“No one and nothing is worth shrinking for.” – Indigo Williams
Well.
I’m a pretty pragmatic guy.
But.
Sometimes you have to push back a little … push back against reality.
Or maybe what everyone else sees as reality.
Now.
This isn’t about hope. And, shit, not even dreams and dreaming.
This is simply about … well … not shrinking. Or maybe not getting the life sucked out of you. Life is tough enough as it is … and Life does a pretty nice job of trying to erode you <wear you down> … that is its version of shrinking you.
Wearing you down.
It’s tough enough just keeping an eye out to insure Life doesn’t shrink you.
But other people?
Well.
They ain’t as big and important as Life.
Notice Life begins with a capital L and people begins with a small p.
That should make my point.
There are a lot of people out there who walk around as if they are a capital P type person … and maybe they have some title … and they even maybe have earned some respect … and absolutely you should listen to some people more closely than others … but no one is worth shrinking for.
I have seen many people … and often some very senior experienced people … fawn over little p people with big p titles … and if you look closely you can see them visibly shrink before your very eyes.
Its sad.
And slightly frightening to watch.
Me?
That’s proof enough that I will not permit that to happen.
Some people are more important than others … but no people is worth shrinking for.
Lastly.
How people use Life in a sneaky way to encourage you to shrink.
“People will kill you over time, and how they’ll kill you is with tiny, harmless phrases, like ‘be realistic’.” —Dylan Moran
Sneaky.
These people <who have likely accepted self shrinkage> are doing and saying things so that you become like them … shrinkers.
They will be relentless. And you need to say “stop.”
Yes … yes … yes. There is a pragmatic side.
Absolutely.
You have to keep your eyes open and your mind clear and judge what is happening around you … but even a realistic decision shouldn’t diminish … shouldn’t shrink you … it <at its worst> should just put you on hold. A momentary situation until you can grow some more.
Shrink? Never.
Just watch out … because people <small p and big p minded people> can be sneaky in their attempt to encourage shrinkage.
In the end?
No one or nothing is worth shrinking for.
Simple as that.
“Now the beast has revealed it’s ugly face and we shall not rest until it is dead.” – Richard the Lionhearted
Facing problems in Life is one of the most personal things anyone can ever discuss.
It is personal because … well … it is really about attitude.
And I am careful when I say this … because you can have the right attitude to face problems … but you can just be too damn tired to face it.
In combination with that last thought I wrote … I love this thought from Richard the Lionhearted.
Take a moment and ponder.
The beast <the problem> has revealed its ugly face … we do not recoil … we do not retreat … we shall not rest until it is dead.
Unfortunately. You cannot do this with every damn problem you face in Life.
If you did … well … I can guarantee a problem would slip up on you and catch you when you just didn’t have the energy or focus to deal with it.
Therefore it comes down to deciding which problems you will ‘not rest until it is dead.’
Now.
What really makes me love this quote is the attitude.
Why?
I sometimes fear far too often that we choose a problem to defeat … only to be misdirected or lose focus or move on to something else which appears to be the problem du jour.
I don’t have answers for this.
I am not that smart.
Nor can I be that flippant with some tripe like ‘defeat the problem in front of you! You can do it!” <exclamation points included>.
Life makes choosing what problem to face and defeat difficult.
There is no code book nor is there a ‘how to choose’ book.
And worse … sometimes Life makes a problem look eensy weensy <that would be very very small> … and yet it is actually expandable with one drop of water to a point where it is huge.
And maybe just as worse … at other times Life gives you a problem that looks massively insurmountable … and you invest a lot of energy & angst approaching it … and all it takes is one drop of water to shrink it into nothing.
I am not giving any advice here nor can I tell anyone what to do.
I can’t.
I cannot because many times the beast looks like a beast to me … and I head out with all intentions to kill it … regardless of its size. And unfortunately the beast is simply something simple with a beast mask on.
Maybe sometimes I am better than others at identifying the real beasts from the pretender beasts … but I tend to believe no one is particularly spectacular at this task. You may be better than some other people … but not spectacular.
So all I can do is share a great quote and thought and get people thinking.
In business or in Life … if the beast reveals its ugly face … do not rest until it is dead. And I imagine another thought is that if you actually decide it is a beast … even if it really isn’t … go ahead and kill that one too.
I am always interested in reviewing all the different published methods and theories with regard to how to develop effective communications.
It seems experts <and non experts> constantly analyze the topic and issue laundry lists of ‘to dos’ and ‘how tos’ and so many different thoughts and ideas your head begins to spin.
Oh.
Let me stop a minute.
Developing effective communications.
That sounds like such a cold analytical view on communicating.
Well.
It isn’t cold.
On the other hand … it may be calculating <albeit I could probably find a better more positive word>.
But here is something to ponder with the calculating thought in mind.
Off the cuff communication … at best … is simply a starting point. If you get lucky and you are good at communicating you may get close to what you really wanted to communicate let alone the best <most effective> way to communicate it. The key point here? You MAY get close. Off the cuff is a starting point whether you are good or bad at communicating.
And this is true professional and personally.
If you think about what you want to say beforehand <that is the calculating part> and actually apply some methodology to what you want to communicate beforehand <by the way … we all do this … some of us subconsciously and some of us consciously … and some of us subconsciously consciously – this is people like me who have been trained and studied how to effectively communicate so much so that I don’t think about it I just do it> you are more likely to not just be lucky but actually communicate what you want to communicate effectively.
Sorry.
That’s kind of a given <not sure it’s a Life truth>.
This means that no matter what anyone may suggest about saying what’s on your mind … the first thing that comes to your mind … it may be starkly … well … stark.
And not stark in a better way. It’s stripped of effectiveness <in its supposed efficiency>.
Suffice it to say …thinking before you speak <communicate> is always better than speaking without thinking.
Now.
I began this post suggesting a boatload of people are overthinking <in bad ways> effective communication methodology.
You can overthink.
You can poorly think.
But in the end it is too much thinking … and I get frustrated with all the ‘how to’s’ because effective communication is relatively simple if you spend a moment or two on the basics.
Please note that when I discuss all this effective communication gobbledygook … or effective advertising … it spans both professional and personal worlds.
I don’t think that is so hard to grasp because … well … communication is communication.
So when we talk about how advertising is so manipulative and formulaic … it is actually indicative of anything we want to communicate in everyday life.
Regardless.
Developing effective communications really is not that difficult.
Despite the fact there are gobs of books and a gazillion experts suggesting how to develop effective advertising and communicate effectively … honestly … it is really simple. And in fact the more you overthink and the more you try and ‘persuade’ through some formula … the more insincere and more ineffective it becomes.
All that said … having managed a company I had to try and simplify things because the employees’ heads were so screwed up from reading all the how to books.
Oh. I imagine there is some irony in the fact that I am now offering a ‘how to’ list of my own but here are the things I would consider the principles of “how to produce effective communications/advertising” … the basics:
– Do your homework
Before you begin communicating … you must truly understand the brand, the customer, the competition and the client … or the person.
The more deeply and meaningfully the better.
Well. As deeply and meaningful as possible.
I purposefully say ‘person’ because the moment you forget you are trying to communicate with a person, in business or in Life, is the moment that everything starts going awry.
While ‘homework’ sounds professional … be aware that I almost simply put “just care.” Care about who you are communicating with. If you care even one iota <this means discarding any iota of disdain> it will show.
– Be aspirational but don’t over promise
Any advertising must stretch the brand and help to move it upwards.
However.
Blatant over promise leads to disappointment and rejection.
In general any communication … while needing to always be pragmatic and centering … should have a tinge of hope. Hope for something better.
I certainly don’t mean false promises nor do I mean any version of over promise … but great communicating always has an aspect of “what could be.”
– Create new paradigms
It’s easy to think and say what everyone else does.
I have always said that every business category seems to invent its own brand of boring. When we speak with our friends and people we know … it is exactly the same.
Don’t recycle the same tired imagery, the same claims and the same old superlatives that everyone else is using.
Create a new paradigm.
I am not suggesting you shouldn’t lean on some acceptable comfortable imagery and words to center people … but create something new in addition if you do.
That’s what makes communication great.
Or makes great communication I should say.
Sometimes communication is about affirmation <using tired old words & imagery> but most people want to be inspired.
Yeah. I will use the Hope word again. Most people want a glimpse of something more than what they know.
What they don’t know excites.
That’s the easiest way for me to describe creating a new paradigm.
– <this is a professional one … mainly> Use a single strategy for all disciplines
Every single piece of communications — from the biggest TV campaign to the smallest coupon — must emanate from the same strategy, vision or soul.
This law is inviolate. Break the law, go to jail.
I imagine I could suggest this is true in personal Life too.
It is called consistency of character. If you speak from the heart and the soul … which is inevitably a reflection of your character … consistency matters. Why? Well. part of effective communication is being believed <and heard>.
Now.
To be clear.
Anything is communications. Anything is advertising.
We may not like to hear this but … I mean absolutely anything.
A TV commercial or print ad qualifies.
But so does a movie night for employees.
Oh.
So does how you sign your name.
The heading on your outgoing faxes.
A thank-you note to customers.
By the way.
This thought suggests that everything you do is some form of communicating who you are and what you stand for.
Oh.
Whether you want it to be, or not.
The way your employee gives directions to your store.
The design of your catalog.
How your shelves are arranged.
Heck.
What you put on your shelves in your home.
Hate his thought … but everything you do and say is an advertisement for who you are and what you stand for.
Everything.
<chew on that for a couple of sleepless nights>
– Reassess. Reassess. Reassess
This sounds professional … and it is.
Is it working?
Is the advertising doing what we want it to do?
Is any communications doing what we want it to do?
Can it do better? Can we do better?
Whoa.
But what about us every day schmoes?
Doesn’t this apply to us to?
You bet.
Far too many times we walk away from a communications moment <a conversation> pleased with ourselves and thinking “well … they are better off knowing that.”
Silly silly us.
Reassess.
And reassess again.
If what we communicated wasn’t applied … it is more likely not a failure of the person who we communicated to … but rather the communicator <oops … that is us>.
– Be considerate.
How you communicate is almost as important as who you are as a person.
Coincidentally … advertising or what is communicated … is as important as the product.
Think about this.
People are overwhelmed, selfish, have what they need, and buy what they want.
By the way … ‘buy’ also means ‘pay attention to.’
Same thing.
Here is the good news.
We know what we people like.
People like a good story. People play with stuff that’s fun to play with. They like to be entertained, and surprised. People ignore what they’ve seen before <maddeningly … even if they really haven’t>.
Yup.
They ignore it if they think they have.
