you is amazing. Now if you live there, perhaps you take that for granted too. But I wasn’t because I was blown away by everything I was seeing. It’s probably the most present I’ve ever been on a road trip, which is slightly terrifying. Now, yes, it’s easier because I was somewhere spectacular, but may I take you back to the autumn leaves on the sidewalk on my… Outside my house and that pine tree in the park right next to it? And I’m very sure that there’s something outside your house and maybe even inside your house that fits the bill just as well, that you just haven’t noticed.
Nancy Norbeck [00:10:47]:
And this is why Orson Scott Card talked about how there are hundreds of ideas that we walk past every single day, and we don’t notice them. That’s why presence is part of my restorative creativity framework. You have to be paying attention, not only to catch the ideas, but to just be here long enough to be in yourself, to be connected with yourself. This is how all of these areas overlap and to use them. Because if you’re constantly distracted, you’re gonna have a really, really hard time using them. And, again, that’s not a judgment. I speak from experience here. And, you know, for some of us, this is this is a constant, constant battle.
Nancy Norbeck [00:11:32]:
The phone is a distraction, but it also helps to focus you back in the world. And I will also say that presence is not just a visual thing. Because when I went to that particular farm in New Zealand that has a massive, massive amount of lavender, you better believe that was enough to bring you back into the present too. Holy cow. Sense of smell. Think about it. When you walk into somebody’s house and they’re baking cookies or baking bread or Thanksgiving, all of that brings you right back in. So does sound.
Nancy Norbeck [00:12:07]:
Music can bring you right back into the moment. All of our senses are here in no small part to bring us back into the present. So it’s all about noticing what you’re noticing. Pay attention to what’s happening around you. There are ideas absolutely everywhere. Now it would seem a little bit strange to talk about presence and not talk about the elephant in the room, which is meditation. And I think meditation is great if you can get your brain to do it. Some people can, and I have great respect for those people, and some people can’t.
Nancy Norbeck [00:12:50]:
I am still trying to become one of those people. And until I do, I am happy to do smaller things, and that includes tiny little meditations. I don’t… I mean, I think that a minute, thirty seconds even is better than no meditation at all. If you can calm yourself and bring yourself into the moment for a few seconds, it’s better than not doing anything. And, you know, I’m a big believer in tiny little steps. And if that’s what gets you started on the path to anything, that’s how you get there. But also, you know, things like a coloring book.
Nancy Norbeck [00:13:33]:
And I have mentioned this on shorter videos on TikTok and YouTube, and I have been shocked and horrified by comments that I have received there from people who have said that my spouse says that coloring books are just for kids and I shouldn’t be allowed to do them. I think that’s a ridiculous thing to say. I think frankly, it’s a horrifyingly dismissive and rude thing to say coloring books are focused attention that is linked to beauty and creativity. And so if you enjoy coloring, it is a form of mindfulness that is more interactive and works a lot better for people who have trouble doing traditional meditation. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing that if you enjoy it and it works for you, and it gives you that calm presence that you aren’t getting anywhere else, or if you are and you enjoy it anyway. There’s no right or wrong way, as I have said before. There’s only your way. And I don’t think anybody else has any business telling you what you are and aren’t allowed to do when you are a grown ass adult.
Nancy Norbeck [00:14:46]:
But coloring puts you in touch with all of those things all at the same time. It also taps into your curiosity about color and your appreciation for beauty. And so, you know, don’t let anybody else tell you that it’s not good enough. If you enjoy it, that’s really the only thing that matters. And if you find that your mind still wanders, that’s okay. Every single good course about meditation is gonna tell you that your mind is probably gonna wander anyway and that the trick is to notice it. There’s that word again. And keep coming back.
Nancy Norbeck [00:15:24]:
Because there is no such thing as clearing out your mind completely and having perfect concentration. There just isn’t. That’s a myth. And it’s the kind of myth that will keep you from trying and from getting anywhere because until you try, you can’t get anywhere anyway. As I record this, it is 11/07/2026. And in the last week or so, there have been a lot of videos online about Sir Patrick Stewart. And one of them is from a presentation that he gave at Oxford in 2013. And it was him reading this quote that absolutely floored me.
Nancy Norbeck [00:16:11]:
And while it seems on its surface to be mostly about humanity, I want to read it to you. “Art is part of survival. Art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, I am alive, and my life has meaning. You are not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves to be healthy and happy as well. I expect you not only to master music, I expect you to save the planet. As in the concentration camp and nine eleven, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal invisible lives.”
