Imagine the sound of your own heartbeat, but slowed down by half, echoing through walls that are thick enough to hold back the entire ocean. It is not silence you are looking for; it is the heavy, wet breath of something ancient moving just inches from your face.

I want you to close your eyes for a second. Just for a moment. I know how hard it is to stop moving when your day has been full of noise and demands, but I need you to try. Picture yourself submerged. Not swimming, not fighting the current, just floating in the deep blue dark. The water is cool against your skin, heavy and supportive all at once. In this space, there are no notifications buzzing in your pocket. There is no email inbox piling up like dirty laundry on a chair. There is only the pressure of the water holding you, and the vast, quiet hum of the world above you fading into nothing.

This is where I found myself last week, though perhaps not quite so literally. I was sitting in my studio, surrounded by sketches that felt too sharp, too finished, too final. I had spent three days trying to force a line drawing to look perfect, erasing until the paper wore thin. And I realized I was listening to the wrong things. I was listening to my own inner critic, that loud, judgmental voice that tells me everything must be polished before it’s allowed to exist. But creativity doesn’t live in perfection. It lives in the messy, muddy middle. It lives in the noise.

So I turned off the music. I put away the pens. And I started listening to ambient sound. Not the kind you find on a stock audio site, clean and sterile, but the real, raw, unfiltered noise of life. Specifically, I’ve been obsessed lately with recordings made inside migrating whale pods. Yes, you heard me right. Inside. These are field recordings taken by researchers who strap hydrophones to their bodies or release them into the water alongside these gentle giants. And let me tell you, what comes through those speakers is not just sound. It is presence.

Let’s look closer at what that actually sounds like, because it’s easy to imagine whales as majestic, silent creatures gliding through the dark. They aren’t. They are incredibly vocal. They sing. They click. They grunt. And when you record that from inside the pod, it becomes a physical experience. You hear the low-frequency rumbles that travel for miles, vibrating through the water and into your bones. It’s a bass note so deep you feel it in your chest more than you hear it in your ears.

But there’s also the high-end stuff. The clicks used for echolocation, sharp and rapid, like fingers snapping against glass. And then there are the grunts, the squeaks, the conversational noises they make with each other. It’s chatter. It’s gossip. It’s family dinner conversation translated into sonar. When I listen to these recordings while I’m working on my pottery, I don’t see a giant animal. I see a community. I see a group of people huddled together in the dark, sharing stories, checking in, making sure everyone is still there.

What’s the texture of that? For me, it feels like wool. Thick, tangled, warm wool wrapped around my shoulders. It’s comforting in a way that silence never is. Silence can feel empty, can’t it? Like a room with the furniture removed. But this noise—this whale noise—it feels full. It feels inhabited. It reminds me that we are not meant to create in isolation from the world around us. Even when we are alone in our studios, we are part of a larger chorus. We are breathing in rhythm with something bigger than ourselves.

I think about how much pressure we put on ourselves to produce ‘pure’ work. To strip away the distraction and focus only on the task. But maybe that’s the trap. Maybe the distraction is the point. Maybe the noise is the material we’re supposed to work with. The whale doesn’t ignore the bubbles rising from its blowhole. It doesn’t shy away from the rumble of its own heart. It just keeps moving. It just keeps singing.

I remember when I first tried to incorporate ambient sound into my design work, back when I was still doing graphic design, before the cabin, before the pottery wheel. I wanted to use it as a background track for a branding video. My client hated it. He said it was ‘too chaotic.’ He said it lacked clarity. He wanted clean lines and predictable rhythms. And I gave in. I replaced the whale songs with a generic piano loop. I smoothed out the edges. I made it safe.

And you know what? It sounded dead. It sounded like something I made to fill a quota, not to express a truth. I burned out soon after. I couldn’t figure out why every project felt hollow, why every deadline felt like a noose tightening around my neck. Now I realize it was because I was stripping away the humanity. I was removing the noise that makes life messy and real.

It’s okay to be unfinished. It’s okay to be messy. It’s okay to include the sounds that don’t fit neatly into a category. When I listen to these whale recordings now, I don’t hear mistakes. I hear life. I hear the bubble stream from a lung filling with air. I hear the water rushing past a fluke. I hear the imperfections. And I love them. Because they remind me that I am alive. That I am here. That I am part of this big, noisy, beautiful mess.

If you’re struggling with a creative block, if you feel like your work is too sterile, too controlled, too perfect, try turning up the volume on the world around you. Record the traffic outside your window. Record the hum of your refrigerator. Record the voices of your neighbors. Don’t edit it. Don’t clean it up. Just let it be there. Let it inform your work. Let it remind you that you are not a machine. You are a creature. And creatures make noise.

There is a vulnerability in listening to something so large, so powerful, so different from us. When you put on headphones and hear a whale call echo across thousands of miles of ocean, you feel small. And that’s a good thing. Smallness is not a bad word. Smallness is an invitation. It invites humility. It invites awe. It invites us to step back from our own egos and recognize that we are part of a system much older and wiser than we will ever be.

In my previous episode, we talked about writing dialogue that sounds regional, avoiding the pitfalls of phonetic spelling to capture the true rhythm of speech. We discussed how syntax and immersion help us understand the soul of a character. Well, this is the same principle, but applied to sound. We don’t need to mimic the whale perfectly. We don’t need to replicate its biology. We just need to listen deeply enough to understand its intent. What is it trying to say? Is it calling to a calf? Is it warning of a storm? Is it simply saying, ‘I am here’?

When we approach our own creative projects with that same level of attentive listening, things change. We stop forcing ideas. We start receiving them. We become receivers rather than broadcasters. This shift takes time. It requires patience. It requires us to sit with the discomfort of not knowing what comes next. But that’s where the magic hides. In the waiting. In the listening. In the space between the notes.

I want you to think about a project you’ve been putting off. A song you haven’t finished. A story you’re afraid to write. A painting you keep covering up. Ask yourself: What is the ambient noise in that project? What is the underlying hum? Is it fear? Is it excitement? Is it grief? Don’t try to silence it. Lean into it. Let it guide you. Let it be the foundation upon which you build.

One of the most profound aspects of these whale recordings is the sense of solitude within connection. Whales are social animals, yet when they migrate, they often travel in small groups, spread out over vast distances. Each individual is alone in the water, yet connected by sound to the others. It’s a beautiful metaphor for the creative process. We work alone. We sit in our rooms. We stare at blank pages or cold clay. But we are never truly isolated. We are connected to the lineage of artists who came before us. We are connected to the audience who will eventually receive our work. We are connected to the natural world that inspires us.

When I record ambient noise, I am trying to capture that connection. I am trying to freeze a moment in time where the boundary between self and world dissolves. It’s fleeting. It’s fragile. Most of the time, the recording fails. The wind interferes. The equipment malfunctions. The whale moves too far away. And that’s okay. Failure is part of the process. It’s part of the dance. If every recording was perfect, it would lose its meaning. The struggle gives it value.

I encourage you to embrace the failures in your own work. The rejected drafts. The broken pots. The songs that won’t resolve. They are not signs of inadequacy. They are evidence of effort. They are proof that you showed up. That you listened. That you tried. And in the end, isn’t that what matters? Not the final product, but the act of creation itself. The dignity of manual labor. The importance of showing up, day after day, even when it’s hard.

So go ahead. Press record. Capture the noise. Don’t worry about whether it’s good enough. Don’t worry about whether it makes sense. Just listen. And let the listening change you.

Take care of yourselves. Keep listening. I’ll see you in the next one. Bye for now.