In a sea of sameness the only thing people notice is the thing that’s different.
Advertising to business is also advertising to people.
– Remember that people talk to each other.
This is the corollary to the fact you are communicating with people.
While it is death to forget when you communicate with a person … it is a sneaky death awaiting later on in that inevitably people talk about your product, you and what you said.
You can’t stop it, or control it.
If your product is very good, or very bad, they talk a little.
If you are good or very bad they talk a little.
If it’s neither, they don’t talk at all.
The only time they talk a lot about anything is when it’s different. Whether it’s different in a good way, or in a bad way, doesn’t affect the amount of conversation.
By the way … people talk about advertising too.
The same rules apply.
And 6degrees of separation? Geez. Least of your worries. Think 22 squared. That’s the amount affected by the pebble you dropped in the pond <assuming the pebble registered>.
Well.
Ponder that before you speak off the cuff again.
– People <in general> don’t care about your product or even what you have to say <in Life>.
They have their own worries.
They have their own wants.
And what they really don’t have is time.
What that really means is that you’re not in charge.
They are.
You can’t force anyone to listen.
That’s it. Too long but once I got going I couldn’t stop.
But there you go.
I purposefully mixed communicating and advertising.
And I did so because it is an interesting exercise to think about what we do in our everyday lives as ‘advertising’ ourselves.
A bad thought?
Heck. I don’t like to think I am advertising ‘Bruce’ in everything that I do and say.
On the other and … it certainly gives you a perceptive on a Life in a professional communications role.
And maybe it will make you think a little more of the repercussions of things you currently do and say.
Maybe not.
But maybe.
“quod satis est” <what is enough> – Horace
Ok.
I was torn between calling this indulgence versus overindulgence, indulging or decadence or “quod satis est” <what is enough> … in the end … it doesn’t really matter because it is simply a discussion on what is pure decadence – or greed – and what do we actually deserve as people.
I imagine it is also a discussion on what Horace discussed as ‘what is enough’ or ‘the hollowness of unparalleled prosperity where we need to recognize the unacceptable limits <on prosperity> and finding some sanity in enough.’
Or in his exact words … ‘… supplicate and implore the gods that prosperity may return to the wretched, and abandon the haughty.’
Materialism is a tricky topic.
And people who dumb it down to simplistic thinking are being silly.
We all want things.
Not just for sociological reasons … but for practical ones. Things can make our lives easier and better. While status can certainly play a role <this is where indulgence or decadence can rear its ugly head> materialism at its most basic level is a fairly practical concept.
And comparing those who ‘have something’ to those who ‘have a lot’ is difficult.
Where do you draw the line?
Heck.
Where is the line on ‘having something’?
What exactly is ‘the hollowness of unparalleled prosperity’?
Where do we define a ‘recognition of unacceptable limits?
Horace was a pretty smart guy.
And even all he could do was ask the question … not offer any true answer.
“ … sensibility of the age, materialism itself, which seemed so solid, is revealed as a false god. Growing affluence appears to breed only an insatiable hunger for more, a desolate sense of something always lacking. Horace asked himself, just as we are asking ourselves, these questions: What exactly is this new dominion, empire, or global new order? Can it offer unlimited peace and prosperity, stretching forward into infinite horizons of time, or does it consist of little more than a soulless efficiency, an instrumentalism that makes everything a means to an end, with the end itself lost along the way? In which case, might not the greatest loss and poverty be of time itself, the lived and living moment, the day, which is the gods’ gift to us, but which is always being sacrificed to a more glorious tomorrow?
Horace’s response to living in his time of global power threatened by its inner vacuum of values, not so unlike our time of global capitalism, in which no value other than the monetary is recognized, was to be contrary.”- Harry Eyres <Horace and Me>
Now.
Sometimes I believe we confuse the issues when I hear people bitching about greed and capitalism and ideals and social responsibility.
Capitalism is simply a process or system or possibly even an economic ideology … but that is it.
Simply a framework in which people work within.
And values are associated with people and not a framework. If no value is recognized other than money that is not the fault of capitalism … it is the fault of people.
The system does not breed greed or overindulgence.
It is a system in which people institute attitudes & behavior. It is people who abuse or use the system. You can be as good, or bad, as you choose to be within capitalism.
All that said.
Before I show the following quote let me say that I am certainly a capitalism guy … but … Schumpeter <who I thought was a really really smart guy> suggested the following:
“Moral poverty lurks within capitalism.” – Joseph Schumpeter
I like this thought.
It isn’t that capitalism IS moral poverty but that within capitalism LURKS the possibility of moral poverty.
What that suggests is that there is a constant battle between prosperity <or having shit> and morals.
We constantly battle what psychologists called ‘hedonistic adaptation’ <once you have something you want more>.
And I agree with Schumpeter.
I believe that is the battle we face day in and day out.
So with that said I state unequivocally that ‘greed’ does not rule <despite the fact I see a shit load of people suggesting that greed is leading to all the issues we face>.
Greed, among the few, will always be in constant battle with the majority in which is constantly fighting against moral poverty.
That is life.
That is economy.
That is societal salvation.
But I do believe we are facing some interesting societal challenges as we think about whether we have embraced ‘indulgence’ as the norm rather than an exception. Maybe better said … have we embraced an odd perspective on ‘something we deserve’ versus ‘something we earn.’
An evolving economy is all about ‘moving up the ladder.’
Maybe not socially but certainly accumulating <accumulation not necessarily being material but rather anything that you find valuable to accumulate … honor, integrity and kindness included>.
<note: ponder that thought for a second>
Ok.
But at some point we seem to have begun to believe we deserve some things.
And, no, this isn’t about entitlement programs and crap like that … this is about ‘I deserve a certain salary’ or ‘I deserve a certain size house’ … or even ‘I deserve that opportunity.’
Maybe it is semantics but attitudinally there is a massive difference between feeling like you deserve something rather than feeling like you have to earn it first.
Which leads me to some thoughts:
– Perversion of capitalism
Capitalism is a living breathing organism.
One in which microbes fight with other corrupted microbes intent on perverting the organism. The organism also has other microbes which are healthy and can sometimes even attack and destroy the other microbes. Corruption should not, probably cannot, kill capitalism because capitalism itself can kill corruption.
This is kind of my version of Schumpeter’s though on creative destruction.
This is a simple thought … and I am going to leave it quickly to move on to the larger attitudinal issue.
Cynicism.
– Cynicism of external factors
Perversion aside … if our perception is that the system is rigged by the perverted … we become cynical. Lose optimism. Question hope. Maybe even get angry at the perverts <sorry … couldn’t resists>.
I’m not suggesting the American ideal is not a good <or great> one or that all Americans are wasteful and clueless or that every shred of what makes America great has evaporated.
Today’s United States has a solid core of the good and possibility and hope. And I say that despite the fact people have become quite cynical. And it is a deep cynicism. What I mean by that is that we have become cynical with regard to what it is to be America <which includes, but is not solely, capitalism>.
I mention cynicism because it is relevant.
It is relevant because it corrodes the ideal.
It is relevant because it affects <either directly or indirectly> how we behave in tandem with our virtues <moral compass … ethics>.
Adam Smith noted that free markets, in order to function well, depend upon the virtue of their participants. It is a fact that cynicism and distrust engendered by ‘the perverted’ only creates inefficient transactions and costs <including oversight expenses trying to reel the perverted in> to levels that can paralyze a marketplace. Additionally this perversion inevitably focuses on the phenomenon of “putting profits before people.”
This can be manifested in a variety of ways:
– taking imprudent and excessive risks with other people’s money
– selling products and services that harm people, families, and society
– engaging in outright fraud
Today it seems like we are suffering from all of the above.
So this perversion of capitalism is really all about morality.
As noted earlier, Adam Smith, understood the link between markets and morality. He did not believe that a successful economy could arise from the raw, unbridled pursuit of self-interest. He maintained that self-interest could fuel a successful economy only if it were narrowed by the constraints of traditional morality.
<Please note … we have seen this moral challenge before. A moral disintegration preceded the great depression. The stock market crash of 1929, and the ensuing Depression, was precipitated by the roaring ’20s which was a prosperous decade was marked by materialism and moral laxity – in society and in business.>
Regardless.
While I could wax poetically about moral laxity I will instead focus on ‘hedonistic adaptation’ and the title of this article … indulgence or overindulgence.
Despite the fact we Americans see ourselves as a generally optimistic and happy group of people … whenever research is done … despite our relatively prosperous lives … we are pretty unhappy people compared to other countries.
Whew.
That means despite what I would consider a relatively bloated sometimes greedy perspective of life we are unhappy.
Well.
That is something to ponder.
No big government or little government or anything to do with government … this simply suggests that America may be a mess but we the people put us into this mess.
We either contributed or sat complicit, sipping Starbucks coffee <which I am doing at the moment>, buying too much stuff, wasting energy, time and resources … complaining but doing nothing about it and claiming we were powerless to do anything about it.
Pay attention.
We shape the world.
We have big brains <bigger than a pea> and opposable thumbs.
We tend to make fancy stuff.
We like to make stuff, touch stuff and smell stuff.
It is perfectly natural to like the stuff we make.
We like to indulge in our stuff.
Interestingly, to provide perspective … different cultures think, and act, differently.
I read somewhere that nomads like stuff but have no sense that they should accumulate.
In Genghis Khan’s culture, it was much more important to give things away than keep them.
The Norse had a similar tradition.
I think those values have to do not only with generosity, but as a sign that the giver is not ruled by the objects he/she owns.
America is the opposite.
We are a society of indulgers and accumulators.
<please note that I am not suggesting we should become a country of nomads>
Well.
Actually I believe author Tiffany Madison says it well:
“I believe the world is divided in three groups: givers, takers and the few that can balance both impulses. If you are a giver, it is wise to define your boundaries because takers will take what you allow them to; all givers must learn to protect that about themselves or eventually, there is nothing left to give.” – Tiffany Madison
Regardless.
We have an overall driving mindset of takers these days.
Take or be taken attitude.
And while we are now rich beyond belief <in terms of what is available to all of us 24 hours a day> we are seduced by the urge to acquire … and acquire more … and indulge <when the opportunity arises>.
Sociologically we are driven by the ‘hedonistic adaptation’ impulse.
I don’t have anything against wanting more than what you have.
And I certainly understand the psychology of ‘once you have something not only do you not want to not have it anymore … but you want more <or the next step up>’.
I understand Hedonistic Adaptation sociologically.
But while I understand it … I don’t have to like it.
We just can’t seem to stop wanting more and there never seems to be enough stuff … we just don’t seem to find the boundaries <or the balance>.