Nancy Norbeck [00:17:05]:
Those are the words of Karl Paulnack, who was the director, I believe, of the Boston Conservatory at the beginning of the 2000s, 2003, 2004. And I heard Patrick Stewart read those words, and they stopped me dead in my tracks. I have since, right before I came in to record this video, read the full speech that they were from, and it absolutely floored me. I highly recommend that you take the time to read it. It’s not very long. It’s about three pages. And it is such an incredible testament to the power of art and particularly music, but all art to save us as human beings and to bring us back to life and to keep us alive. I think it’s the best encapsulation of of that idea that I have ever come across.
Nancy Norbeck [00:18:04]:
Paulnack is a pianist, and I just, you know, like I said, there’s a lot in what he has to say about humanity, but I think too, that what he’s saying is about being present in our own lives and the way that art enables us to do that while you are making music, you have to be in the moment. As someone who has sung in choirs her entire life and in many performances of an extremely high caliber, if you are not there for that performance, it is not going to go well. It will not be the performance that you will remember with the goosebumps that I am getting right now, as I am telling you about it for the rest of your life. Those are the performances that transcend every other kind of human experience that I have ever had. And when you apply that kind of experience to what he’s talking about in this quote, he’s, he’s bringing in the worst of human experiences, the moments that lay us low, that leave us feeling the most hopeless. But what happens in those moments? We reach for the radio. We reach for our playlist that makes us feel better. We write a poem.
Nancy Norbeck [00:19:29]:
We go out and we look at the sky and we take a photo or we draw what we see. It’s the art that brings us back to who and what and why we are. And that is what reconnects us with ourselves and with our humanity. And, again, this is where the framework overlaps, connection, presence, and humanity altogether, all in this one amazing form that brings us back to who we are. I, again, strongly recommend that you go read his words. And, yes, absolutely, the world is still a mess, but I guarantee you, your world is almost certainly not more of a mess than it was for the folks who were in those camps. It’s it’s probably not more of a mess than it was for people after nine eleven when they were trying to dig folks out of the rubble. It’s probably not more of a mess than it is for folks in parts of the world right now who are struggling to survive.
Nancy Norbeck [00:20:40]:
And art is still being made in all of those places just like it was during World War two and after nine eleven for all of those same reasons. If it worked then, it’s gonna help you because we always need something to sustain us in those moments. That’s why, you know, the artwork that came out of some of those camps baffled people, but that’s why it was made because they needed it. They needed it. So I invite you to think of noticing and paying attention as ways to hear yourself because the things that you notice and that you choose to pay attention to are as unique to you as your own fingerprint. To think about humanity, integrity, reconnection, play, and presence as overlapping ideas, all parts of this framework, but also just plain parts of being alive that keep you in the spirit that is able to survive a world that is really difficult right now. It’s looking slightly more hopeful at the moment, but it’s still really difficult right now. Pick one thing that looks good to you, that you’re curious about.
Nancy Norbeck [00:21:58]:
Give it a moment. Camera optional, but recommended depending on what that thing is. And there is no assignment. There is no record. There is no gold star to get or not get. It is what you feel and and what you find in this experiment that is the reward. And if you’re afraid that you’ll forget, that’s okay. Come back to it whenever you remember.
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:26]:
That’s the only thing that you need to do. It’s always here waiting for you. In much the same way that the creative closet is always here waiting for you. If you like this kind of thing, you are always welcome to come and check out what I’m up to. Check out older videos, subscribe wherever you’re watching or listening so that you always know when I come out with something new. And, you know, you’re always welcome here. Absolutely always welcome here. You’re also welcome to join me for the follow your curiosity creativity circle, which meets every month in November and December because of the way the holidays land.
Nancy Norbeck [00:23:02]:
We’re gonna meet on the third Saturday instead of the fourth one, but we’ll be there for an hour’s worth of dedicated time to work on whatever kind of creative project you want to spend time with in company and see what happens. That link is in your show notes and in the description on YouTube. And I hope that you’ll join us there. There’s absolutely no cost. And, you know, I am Nancy Norbeck. I am your Messy Muse mentor and creativity expert. And I am just glad that you are here joining me, and I hope that I will see you next time and that you come back in the meantime to something that you really, really want to do. If you’re tired of being productive and just want to feel alive again, come join us in the Follow Your Curiosity Creativity Circle.
Nancy Norbeck [00:23:52]:
It’s a free hour each month to stop overthinking, make something just because you want to, and reconnect with the part of you that remembers how good it feels to play. You can find it at the link in your podcast app. See you there, and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like, follow your curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners. Thanks so much, and see you next week.