alt Hacker NewsThe journaling seems like the right direction, but it's still too passive.
If there are three mental modes, two out of three are passive. Let's call this third mode "creative mode". Instead of consuming or meditating, do something else offline that requires developing a skill with your undivided attention.
Even when you're inspired, the interpretation is still your own. There's no way it could ever feel like wasted time because the intrinsic value of experience is so much higher than the other two states.
With enough experience, your own unique ideas will dominate your mind. That's when you finally feel in control.
There is still IMO a way that "creative mode" can be wasted time, and that is when it is being used as a distraction from proper reflection / introspection. The pursuit of creativity / learning can be its own unhealthy obsession too.
Your ending paragraph: "With enough experience, your own unique ideas will dominate your mind. That's when you finally feel in control." also reads as something that could probably also be seen as potentially bad / delusion, in spiritual contexts as well (real control is mostly illusion, you actually do often want other people's ideas to dominate the mind, lest you fall into solipsism / narcissism, etc). Not to pick at your short comment here or presume that though, but it definitely sets off a red flag of some kind.