I am not suggesting this is not difficult.
Money leads to lifestyle upgrades.
Once you achieve the income you desired … well … you go back to desiring more.
– the next level of ‘more’
Oddly <and somewhat disturbingly> … this desire for ‘more’ has created an entire economy around ‘how we look to others around us.’
Whether we like to admit to or not … how we look, or appear to look, to others important to appear to drives our behavior <to a large extent … certainly not 100% in most people>.
This has created an incredibly odd <and slightly disturbing> currency of ‘doing good behavior.’
Yes.
‘Doing good’ is becoming a personal wealth currency.
What do I mean”?
I am donating “x”.
I am volunteering here.
Therefore I have earned ‘value.’
Maybe the most troubling example of this is how businesses recognize this and are jumping on board by developing environmental programs, family things, positive team work seminars or anything that generates some currency that they can mentally <if not tangibly> put on a balance sheet as proof of relative wealth.
<note: I hate this trend>
Whew. Indulgence. Overindulgence. Accumulation.
Why do we do it?
Here’s what I think.
Actually three reasons:
One is family <how we are being brought up within a dynamic capitalistic society>.
Two is the evolving relationship between preference and value.
Third is we are putting a higher importance on rational & pragmatic characteristics <in school, in life, in business>.
Let me go into detail.
– family in a prosperous country
The underlying dynamics of behavior reside in the conflict between a culture of individualism <I can do anything> and the economy. In that context relative value and revealed preferences actually determine the behavior of individual parents and family.
What I suggest is that family is more affected by these two things than policies, such as welfare or divorce income distribution or even the increased employment of women.
Individualism creates a climate in which responsibility to others and the context of duty to others are diminished. This individualism grows out of the young peoples’ interface with the market economy and their ability to produce and to consume for themselves. I believe that these changes are due to the increasing legitimacy of self-interest as a criterion for decisions as opposed to the interests of a larger context.
This need not be interpreted in the narrowest sense of selfishness but rather in the context of competing values, such as personal freedom, development, and empowerment values that we hold as important as our family roles.
The needs of our market economy define individual as producers. As a result occupational roles take priority over family roles. We see the consequences of this priority. The parent who works extra hours at the office, rather than the one who knocks off at four to take the child to softball practice, is the one who will get the pay raise the next time around. And maybe more importantly this attitude <and behavior> is brought into the family context as ‘the price you pay to be successful.’
Like it or not … there is a strong relationship between the market economy’s need for us to behave as if we were not tied in obligatory ways to others and our cultural emphasis on individualism.
Simplistically … success is being defined by individual criteria rather than group context … even at the expense of family. This drives overall context for attitudes and behavior.
– relative value and revealed preferences
Well.
The perspectives of relative value and revealed preferences may be the biggest cultural issue future generations will face <because the current older generation has a very skewed perspective>.
Revealed preference is a term from the economists for which there are fancy equations which basically mean “actions speak louder than words.”
If we were interested in whether Americans preferred to invest in home remodeling over taking vacations, holding prices constant, we would quite simple look at whether over time they invested more of their available resources in home remodeling than in vacations.
The notion of relative value offers insight from revealed preferences.
We can value something very much.
We can even value it more than we used to and still value it less relative to some other competing good, if our value on that competing good increased more rapidly.
Wow.
We can still prefer something … and we may even prefer it more so than in the past … but its relative value has decreased versus competing preferences.
– note: <… in the business world this is often reflected in what is called a conjoint analysis … which if you have ever had to present the findings from one of these studies I can guarantee your head will have exploded – mine did>
This is where the emphasis on the consumption need comes in.
For example … young people seem unable to ‘afford’ marriage these days.
Does that mean that their life styles would be worse than say if they were in the 50’s or 60’s if they married? Nope.
It simply means that they think that they need more now than then they did then in order to marry.
In addition … the values of independence and the realization of individual goals and self-definition are also factors in evaluating preference versus value.
The bad news is that a consequence of these competing values noted in studies is a corresponding decreased willingness to make long-term commitments. This unwillingness to make long-term commitments impacts economically and socially. The values of personal freedom, development, and empowerment reduce the relative attractiveness of the obligatory nature of any decision is impacted. And by ‘any decision’ I will remind everyone of the blurred lines between home and business … because lack of long term commitment bleeds into business decision making and vision and … well … you get the point.
– rational and pragmatic
Simplistically … I think we are becoming too rational and pragmatic.
We are creating a society dictated by reason and proof <not knowledge> and therefore discount activities that cultivate and nurture the human character and inevitably values <and how much value we put on values>.
It seems day in and day out what isn’t ‘real’ or provable is discarded. This means that all the things that struggle to show proof or is just an intangible ‘real’ bites the dust.
To be real it must have this proof … which in these examples means it must have consensus or collaboration … or what I call ‘group proof.’
Why do I care?
This means we have a tendency to ignore dreams, visions, and crazy ideas that come out of the nowhere. Creativity has, and has always had, an irrational aspect.
Heck.
Human imagination and creativity is incredible, powerful and healthy.
To toss it out with everything else that is unproven or irrational impoverishes our moral compass <and value structure>. Within this vacuum we seek to fill the emptiness with the tangible … the stuff … the provable to those around us.
Sadly we inevitably flatten humanity by becoming so rational and pragmatic.
This pragmatism leads to …
– We want to be a little less crazy <take chances> with ourselves and each other.
– We want to understand and control any irrational or un-understandable behavior.
– We desire predictable behavior <mostly under the guise of “we don’t have time to waste”>.
Look.
I get it. I get what we were striving for … happiness through efficiency <or lack of wasted energy and hope>. But we have thrown out parts of what makes our lives rich by being so overly rational <and materialistic>.
Ok.
In the end.
Indulging, overindulging, what we deserve … decadence?
All important words to think about … but in the end it comes down to optimism versus despair.
It was Leszek Kolakowski that said “civilizations cannot live in despair.”
Despite the fact we are accumulating stuff and being pragmatic and rational … we still feel some despair with what is happening around us.
And in that situation … we seek to find an optimistic interpretation in the despair itself.
We seek to see that something good comes from the bad.
We seek learning from the failures of the system.
Or even … why should we despair just because we have stopped stalking what is just a fantasy <the intangible hopes & dreams>?
That is the battle in today’s mind.
And, frankly, it is a hopeful battle … hopeful in that we still remain at our core ‘good’ and desire to seek that which is good.
This is a battle of what exactly is ‘right.’
Right or maybe ‘what we deserve’ is becoming fuzzy in our heads.
As someone wrote:
We are simply identifying the inefficient or that which we identify as unlikely to help us meet our end objectives and prune them like dead branches assuming the remainder is healthy and productive and will assist us in getting to where we want to go.
If we continue to do that … culture, like a tree, will die.
More importantly … culturally I believe we have lost the definition of indulgence, decadence and overindulgence.
We have lost the boundaries surrounding accumulation.
Hedonistic adaptation or not … we simply think of accumulation.
Accumulation of anything and everything.
Therein lies our issue to be discussed.
Accumulation. Solve how we think about that <attitudinally and behaviorwise> and then we can discuss what is overindulgence or decadence.
I imagine we all need to simply get a grip on “quod satis est” <what is enough>.
“One flies with one’s own wings.”
Ālīs volat propriīs is the Latin phrase most accurately translated as “one flies with one’s own wings” or “it flies with its own wings.”
Well.
I am becoming more convinced that if one wants to adopt a good motto it is best to start with a classical language <like Latin>.
I find it interesting how often I find a Latin phrase which exotically seems to capture a big thought in a seemingly simple way.
Latin is quickly becoming an extinct if not simply an endangered language.
Excepting the fact that there are so many timeless latin phrases. Without them, and their thought provoking motto-esque feel, the language may have fallen into obscurity already.
Anyway.
Ālīs volat propriīs. One flies with one’s own wings.
Brings to mind a number of thoughts.
Being able to always depend on oneself.
Do things your own way <and the ability to suffer the consequences>.
Control.
Control one’s own life. Masters of our own destiny.
Courage.
Flying takes a leap of faith. And it doesn’t always go smoothly and sometimes it hurts.
Self-reliance <and achievement>.
Empowered to reach for the sky <one’s potential>.
Freedom.
Flying implies new places, new experiences, new lessons, new learning.
Ālīs volat propriīs. I love this phrase.
Whew. Having your own wings to fly.
We cannot control everything.
Sometimes bad things happen but what we can control is how we let it affect us.
We get to choose our attitude.
We get to choose how to fly with our own wings.
This doesn’t mean we always do what we want whenever we want.
It simply means you are free to be yourself.
You have your own wings.
You know how to fly <or can learn … oh … yes … everyone can fly …>.
You may not know exactly where you want to go but with wings maybe you can find it.
To me this little Latin phrase embraces independence of spirit and attitude. And isn’t that really what matters?
Anyway.
I am not sure it’s sad that no one learns Latin anymore because, frankly, it’s just not that useful.
Well.
Let me take that back.
Maybe if Latin phrases that capture big thoughts like one flies with ‘one’s own wings’ capture our attention and interest and build attitudes which positively impact our lives?
We should seek to learn them.
“… the turkey was “a little vain and silly.”
–
Happy Thanksgiving.
No matter how you may look over your past year … inevitably you find things to give thanks for.
But I am going to look into the “way-back” machine to find what to be thankful for this year.Like maybe 1776 or so.
If cooler heads had not prevailed early in the beginnings of the creation of the good ole US of A … we may be eating eagles for thanksgiving.
Why?
Because if it had been up to Benjamin Franklin the turkey would have been the national bird instead of the bald eagle.
Which would have then <of course> made a turkey a protected species <therefore uneatable because unkillable> and … well … I imagine we would be eating eagles on thanksgiving <okay … maybe not … but it made for a fun thought>.
So.
This Thanksgiving I would like to give my thanks to whomever we should thank for getting Ben to focus on something other than turkeys as a national bird.
In case you didn’t know about this the National Wildlife website was kind enough to have actually written something about this in 2007 so I will share their words:
Nations often adopt animals as symbols: England has its lion, India its peacock. On the afternoon of July 4, 1776, just after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress appointed a committee made up of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin to select a design for an official national seal.
The three patriots had different ideas and none of them included the bald eagle. They finally agreed on a drawing of the woman Liberty holding a shield to represent the states. But the members of Congress weren’t inspired by the design and they consulted with William Barton, a Philadelphia artist who produced a new design that included a golden eagle.
Because the golden eagle also flew over European nations, however, the federal lawmakers specified that the bird in the seal should be an American bald eagle. On June 20, 1782, they approved the design that we recognize today.
At the time, the new nation was still at war with England, and the fierce-looking bird seemed to be an appropriate emblem. But from the start, the eagle was a controversial choice. Franklin scowled at it. “For my part,” he declared, “I wish the eagle had not been chosen as the representative of this country. He is a bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched in some dead tree where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing hawk and, when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish and is bearing it to his nest for his young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes the fish. With all this injustice, he is never in good case.”
Some people have since questioned whether the eagle would have been chosen to adorn the seal had the nation not been at war. A year after the Treaty of Paris ended the conflict with Great Britain, Franklin argued that the turkey would have been a more appropriate symbol. “A much more respectable bird and a true native of America,” he pointed out. Franklin conceded that the turkey was “a little vain and silly,” but maintained that it was nevertheless a “bird of courage” that “would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.”
In addition.
In a letter to his daughter Franklin was not particularly nice with regard to our bald eagle:
Franklin’s Letter to His Daughter (excerpt)
“With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country…
By the way.
Three other types of birds were suggested in the preliminary United States Great Seal designs:
– a rooster
– a dove
– a phoenix in flames
Also. An imperial two-headed eagle <not unlike the pre-soviet Russia emblem> was in the initial discussion..
Oh.
Speaking of birds with honors <and … no … I am not speaking of giving the honorable proverbial ‘bird’ to someone> … what’s up with state birds?
Why the heck do we have state birds?
And its kind of screwed up because they aren’t even really state birds … because states actually share state birds.
<… heck … every state has an official state bird, state flower, state tree, state flower … bla bla bla … what the hell is the point of this? A state has a lot of different birds, trees, flowers so why pick one to be “official”? … oops … sorry … I digressed …>
Anyway.
Apparently the cardinal is the most popular bird. It is the official state bird in 7 states <Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia … I think> followed by the western meadowlark in 6 states and the mockingbird in 5 states. This also makes me ponder the thought that if say maybe the cardinal reached a majority of states as a state bird … would it then be voting out the bald eagle and become the national bird?
Just in case you are wondering.
Every state officially flips the bird.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Give someone a bird today.
“Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.” – Hugh McLeod
“ … doing something seriously creative is one of the most amazing experiences one can have, in this or any other lifetime.” – Hugh McLeod
“The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you.” – Hugh McLeod
Well.
So you want to be more creative in art, in business, whatever … let’s just say Life.
Hugh MacLeod tells you how.
Beware <part 1>.
He’s funny, sadly insightful about Life and highlights the value of authenticity and hard work.
He says some really smart things.
And in a way that makes you sometimes scratch your head. And sometimes laugh <while crying on the inside having lived through a version of it>.
But in the end his ramblings reveal the real challenges and rewards of being creative, and a creative thinker, in not only a creative business but in any business.
Here are some tips he shares on how to be creative.
Beware <part 2>.
This is long. There are 26 tips on how to be creative. Some are focused more on advertising but most have some fabulous Life lesson inserted into the prose.
There are so many great tidbits I wanted to highlight them all … but instead share them in their full glory.
Enjoy.
1. Ignore everybody.
The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you.
When I first started with the cartoon-onback-of-bizcard format, people thought I was nuts. Why wasn’t I trying to do something more easy for markets to digest, i.e., cutie-pie greeting cards or whatever? You don’t know if your idea is any good the moment it’s created. Neither does anyone else.
The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feelings is not as easy as the optimists say it is. There’s a reason why feelings scare us. And asking close friends never works quite as well as you hope, either. It’s not that they deliberately want to be unhelpful. It’s just they don’t know your world one millionth as well as you know your world, no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard you try to explain.
Plus, a big idea will change you. Your friends may love you, but they don’t want you to change. If you change, then their dynamic with you also changes. They like things the way they are, that’s how they love you—the way you are, not the way you may become.
Ergo, they have no incentive to see you change. And they will be resistant to anything that catalyzes it. That’s human nature. And you would do the same, if the shoe were on the other foot.
With business colleagues, it’s even worse. They’re used to dealing with you in a certain way. They’re used to having a certain level of control over the relationship. And they want whatever makes them more prosperous. Sure, they might prefer it if you prosper as well, but that’s not their top priority.
If your idea is so good that it changes your dynamic enough to where you need them less or, God forbid, THE MARKET needs them less, then they’re going to resist your idea every chance they can.
Again, that’s human nature.
Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships that is why good ideas are always initially resisted.
Good ideas come with a heavy burden. Which is why so few people have them. So few people can handle it.
Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships that is why good ideas are always initially resisted.
2. The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to change the world.
The two are not the same thing.
We all spend a lot of time being impressed by folks we’ve never met.
Somebody featured in the media who’s got a big company, a big product, a big movie, a big bestseller.
Whatever.
And we spend even more time trying unsuccessfully to keep up with them. Trying to start up our own companies, our own products, our own film projects, books and whatnot. I’m as guilty as anyone. I tried lots of different things over the years, trying desperately to pry my career out of the jaws of mediocrity. Some to do with business, some to do with art, etc. One evening, after one false start too many, I just gave up. Sitting at a bar, feeling a bit burned out by work and life in general, I just started drawing on the back of business cards for no reason. I didn’t really need a reason. I just did it because it was there, because it amused me in a kind of random, arbitrary way.
Of course it wasn’t commercial.
Of course it wasn’t going to go anywhere.
Of course it was a complete and utter waste of time.
But in retrospect, it was this built-in futility that gave it its edge. Because it was the exact opposite of all the “Big Plans” my peers and I were used to making. It was so liberating not to have to be thinking about all that, for a change.
It was so liberating to be doing something that didn’t have to impress anybody, for a change.
It was so liberating to have something that belonged just to me and no one else, for a change.
It was so liberating to feel complete sovereignty, for a change.
To feel complete freedom, for a change.
And of course, it was then, and only then, that the outside world started paying attention. The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will. How your own sovereignty inspires other people to find their own sovereignty, their own sense of freedom and possibility, will change the world far more than the the work’s objective merits ever will.
Your idea doesn’t have to be big.
It just has to be yours alone. The more the idea is yours alone, the more freedom you have to do something really amazing.
The more amazing, the more people will click with your idea. The more people click with your idea, the more it will change the world.
That’s what doodling on business cards taught me. The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.
3. Put the hours in.
Doing anything worthwhile takes forever.
90% of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort, and
stamina. I get asked a lot, “Your business card format is very simple. Aren’t you worried about somebody ripping it off?”
Standard Answer: Only if they can draw more of them than me, better than me.
What gives the work its edge is the simple fact that I’ve spent years drawing them. I’ve drawn thousands.
Tens of thousands of man-hours.
So if somebody wants to rip my idea off, go ahead. If somebody wants to overtake me in the business card doodle wars, go ahead. You’ve got many long years in front of you. And unlike me, you won’t be doing it for the joy of it. You’ll be doing it for some self-loathing, ill-informed, lame-ass mercenary reason. So the years will be even longer and far, far more painful. Lucky you.
If somebody in your industry is more successful than you, it’s probably because he works harder at it than you do. Sure, maybe he’s more inherently talented, more adept at networking, etc., but I don’t consider that an excuse. Over time, that advantage counts for less and less. Which is why the world is full of highly talented, network-savvy, failed mediocrities.
So yeah, success means you’ve got a long road ahead of you, regardless. How do you best manage it?
Well, as I’ve written elsewhere, don’t quit your day job. I didn’t. I work every day at the office, same as any other regular schmo. I have a long commute on the train; ergo that’s when I do most of my drawing. When I was younger I drew mostly while sitting at a bar, but that got old.
The point is, an hour or two on the train is very manageable for me. The fact I have a job means I don’t feel pressured to do something market-friendly. Instead, I get to do whatever the hell I want. I get to do it for my own satisfaction. And I think that makes the work more powerful in the long run. It also makes it easier to carry on with it in a calm fashion, day-in day-out, and not go crazy in insane, creative bursts brought on by money worries. The day job, which I really like, gives me something productive and interesting to do among fellow adults. It gets me out of the house in the daytime. If I were a professional cartoonist, I’d just be chained to a drawing table at home all day, scribbling out a living in silence, interrupted only by frequent trips to the coffee shop.
No, thank you.
Simply put, my method allows me to pace myself over the long haul, which is important.
Stamina is utterly important. And stamina is only possible if it’s managed well. People think all they need to do is endure one crazy, intense, job-free creative burst and their dreams will come true. They are wrong, they are stupidly wrong.
Put the hours in; do it for long enough and magical, life-transforming things happen eventually.
Being good at anything is like figure skating—the definition of being good at it is being able to make it look easy. But it never is easy. Ever. That’s what the stupidly wrong people conveniently forget.
If I was just starting out writing, say, a novel or a screenplay, or maybe starting up a new software company, I wouldn’t try to quit my job in order to make this big, dramatic, heroicquest thing about it.
I would do something far simpler: I would find that extra hour or two in the day that belongs to nobody else but me, and I would make it productive. Put the hours in; do it for long enough and magical, life-transforming things happen eventually. Sure, that means less time watching TV, Internet-surfing, going out, or whatever.
But who cares?
4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain. I was offered a quite substantial publishing deal a year or two ago. Turned it down. The company sent me a contract. I looked it over. Called the company back. Asked for some clarifications on some points in the contract. Never heard back from them. The deal died.
This was a very respected company. You may have even heard of it. They just assumed I must be just like all the other people they represent—hungry and desperate and willing to sign anything.
They wanted to own me, regardless of how good a job they did. That’s the thing about some big publishers. They want 110% from you, but they don’t offer to do likewise in return. To them, the artist is just one more noodle in a big bowl of pasta. Their business model is to basically throw the pasta against the wall, and see which one sticks. The ones that fall to the floor are just forgotten. Publishers are just middlemen. That’s all. If artists could remember that more often, they’d save themselves a lot of aggravation.
Anyway, yeah, I can see gapingvoid being a ‘product’ one day. Books, T-shirts and whatnot.
I think it could make a lot of money, if handled correctly.
But I’m not afraid to walk away if I think the person offering it is full of hot air. I’ve already got my groove, etc. Not to mention another career that’s doing quite well, thank you. I think the gaping void-as-product-line idea is pretty inevitable, down the road.
Watch this space.
5. You are responsible for your own experience.
Nobody can tell you if what you’re doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the lonelier it is. Every creative person is looking for “The Big Idea.”
You know, the one that is going to catapult them out from the murky depths of obscurity and on to the highest planes of incandescent lucidity.
The one that’s all love-at-first-sight with the Zeitgeist.
The one that’s going to get them invited to all the right parties, metaphorical or otherwise.
So naturally you ask yourself, if and when you finally come up with The Big Idea, after years of toil, struggle and doubt, how do you know whether or not it is “The One?”
Answer: You don’t.
There’s no glorious swelling of existential triumph. That’s not what happens. All you get is this rather kvetchy voice inside you that seems to say, “This is totally stupid. This is utterly moronic. This is a complete waste of time. I’m going to do it anyway.”
And you go do it anyway.
Second-rate ideas like glorious swellings far more. Keeps them alive longer.
6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, “I’d like my crayons back, please.”
So you’ve got the itch to do something. Write a screenplay, start a painting, write a book, turn your recipe for fudge brownies into a proper business, whatever. You don’t know where the itch came from; it’s almost like it just arrived on your doorstep, uninvited. Until now you were quite happy holding down a real job, being a regular person … until now.
You don’t know if you’re any good or not, but you’d think you could be.
And the idea terrifies you. The problem is, even if you are good, you know nothing about this kind of business. You don’t know any publishers or agents or all these fancy-shmancy kind of folk. You have a friend who’s got a cousin in California who’s into this kind of stuff, but you haven’t talked to your friend for over two years.
Besides, if you write a book, what if you can’t find a publisher? If you write a screenplay, what if you can’t find a producer? And what if the producer turns out to be a crook?
You’ve always worked hard your whole life; you’ll be damned if you’ll put all that effort into something if there ain’t no pot of gold at the end of this dumb-ass rainbow.
Heh. That’s not your wee voice asking for the crayons back. That’s your outer voice, your adult voice, your boring and tedious voice trying to find a way to get the wee crayon voice to shut the hell up.
Your wee voice doesn’t want you to sell something. Your wee voice wants you to make something.
There’s a big difference. Your wee voice doesn’t give a damn about publishers or Hollywood producers.
Go ahead and make something.
Make something really special. Make something amazing that will really blow the mind of anybody who sees it. If you try to make something just to fit your uninformed view of some hypothetical market, you will fail. If you make something special and powerful and honest and true, you will succeed. The wee voice didn’t show up because it decided you need more money or you need to hang out with movie stars. Your wee voice came back because your soul somehow depends on it.
There’s something you haven’t said, something you haven’t done, some light that needs to be switched on, and it needs to be taken care of. Now. So you have to listen to the wee voice or it will die … taking a big chunk of you along with it. They’re only crayons. You didn’t fear them in kindergarten, why fear them now?
7. Keep your day job.
I’m not just saying that for the usual reason i.e., because I think your idea will fail. I’m saying it because to suddenly quit one’s job in a big ol’ creative drama-queen moment is always, always, always in direct conflict with what I call “The Sex & Cash Theory.”
THE SEX & CASH THEORY: The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs. One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.
A good example is Phil, a NY photographer friend of mine. He does really wild stuff for the indie magazines—it pays nothing, but it allows him to build his portfolio. Then he’ll go off and shoot some catalogs for a while. Nothing too exciting, but it pays the bills.
Another example is somebody like Martin Amis. He writes “serious” novels, but he has to supplement his income by writing the occasional newspaper article for the London papers (novel royalties are bloody pathetic—even bestsellers like Amis aren’t immune).
Or actors. One year Travolta will be in an ultra-hip flick like Pulp Fiction (“Sex”), the next he’ll be in some dumb spy thriller (“Cash”).
Or painters. You spend one month painting blue pictures because that’s the color the celebrity collectors are buying this season (“Cash”), you spend the next month painting red pictures because secretly you despise the color blue and love the color red (“Sex”).
Or geeks. You spend you weekdays writing code for a faceless corporation (“Cash”), then you spend your evening and weekends writing anarchic, weird computer games with which to amuse your techie friends (“Sex”).
It’s balancing the need to make a good living while still maintaining one’s creative sovereignty.
My M.O. is gapingvoid (“Sex”), coupled with my day job (“Cash”).
I’m thinking about the young writer who has to wait tables to pay the bills, in spite of her writing appearing in all the cool and hip magazines … who dreams of one day of not having her life divided so harshly.
Well, over time the “harshly” bit might go away, but not the “divided.”
This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.
As soon as you accept this, I mean really accept this, for some reason your career starts moving ahead faster. I don’t know why this happens. It’s the people who refuse to cleave their lives this way — who just want to start Day One by quitting their current crappy day job and moving straight on over to best-selling author … well, they never make it.
Anyway, it’s called “The Sex & Cash Theory.” Keep it under your pillow.
The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs. One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills.
8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
Nor can you bully a subordinate into becoming a genius.
Since the modern, scientifically-conceived corporation was invented in the early half of the Twentieth Century, creativity has been sacrificed in favor of forwarding the interests of the “Team Player.”
Fair enough. There was more money in doing it that way; that’s why they did it.
There’s only one problem. Team Players are not very good at creating value on their own.
They are not autonomous; they need a team in order to exist.
So now corporations are awash with non-autonomous thinkers.
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
And so on.
Creating an economically viable entity where lack of original thought is handsomely rewarded creates a rich, fertile environment for parasites to breed. And that’s exactly what’s been happening.
So now we have millions upon millions of human tapeworms thriving in the Western World, making love to their Powerpoint presentations, feasting on the creativity of others. What happens to an ecology, when the parasite level reaches critical mass?
The ecology dies.
If you’re creative, if you can think independently, if you can articulate passion, if you can override the fear of being wrong, then your company needs you now more than it ever did.
And now your company can no longer afford to pretend that isn’t the case.
So dust off your horn and start tooting it. Exactly.
However if you’re not particularly creative, then you’re in real trouble. And there’s no buzzword or “new paradigm” that can help you. They may not have mentioned this in business school, but … people like watching dinosaurs die.
Bottom line. We have millions upon millions of human tapeworms thriving in the Western World, making love to their Powerpoint presentations, feasting on the creativity of others.
9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don’t make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.
This metaphorical Mount Everest doesn’t have to manifest itself as “Art.” For some people, yes, it might be a novel or a painting.
But Art is just one path up the mountain, one of many. With others, the path may be something more prosaic. Making a million dollars, raising a family, owning the most Burger King franchises in the Tri-State area, building some crazy over-sized model airplane, the list has no end.
Whatever.
Let’s talk about you now. Your mountain. Your private Mount Everest. Yes, that one.
Exactly.
Let’s say you never climb it. Do you have a problem with that? Can you just say to yourself, “Never mind, I never really wanted it anyway,” and take up stamp-collecting instead? Well, you could try. But I wouldn’t believe you. I think it’s not okay for you never to try to climb it. And I think you agree with me. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have read this far.
So it looks like you’re going to have to climb the frickin’ mountain. Deal with it.
My advice?
You don’t need my advice. You really don’t. The biggest piece of advice I could give anyone would be this:
“Admit that your own private Mount Everest exists. That is half the battle.”
And you’ve already done that. You really have. Otherwise, again, you wouldn’t have read this far. Rock on.
10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would SERIOUSLY surprise me.
Abraham Lincoln wrote The Gettysburg Address on a piece of ordinary stationery that he had borrowed from the friend in whose house he was staying. James Joyce wrote with a simple pencil and notebook. Somebody else did the typing, but only much later.
Van Gogh rarely painted with more than six colors on his palette.
I draw on the back of wee biz cards.
Whatever.
There’s no correlation between creativity and equipment ownership. None. Zilch. Nada.
Actually, as the artist gets more into his thing, and as he gets more successful, his number of tools tends to go down. He knows what works for him. Expending mental energy on stuff wastes time. He’s a man on a mission. He’s got a deadline. He’s got some rich client breathing down his neck. The last thing he wants is to spend 3 weeks learning how to use a router drill if he doesn’t need to.
A fancy tool just gives the second-rater one more pillar to hide behind.
Which is why there are so many second-rate art directors with state-of-the-art Macintosh computers.
Which is why there are so many hack writers with state-of-the-art laptops.
Which is why there are so many crappy photographers with state-of-the-art digital cameras. Which is why there are so many unremarkable painters with expensive studios in trendy neighborhoods.
Hiding behind pillars, all of them.
A fancy tool just gives the second-rater one more pillar to hide behind. Pillars do not help; they hinder. The more mighty the pillar, the more you end up relying on it psychologically, the more it gets in your way.
And this applies to business, as well.
Which is why there are so many failing businesses with fancy offices.
Which is why there are so many failing businessmen spending a fortune on fancy suits and expensive yacht club memberships.
Again, hiding behind pillars. Successful people, artists and non-artists alike, are very good at spotting pillars. They’re very good at doing without them. Even more importantly, once they’ve spotted a pillar, they’re very good at quickly getting rid of it.
Good pillar management is one of the most valuable talents you can have on the planet. If you have it, I envy you. If you don’t, I pity you.
Sure, nobody’s perfect. We all have our pillars. We seem to need them. You are never going to live a pillar-free existence. Neither am I.
All we can do is keep asking the question, “Is this a pillar?” about every aspect of our business, our craft, our reason for being alive, etc., and go from there. The more we ask, the better we get at spotting pillars, the more quickly the pillars vanish.
Ask. Keep asking. And then ask again. Stop asking and you’re dead.
11. Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
Your plan for getting your work out there has to be as original as the actual work, perhaps even more so. The work has to create a totally new market. There’s no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one. I’ve seen it so many times. Call him Ted. A young kid in the big city, just off the bus, wanting to be a famous something: artist, writer, musician, film director, whatever. He’s full of fire, full of passion, full of ideas. And you meet Ted again five or ten years later, and he’s still tending bar at the same restaurant. He’s not a kid anymore. But he’s still no closer to his dream.
His voice is still as defiant as ever, certainly, but there’s an emptiness to his words that wasn’t there before.
Yeah, well, Ted probably chose a very well-trodden path. Write novel, be discovered, publish bestseller, sell movie rights, retire rich in 5 years. Or whatever.
No worries that there are probably three million other novelists/actors/musicians/painters/etc with the same plan. But of course, Ted’s special. Of course his fortune will defy the odds eventually.
Of course. That’s what he keeps telling you, as he refills your glass.
Is your plan of a similar ilk? If it is, then I’d be concerned.
When I started the business card cartoons I was lucky; at the time I had a pretty well-paid corporate job in New York that I liked. The idea of quitting it in order to join the ranks of Bohemia didn’t even occur to me. What, leave Manhattan for Brooklyn? Ha. Not bloody likely.
I was just doing it to amuse myself in the evenings, to give me something to do at the bar while I waited for my date to show up or whatever. There was no commercial incentive or larger agenda governing my actions. If I wanted to draw on the back of a business card instead of a “proper” medium, I could. If I wanted to use a four-letter word, I could. If I wanted to ditch the standard figurative format and draw psychotic abstractions instead, I could. There was no flashy media or publishing executive to keep happy. And even better, there was no artist-lifestyle archetype to conform to.
It gave me a lot of freedom. That freedom paid off in spades, later.
Question how much freedom your path affords you. Be utterly ruthless about it.
It’s your freedom that will get you to where you want to go. Blind faith in an over-subscribed, vainglorious myth will only hinder you.
Is your plan unique? Is there nobody else doing it? Then I’d be excited. A little scared, maybe, but excited.
12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
The pain of making the necessary sacrifices always hurts more than you think it’s going to. I know. It sucks. That being said, doing something seriously creative is one of the most amazing experiences one can have, in this or any other lifetime. If you can pull it off, it’s worth it. Even if you don’t end up pulling it off, you’ll learn many incredible, magical, valuable things. It’s NOT doing it when you know you full well you HAD the opportunity—that hurts FAR more than any failure. Frankly, I think you’re better off doing something on the assumption that you will NOT be rewarded for it, that it will NOT receive the recognition it deserves, that it will NOT be worth the time and effort invested in it.
The obvious advantage to this angle is, of course, if anything good comes of it, then it’s an added bonus.
The second, more subtle and profound advantage is: that by scuppering all hope of worldly and social betterment from the creative act, you are finally left with only one question to answer:
Do you make this damn thing exist or not?
And once you can answer that truthfully to yourself, the rest is easy.
13. Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.
The more you practice your craft, the less you confuse worldly rewards with spiritual rewards, and vice versa. Even if your path never makes any money or furthers your career, that’s still worth a TON. When I was 16 or 17 in Edinburgh I vaguely knew this guy who owned a shop called “Cinders,” on St. Stephen’s Street. It specialized in restoring antique fireplaces. Cinders’ modus operandi was very simple. Buy original Georgian and Victorian chimneypieces from old, dilapidated houses for 10 cents on the dollar, give them a loving but expedient makeover in the workshop, sell them at vast profit to yuppies.
Back then I was insatiably curious about how people made a living (I still am). So one day, while sitting on his stoop I chatted with the fireplace guy about it. He told me about the finer points of his trade—the hunting through old houses, the craftsmanship, the customer relations, and of course the profit. The fellow seemed quite proud of his job. From how he described it he seemed to like his trade and be making a decent living. Scotland was going through a bit of a recession at the time; unemployment was high, money was tight; I guess for an aging hippie things could’ve been a lot worse.
Very few kids ever said, “Gosh, when I grow up I’m going to be a fireplace guy!” It’s not the most obvious trade in the world. I asked him about how he fell into it.
“I used to be an antiques dealer,” he said. “People who spend a lot of money on antiques also seem to spend a lot of money restoring their houses. So I sort of got the whiff of opportunity just by talking to people in my antiques shop. Also, there are too many antique dealers in Edinburgh crowding the market, so I was looking for an easier way to make a living.”
Like the best jobs in the world, it just kinda sorta happened.
“Well, some of the fireplaces are real beauties,” I said. “It must be hard parting with them.” “No it isn’t,” he said (and this is the part I remember most). “I mean, I like them, but because they take up so much room—they’re so big and bulky—I’m relieved to be rid of them once they’re sold. I just want them out of the shop ASAP and the cash in my pocket. Selling them is easy for me. Unlike antiques. I always loved antiques, so I was always falling in love with the inventory, I always wanted to hang on to my best stuff. I’d always subconsciously price them too high in order to keep them from leaving the shop.”
Being young and idealistic, I told him I thought that was quite sad. Why choose to sell a “mere product” (i.e., chimneypieces) when instead you could make your living selling something you really care about (i.e., antiques)? Surely the latter would be a preferable way to work.
“The first rule of business,” he said, chuckling at my naiveté, “is never sell something you love. Otherwise, you may as well be selling your children.”
Fifteen years later, I’m at a bar in New York. Some friend-of-a-friend is looking at my cartoons. He asks me if I publish. I tell him I don’t. Tell him it’s just a hobby. Tell him about my advertising job. “Man, why the hell are you in advertising?” he says, pointing to my portfolio. “You should be doing this. Galleries and shit.”
“Advertising’s just chimney pieces,” I say, speaking into my glass.
“What the fuck?”
“Never mind.”
14. Dying young is overrated.
I’ve seen so many young people take the “Gotta do the drugs & booze thing to make me a better artist” route over the years. A choice that wasn’t smart, original, effective, or healthy, nor ended happily. It’s a familiar story: a kid reads about Charlie Parker or Jimi Hendrix or Charles Bukowski and somehow decides that their poetic but flawed example somehow gives him permission and/or absolution to spend the next decade or two drowning in his own metaphorical vomit.
Of course, the older you get, the more casualties of this foolishness you meet. The more time has had to ravage their lives. The more pathetic they seem. And the less remarkable work they seem to have to show for it, for all their “amazing experiences” and “special insights.” The smarter and more talented the artist is, the less likely he will choose this route. Sure, he might screw around a wee bit while he’s young and stupid, but he will move on quicker than most.
But the kid thinks it’s all about talent: he thinks it’s all about “potential.” He underestimates how much time, discipline and stamina also play their part.
Sure, like Bukowski et al., there are exceptions. But that is why we like their stories when we’re young. Because they are exceptional stories. And every kid with a guitar or a pen or a paintbrush or an idea for a new business wants to be exceptional. Every kid underestimates his competition and overestimates his chances. Every kid is a sucker for the idea that there’s a way to make it without having to do the actual hard work.
The bars of West Hollywood and New York are awash with people throwing their lives away in the desperate hope of finding a shortcut, any shortcut. And a lot of them aren’t even young anymore; their B-plans having been washed away by vodka & tonics years ago.
Meanwhile their competition is at home, working their asses off.
15. The most important thing a creative person can learn, professionally, is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. The more you need the money, the more people will tell you what to do. The less control you will have. The more bullshit you will have to swallow. The less joy it will bring. Know this and plan accordingly. Recently, I heard Chris Ware, currently one of the top 2 or 3 most critically acclaimed cartoonists on the planet, describe his profession as “unrewarding.”
When the guy at the top of the ladder you’re climbing describes the view from the top as “unrewarding,” be concerned. Heh. I knew Chris back in college, at The University of Texas. Later, in the early 1990’s I knew him hanging around Wicker Park in Chicago, that famous arty neighborhood, while he was getting his Masters from The School of The Art Institute, and I was working as a junior copywriter at
Leo Burnett. We weren’t that close, but we had mutual friends. He’s a nice guy. Smart as hell.
So I’ve watched him over the years go from talented undergraduate to famous rockstar comic strip guy. Nice to see, certainly—it’s encouraging when people you know get deservedly famous. But also it was really helpful for me to see first-hand the realities of being a professional cartoonist, both good and bad. It’s nice to get a snapshot of reality.
His example really clarified a lot for me about 5-10 years ago when I got to the point where my cartoons got good enough to where I could actually consider doing it professionally. I looked at the market, saw the kind of life Chris and others like him had, saw the people in the business calling the shots, saw the kind of deluded planet most cartoon publishers were living on, and went, “Naaaah.”
Thinking about it some more, I think one of the main reasons I stayed in advertising is simply because hearing “change that ad” pisses me off a lot less than “change that cartoon.” Though the compromises one has to make writing ads can often be tremendous, there’s only so much you have to take personally. It’s their product, it’s their money, so it’s easier to maintain healthy boundaries. With cartooning, I invariably found this impossible.
The most important thing a creative person can learn, professionally, is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not. It is this red line that demarcates your sovereignty, that defines your own private creative domain. What shit you are willing to take, and what shit you’re not. What you are willing to relinquish control over, and what you aren’t. What price you are willing to pay, and what price you aren’t. Everybody is different; everybody has his or her own red line. Everybody has his or her own Sex and Cash Theory.
When I see somebody “suffering for their art,” it’s usually a case of them not knowing where that red line is, not knowing where the sovereignty lies. Somehow he thought that sleazy producer wouldn’t make him butcher his film with pointless rewrites, but alas! Somehow he thought that gallery owner would turn out to be a competent businessman, but alas! Somehow he thought that publisher would promote his new novel properly, but alas! Somehow he thought that Venture Capitalist would be less of an asshole about the start-up’s cash flow, but alas! Somehow he thought that CEO would support his new marketing initiative, but alas!
Knowing where to draw the red line is like knowing yourself, like knowing who your real friends are.
Some are better at it than others. Life is unfair.
16. The world is changing.
Some people are hip to it, others are not. If you want to be able to afford groceries in 5 years, I’d recommend listening closely to the former and avoiding the latter. Just my two cents.
Your job is probably worth 50% what it was in real terms 10 years ago. And who knows? It may very well not exist in 5-10 years.
We all saw the traditional biz model in my industry, advertising, start going down the tubes 10 years or so ago. Our first reaction was “work harder.”
It didn’t work. People got shafted in the thousands. It’s a cold world out there.
We thought being talented would save our asses. We thought working late and weekends would save our asses. Nope.
We thought the Internet and all that Next Big Thing, new media and new technology stuff would save our asses. We thought it would fill in the holes in the ever-more-intellectually bankrupt solutions we were offering our clients. Nope.
Whatever.
Regardless of how the world changes, regardless of what new technologies, business models and social architectures are coming down the pike, the one thing “The New Realities” cannot take away from you is trust.
The people you trust and vice versa, this is what will feed you and pay for your kids’ college.
Nothing else.
This is true if you’re an artist, writer, doctor, techie, lawyer, banker, or bartender. I.e., stop worrying about technology. Start worrying about people who trust you.
In order to navigate The New Realities you have to be creative—not just within your particular profession, but in EVERYTHING. Your way of looking at the world will need to become ever more fertile and original. And this isn’t just true for artists, writers, techies, Creative Directors and CEOs; this is true for EVERYBODY. Janitors, receptionists and bus drivers, too. The game has just been ratcheted up a notch. When I see somebody “suffering for their art,” it’s usually a case of them not knowing where that red line is, not knowing where the sovereignty lies.
The old ways are dead. And you need people around you who concur.
That means hanging out more with the creative people, the freaks, the real visionaries, than you’re already doing. Thinking more about what their needs are, and responding accordingly. It doesn’t matter what industry we’re talking about—architecture, advertising, petrochemicals they’re around, they’re easy enough to find if you make the effort, if you’ve got something worthwhile to offer in return. Avoid the dullards; avoid the folk who play it safe. They can’t help you anymore. Their stability model no longer offers that much stability. They are extinct, they are extinction.
17. Merit can be bought. Passion can’t.
The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does. Human beings have this thing I call the “Pissed Off Gene.” It’s that bit of our psyche that makes us utterly dissatisfied with our lot, no matter how kindly fortune smiles upon us. It’s there for a reason. Back in our early caveman days being pissed off made us more likely to get off our butt, get out of the cave and into the tundra hunting woolly mammoth, so we’d have something to eat for supper. It’s a survival mechanism. Damn useful then, damn useful now. It’s this same Pissed Off Gene that makes us want to create anything in the first place—drawings, violin sonatas, meat packing companies, websites. This same gene drove us to discover how to make a fire, the wheel, the bow and arrow, indoor plumbing, the personal computer, the list is endless.
Part of understanding the creative urge is understanding that it’s primal. Wanting to change the world is not a noble calling; it’s a primal calling. We think we’re “providing a superior integrated logistic system” or “helping America to really taste freshness.” In fact we’re just pissed off and want to get the hell out of the cave and kill the woolly mammoth. Your business either lets you go hunt the woolly mammoth or it doesn’t. Of course, like so many white-collar jobs these days, you might very well be offered a ton of money to sit in the corner-office cave and pretend that you’re hunting. That is sad. What’s even sadder is if you agree to take the money.
18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.
They’re a well-meaning bunch, but they get in the way eventually.
Back when I worked for a large advertising agency as a young rookie, it used to just bother me how much the “Watercooler Gang” just kvetched all the time. The “Watercooler Gang” was my term for what was still allowed to exist in the industry back then.
Packs of second-rate creatives, many years passed their sell-by date, being squeezed by the Creative Directors for every last ounce of juice they had, till it came time to firing them on the cheap. Taking too many trips to the watercooler and coming back drunk from lunch far too
often. Working late nights and weekends on all the boring-but-profitable accounts. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
I remember some weeks where one could easily spend half an hour a day, listening to Ted complain.
Ted used to have a window office but now had a cube ever since that one disastrous meeting with Client X. He would come visit me in my cube at least once a day and start his thing.
Complain, complain, complain…about whatever… how Josh-The-Golden-Boy was a shit writer and a complete phony…or how they bought Little-Miss-Hot-Pants’s ad instead of his, “even though mine was the best in the room and every bastard there knew it.”
Like I said, whatever.
It was endless…Yak Yak Yak… Oi vey! Ted, I love ya, you’re a great guy, but shut the hell up….
In retrospect, it was Ted’s example that taught me a very poignant lesson—back then I was still too young and naïve to have learned it by that point—that your office could be awash with Clios and One Show awards, yet your career could still be down the sinkhole. Your office could be awash with Clios and One Show awards, yet your career could still be down the sinkhole.
Don’t get me wrong—my career there was a complete disaster. This is not a case of one of the Alphas mocking the Betas. This is a Gamma mocking the Betas.
I’m having lunch with my associate, John, who’s about the same age as me. Cheap and cheerful Thai food, just down the road from the agency.
“I gotta get out of this company,” I say.
“I thought you liked your job,” says John.
“I do,” I say. “But the only reason they like having me around is because I’m still young and cheap. The minute I am no longer either, I’m dead meat.”
“Like Ted,” says John.
“Yeah…him and the rest of The Watercooler Gang.”
“The Watercoolies,” laughs John.
So we had a good chuckle about our poor, hapless elders. We weren’t that sympathetic, frankly. Their lives might have been hell then, but they had already had their glory moments.
They had won their awards, flown off to The Bahamas to shoot toilet paper ads with famous movie stars and all that. Unlike us young’uns. John and I had only been out of college a couple of years and had still yet to make our mark on the industry we had entered with about as much passion and hope as anybody alive.
We had sold a few newspaper ads now and then, some magazine spreads, but the TV stuff was still well beyond reach. So far, the agency we had worked for had yet to allow us to shine. Was this our fault or theirs? Maybe a little bit of both, but back then it was all “their fault, dammit!” Of course, everything is “their fault, dammit!” when you’re 24.
I quit my job about a year later. John stayed on with the agency, for whatever reason, then about 5 years ago got married, with his first kid following soon after. Suddenly with a family to support he couldn’t afford to get fired. The Creative Director knew this and started to squeeze. “You don’t mind working this weekend, John, do you? Good. I knew you wouldn’t. We all know how much the team relies on you to deliver at crunch time—that’s why we value you so highly, John, wouldn’t you say?”
Last time I saw John he was working at this horrible little agency for a fraction of his former salary. Turns out the big agency had tossed him out about a week after his kid’s second birthday.
We’re sitting there at the Thai restaurant again, having lunch for old time’s sake. We’re having
a good time, talking about the usual artsy-fartsy stuff we always do. It’s a great conversation, marred only by the fact that I can’t get the word “watercooler” out of my goddamn head…
Back then it was all “their fault, dammit!” Of course, everything is “their fault, dammit!” when you’re 24.
19. Sing in your own voice.
Picasso was a terrible colorist. Turner couldn’t paint human beings worth a damn.
Saul Steinberg’s formal drafting skills were appalling. T.S. Eliot had a full-time day job. Henry Miller was a wildly uneven writer. Bob Dylan can’t sing or play guitar.
But that didn’t stop them, right?
So I guess the next question is, “Why not?”
I have no idea. Why should it?
20. The choice of media is irrelevant.
Every media’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Every form of media is a
set of fundamental compromises; one is not “higher” than the other.
A painting doesn’t do much; it just sits there on a wall. That’s the best and worst thing about it. Film combines sound, movement, photography, music, acting. That’s the best and worst thing about it.
Prose just uses words arranged in linear form to get its point across. That’s the best and worst thing about it, etc.
Back in college, I was an English Major. I had no aspirations for teaching, writing or academe; it was just a subject I could get consistently high grades in. Plus, I liked to read books and write papers, so it worked well enough for me. Most of my friends were Liberal Arts Majors, but there the similarity ended. We never really went to class together. I dunno, we’d meet up in the evenings and weekends, but I never really socialized with people in my classes that much.
So it was always surprising to me to meet the Art Majors: fine arts, film, drama, architecture, etc. They seemed to live in each other’s pockets. They all seemed to work, eat, and sleep together.
Lots of bonding going on. Lots of collaboration. Lots of incestuousness. Lots of speeches about the sanctity of their craft.
Well, a cartoon only needs one person to make it. Same with a piece of writing. No Big Group Hug required. So all this sex-fueled socialism was rather alien to me, even if parts of it seemed very appealing.
During my second year at college, I started getting my cartoons published, and not just the school paper. Suddenly I found meeting girls easy. I was very happy about that, I can assure you, but life carried on pretty much the same.
My M.O. was, and still is, to just have a normal life, be a regular schmo, with a terrific hobby on the side. I suppose my friends thought the cartooning gigs were neat or whatever, but it wasn’t really anything that affected our friendship. It was just something I did on the side, the way other people restored old cars or or kept a darkroom for their camera. My M.O. was, and still is, to just have a normal life, be a regular schmo, with a terrific hobby on the side. It’s not exactly rocket science.
This attitude seemed kinda alien to the Art Majors I met. Their chosen art form seemed more like a religion to them. It was serious. It was important. It was a big part of their identity, and it almost seemed to them that humanity’s very existence totally depended on them being able to pursue their dream as a handsomely rewarded profession etc. Don’t get me wrong, I knew some Art Majors who were absolutely brilliant. One or two of them are famous now. And I can see if you’ve got a special talent, how the need to seriously pursue it becomes important.
But looking back, I also see a lot of screwy kids who married themselves to their medium of choice for the wrong reasons. Not because they had anything particularly unique or visionary to say, but because it was cool. Because it was sexy. Because it was hip. Because it gave them something to talk about at parties. Because it was easier than thinking about getting a real job after graduation.
Looking back, I also see a lot of screwy kids who married themselves to their medium of choice for the wrong reasons. I’m in two minds about this. One part of me thinks it’s good for kids to mess around with insanely high ambitions, and maybe one or two of them will make it, maybe one or two will survive the cull. That’s what’s being young is all about, and I think it’s wonderful.
The other side of me wants to tell these kids to beware of choosing difficult art forms for the wrong reasons. You can wing it while you’re young, but it’s not till your youth is over that The Devil starts seeking out his due. And that’s never pretty. I’ve seen it happen more than once to some very dear, sweet people, and it’s really heartbreaking to watch.
21. Selling out is harder than it looks.
Diluting your product to make it more “commercial” will just make people like it less. Many years ago, barely out of college, I started schlepping around the ad agencies, looking for my first job. One fine day a Creative Director kindly agreed for me to come show him my portfolio. Hooray! So I came to his office and showed him my work. My work was bloody awful. All of it. Imagine the worst, cheesiest “I used to wash with Sudso but now I wash with Lemon-Fresh Rinso Extreme” vapid housewife crap. Only far worse than that.
The CD was a nice guy. You could tell he didn’t think much of my work, though he was far too polite to blurt it out. Finally he quietly confessed that it wasn’t doing much for him.
“Well, the target market are middle class housewives,” I rambled. “They’re quite conservative,
so I thought I’d better tone it down ..”
“You can tone it down once you’ve gotten the job and once the client comes after your ass with a red hot poker and tells you to tone it down,” he laughed. “Till then, show me the toned-up version.”
This story doesn’t just happen in advertising. It happens everywhere.
22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
Everybody is too busy with their own lives to give a damn about your book, painting, screenplay, etc., especially if you haven’t sold it yet. And the ones that aren’t, you don’t want in your life anyway. Making a big deal over your creative shtick is the kiss of death. That’s all I have to say on the subject.
23. Worrying about “Commercial vs. Artistic” is a complete waste of time.
You can argue about “the shameful state of American Letters” till the cows come home.
They were kvetching about it in 1950; they’ll be kvetching about it in 2050.
It’s a path well trodden, and not a place where one is going to come up with many new, earth-shattering insights. But a lot of people like to dwell on it because it keeps them from having to ever journey into unknown territory. It’s safe. It allows you to have strong emotions and opinions without any real risk to yourself. Without you having to do any of the actual hard work involved in the making and selling of something you believe in.
To me, it’s not about whether Tom Clancy sells truckloads of books, or a Nobel Prize Winner sells diddlysquat. Those are just ciphers, a distraction. To me, it’s about what YOU are going to do with the short time you have left on this earth. Different criteria altogether.
Frankly, how a person nurtures and develops his or her own “creative sovereignty,” with or without the help of the world at large, is in my opinion a much more interesting subject.
24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.
Inspiration precedes the desire to create, not the other way around.
One of the reasons I got into drawing cartoons on the back of business cards was I
could carry them around with me. Living downtown, you spend a lot of time walking around the place. I wanted an art form that was perfect for that.
So if I was walking down the street and I suddenly got hit with the itch to draw something, I could just nip over to the nearest park bench or coffee shop, pull out a blank card from my bag and get busy doing my thing.
Seamless. Effortless. No fuss. I like it.
Before, when I was doing larger works, every time I got an idea while walking down the street
I’d have to quit what I was doing and schlep back to my studio while the inspiration was still buzzing around in my head. Nine times out of ten the inspired moment would have passed by the time I got back, rendering the whole exercise futile. Sure, I’d get drawing anyway, but it always seemed I was drawing a memory, not something happening at that very moment. If you’re arranging your life in such a way that you need to make a lot of fuss between feeling the itch and getting to work, you’re putting the cart before the horse. You’re probably creating a lot of counterproductive “Me, The Artist, I must create, I must leave something to posterity” melodrama. Not interesting for you or for anyone else. You have to find a way of working that makes it dead easy to take full advantage of your inspired moments. They never hit at a convenient time, nor do they last long.
Conversely, neither should you fret too much about “writer’s block,” “artist’s block,” or whatever.
If you’re looking at a blank piece of paper and nothing comes to you, then go do something else. Writer’s block is just a symptom of feeling like you have nothing to say, combined with the rather weird idea that you SHOULD feel the need to say something.
Why?
If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence while it lasts.
The noise will return soon enough. In the meantime, you’re better off going out into the big, wide world, having some adventures, and refilling your well. Trying to create when you don’t feel like it is like making conversation for the sake of making conversation. It’s not really connecting, it’s just droning on like an old, drunken barfly.
25. You have to find your own shtick.
A Picasso always looks like Picasso painted it. Hemingway always sounds like Hemingway. A Beethoven Symphony always sounds like a Beethoven’s Symphony. Part of being a Master is learning how to sing in nobody else’s voice but your own. Every artist is looking for their big, definitive “Ah-Ha!” moment, whether they’re a Master or not. That moment where they finally find their true voice, once and for all.
For me, it was when I discovered drawing on the back of business cards.
Other, more famous and notable examples would be Jackson Pollack discovering splatter paint. Or Robert Ryman discovering all-white canvases. Andy Warhol discovering silkscreen. Hunter S. Thompson discovering Gonzo Journalism. Duchamp discovering the Found Object. Jasper Johns discovering the American Flag. Hemingway discovering brevity. James Joyce discovering stream of-consciousness prose.
Was it luck? Perhaps a little bit.
But it wasn’t the format that made the art great. It was the fact that somehow while playing around with something new, suddenly they found themselves able to put their entire selves into it.
Only then did it become their .shtick,’ their true voice, etc. That’s what people responded to. The humanity, not the form. The voice, not the form. Put your whole self into it, and you will find your true voice. Hold back and you won’t. It’s that simple.
Every artist is looking for their big, definitive “Ah-Ha!” moment, whether they’re a Master or not.
26. Write from the heart.
There is no silver bullet. There is only the love God gave you. As a professional writer, I am interested in how conversation scales. How communication scales, x to the power of n etc etc. Ideally, if you’re in the communication business, you want to say the same thing, the same way to an audience of millions that you would to an audience of one. Imagine the power you’d have if you could pull it off.
But sadly, it doesn’t work that way.
You can’t love a crowd the same way you can love a person.
And a crowd can’t love you the way a single person can love you.
Intimacy doesn’t scale. Not really. Intimacy is a one-on-one phenomenon. It’s not a big deal. Whether you’re writing to an audience of one, five, a thousand, a million, ten million, there’s really only one way to really connect.
One way that actually works: Write from the heart.
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I will never get tired of reading this.
Every time I read it I want to not only write about something I think about something. In my world … and pea like brain … I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Oh.
Now that I shared his thoughts on creativity.
I have a very limited list of sites I link to on my site. I actually have been thoughtful about it. I imagine I shouldn’t invest that much energy and most likely should have more links <especially when I see the gobs of links listed on many of the sites I like to visit> … but … well … this is the way my pea like brain works.
In short why I love Hugh … irreverent brilliant short attention span thoughts.
Visit Hugh and his site www.gapingvoid.com .
There is always something there to ponder.
“The more compelling the path, the lonelier it is.” – Hugh
Hope you found something that resonated with you.
And remember who you are.
“He built his fences out of doors and made the trespassers into guests.”
by Secret Vespers on January 14, 2008 at 6:20 pm
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Well.
The first time I saw this from secretvespers I loved it.
I loved the thought.
We build fences around us.
I imagine all of us do in some form or fashion.
We sometimes build fences to keep people and things out. It’s just our way of keeping our sanity.
And sometimes we build fences to … well … keep ourselves in. It’s safer that way. Instead of wide open spaces with unlimited choices we seek order and limits and a place to go in and out which is where we know we can stand at the threshold … stop … take a breath … and say ‘this is it’ … and go. A place to enter where once we step over the threshold we are in. In and away from everything. And no other doors exist to slip out of.
Without fences?
Uh oh.
Where are the limits? Where are the boundaries? Not only can anyone or anything enter … but what keeps you where you are?
Ah.
But a fence of doors.
What a thought.
We get to keep our cages <which we seem love> but invite the world to visit through a variety of doors. Doors can be closed but entry ways abound.
We have our boundaries and cocoon within which we can be safe but guests are invited.
And we can explore the world in any direction which takes our fancy every morning … not just one door … not just one direction. And you now what? even if we only use that one door every sngle day? We know we have other doors we COULD choose if we wanted to. Sometimes knowing that you have freedom is as important as actually using the freedom.
Oh.
But all those doors. Yikes. Is it safe?
Therein lies the challenge in Life. Doors aren’t mean to be closed all the time. Life isn’t either. You may get lucky on occasion in that Life may come knocking. And, frankly, the odds of that increase if you have a fence made of doors.
But Life isn’t always that friendly … more often than not you have to actually open the door and walk out.
I am certainly not suggesting everyone have a ‘fence of doors.’ It is a great thought … but, practically, not a thought for everyone.
But.
More than one door? Having the ability to accept guests from any direction, any walk of life, any belief or thought?
Well.
We could all probably be doing more of that.
Anyway.
The whole idea we all have fences we build around ourselves and the fact in this case we would decide to make a fence out of doors so that people who infringe on our “space” are guests is an amazing thought.
I envy people who can do this.
Being able to welcome someone into your personal space is a talent and an attribute … and an attitude … that is remarkable to watch.
Watch how people seemingly flock to those who have doors for fences.
The other aspect of this I love is that the fence doesn’t have a limited number of doors.
All are welcome to enter at anytime as a guest.
I recognize I am not this type of person. I enjoy my fence and having one door for guests to enter.
But in my life I have been fortunate to encounter those few who seem to have limitless space in their days and lives for others to enter. And each time I am lucky enough to be able to enter one of their doors and watch how each trespasser, myself included, so quickly became guests.
This is a nice thought.
Lastly.
When Life trespasses … what would happen if we treated it as a guest rather than someone unwanted?
Well.
That is probably a completely different post.
But an interesting thought.
Ok. In the end.
A fence made of doors.
Think about it. Or maybe as Alice in Wonderland suggests … ‘nothing is impassable.’
Regardless.
A really nice thought.
Like it or not … the entertainment industry does play a rather significant role with regard to our attitudes <and some behavior>.
The one attitude discussion that always gets me … in fact … aggravates me … is the whole discussion surrounding ‘strong roles for women.’
And what aggravates me is that we even talk about the fact there are strong roles for women. Why should it even be a discussion? Why isn’t it just something that just “is”?
As in something like the fact we breathe to live. Or as Joss Whedon says… “Equality is not a concept, not something we should be striving for, equality is like gravity … misogyny is life out of balance and it sucks something out of the soul of every man and women confronted with it.”
I find it aggravating that we still spotlight women in shows like Homeland, The Closer, Covert Affairs, NCIS, Bones and others as remarkable partly because they are women and not simply interesting characters.
I find it aggravating that in this day and age we have to discuss ‘women can be whatever they want’ in high schools and yet are challenged by these same young women we are encouraging with regard to what role models they should be following <among the few> … and at the same time you get the questions from the young women you can scan the young men in the room and they are snickering or joking about ‘stay at home’ or ‘cooking & cleaning’ <of which you know that if even a splinter of truth is within the snickers there is a significantly larger issue at hand>.
I find it aggravating that we still not only suggest it is the differences between a woman and a man as an excuse for how things are … but an actual REASON for how things are.
I find it aggravating that we still refer to strong women in male terms <characteristics> as if someone needs male characteristics to be strong and, conversely, a female characteristic is ‘weak’ <or softer>.
I find it aggravating that we assign gender tags when a leader is a leader … strong is strong … and being good at what you do is being good at what you do … and none of those things are driven by your gender.
What I don’t find aggravating is a speech Joss Whedon gave in 2006 at the Equality Now Conference.
Whedon imagines himself at an imaginary press conference answering the same “dumb question” he is asked “400 times” by reporters … why does he write strong women characters?
Starting off with the anodyne answer that it was due to his “strong mother”, his “engaged father”, the fact that female characters are allowed emotions, or just because “women are hot”, Whedon finally shouts: “Why aren’t you asking the 100 other guys why they don’t write strong female characters?”
I am including Joss speaking … the short version is absolutely fabulous … almost extraordinary in the world of speech making in terms of its concise ability to make the point of which is aggravating me.
The fabulous short version < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqsIFlTVoXQ >
The full speech <8 minutes>: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoEZQfTaaEA
Finally.
It aggravates me that we can play a 2006 speech, a fabulous speech, and the issues still resonate today.
It all aggravates me because I know too many strong women to name in this post.
In fact … I cannot name one ‘not strong woman.’ Every woman I know either externally exhibits whatever we want to deem ‘strong’ …. or internally … at her core … has the strength of however many men you want to line up and judge their strength.
We confuse strength as a definition.
Confuse it with muscles and ability to move tangible objects.
And it aggravates me that we do that.
Women are just as capable as men to move mountains of ideas and thinking and people.
Creating strong roles for women? The whole idea that we have to talk about it aggravates me.
The real discussion should be <to quote Sheryl Crow> … “are you man enough to be my man?”
Are we men strong enough to play that frickin’ role?