“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.
“… 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.
———————————
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
=====
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.
While I was using some Toffler wisdom and words <see Armageddon post:
https://brucemctague.com/madness-in-the-world-armageddon-and-a-dose-of-reality > I noted there was an interesting snippet in one of his books on communication overload … he called it <because this was 1980> “the paper blizzard.”
I imagine I am using this as a ‘perspective’ post or observation.
We are always complaining about communication overload between texts and emails and phone and carrier pigeons.
Here is the funny thing … okay … the interesting thing … well … we have always bitched and moaned about it.
I brought up good ole Toffler from 1980 because he gives us some historical perspective on communications as well as some real numbers.
In addition … he also points out that this ‘blizzard of communications’ actually provides a common structure throughout global cultures.
Say what? All this paperwork <electronic communications> and overwhelming no-time to look at all stuff is cultural? Yup.
——–
All human groups, from primitive times to today, depend on face-to-face, person-to-person communication. But systems were needed for sending messages across time and space as well. The ancient Persians are said to have set up towers or “call posts,” placing men with shrill, loud voices atop them to relay messages by shouting from one tower to the next. The Romans operated an extensive messenger service called the cursus publicus. Between 1305 and the early 1800’s, the House of Taxis ran a form of pony express service all over Europe. By 1628 it employed twenty thousand men. Its couriers, clad in blue and silver uniforms, crisscrossed the continent carrying messages between princes and generals, merchants and money lenders.
During First Wave civilization all these channels were reserved for the rich and powerful only. Ordinary people had no access to them. As the historian Laurin Zilliacus states, even “attempts to send letters by other means were looked upon with suspicion or . . . forbidden” by the authorities. In short, while face-to-face information exchange was open to all, the newer systems used for carrying information beyond the confines of a family or a village were essentially closed and used for purposes of social or political control. They were, in effect, weapons of the elite.
The Second Wave, as it moved across country after country, smashed this communications monopoly. This occurred not because the rich and powerful grew suddenly altruistic but because Second Wave technology and factory mass production required “massive” movements of information that the old channels simply could no longer handle.
The information needed for economic production in primitive and First Wave societies is comparatively simple and usually available from someone near at hand. It is mostly oral or gestural hi form. Second
Wave economies, by contrast, required the tight coordination of work done at many locations. Not only raw materials but great amounts of information had to be produced and carefully distributed.
For this reason, as the Second Wave gained momentum every country raced to build a postal service. The post office was an invention quite as imaginative and socially useful as the cotton gin or the spinning jenny and, to an extent forgotten today, it elicited rhapsodic enthusiasm. The American orator Edward Everett declared: “I am compelled to regard the Post office, next to Christianity, as the right arm of our modern civilization.” For the post office provided the first wide open channel for industrial-era communications. By 1837 the British Post Office was carrying not merely messages for an elite but some 88 million pieces of mail a year …an avalanche of communications by the standards of the day.
By 1960 the third wave the industrial era peaked and the Third Wave began its surge, that number had already climbed to 10 billion. That same year the U.S. Post Office was distributing 355 pieces of domestic mail for every man, woman, and child in the nation. The surge in postal messages that accompanied the industrial revolution merely hints, however, at the real volume of information that began to flow in the wake of the Second Wave.
An even greater number of messages poured through what might be called “micro-postal systems” within large organizations. Memos are letters that never reach the public communications channels. In 1955, as the Second Wave crested in the United States, the Hoover Commission peeked inside the files of three major corporations. It discovered, respectively, 34 thousand, 56 thousand, and 64 thousand documents and memos on file for each employee on the payroll!
Nor could the mushrooming informational needs of industrial societies be met in writing alone. Thus the telephone and telegraph were invented hi the nineteenth century to carry then: share of the ever swelling communications load.
By 1960 Americans were placing some 256 million phone calls per day — over 93 billion a year – and even the most advanced telephone systems and networks in the world were often over loaded. All these were essentially systems for delivering messages from one sender to one receiver at a time.
What was next? A society developing mass production and mass consumption needed ways to send mass messages and communications from one sender to many receivers simultaneously. Unlike the preindustrial employer, who could personally visit each of his handful of employees in their own homes if need be, the industrial employer could not communicate with his thousands of workers on a one-by-one basis. Still less could the mass merchandiser or distributor communicate with his customers one by one. Second Wave society needed and not surprisingly invented powerful means for sending the same message to many people at once, cheaply, rapidly, and reliably.
This gap came to be filled by the mass media. In the mass media, from newspapers and radio to movies and television, we find once again an embodiment of the basic principle of the factory. All of them stamp identical messages into millions of brains, just as the factory stamps out identical products for use in millions of homes. This meant standardized, mass manufactured “facts,” counterparts of standardized mass manufactured products, flow from a few concentrated image factories out to millions of consumers.
Without this vast, powerful system for channeling information, industrial civilization could not have taken form or functioned reliably. Thus there sprang up in all industrial societies, capitalist and socialist alike, an elaborate info-sphere — communication channels through which individual and mass messages could be distributed as efficiently as goods or raw materials. This info-sphere intertwined with and serviced the techno-sphere and the socio-sphere, helping to integrate economic production with private behavior.
Each of these spheres performed a key function in the larger system, and could not have existed without the others. The techno-sphere produced and allocated wealth; the socio-sphere, with its thousands of interrelated organizations, allocated roles to individuals in the system. And the info-sphere allocated the information necessary to make the entire system work. Together they formed the basic architecture of society. We see here in outline, therefore, the common structures of all nations — regardless of their cultural or climatic differences, regardless of their ethnic and religious heritage, regardless of whether they call themselves capitalist or communist.
<source: Alvin Toffler 1980>
———
Well.
Here is my point.
Ever since the ‘white collar job’ was created we have been stressed out by over communication. Or maybe better said … we have always been bombarded with an overwhelming amount of communication.
Whether it was the stacks of paper <memos, point of views, letters, reports, presentations, phone messages to be returned, etc.> in the good ole days or today’s hundreds of emails appearing in your inbox … our time has always been stretched with regard to communications.
We have always lived in a blizzard of communications.
And we kind of like it … and it is addictive <no matter how much we bitch & moan>.
Whoa. Like and addictive?
Remember … I wrote this in my time post https://brucemctague.com/noli-timere-business-and-life :
– Chemicals <within us>. Every time we feel our mobile phone vibrate or ring or ding … we get a small dopamine injection in our brains. Over time this serves almost like an addiction … which results in us wanting this distraction more and more. So when we aren’t being interrupted we go and seek interruptions <check our twitter accounts, Facebook, pinterest, emails> in order to re-inject the ‘doing chemical’ into our brains <and we feel good within the moments>. Oops. The trouble with this? Every time we are interrupted we need to refocus ourselves afterwards … which takes time and energy.
——
Now.
In the good old days communication may have been less often but I would like to point out that it was more often with increased depth <think 5 sentence email versus 5 page point of view>. Basically … more words, more thoughts and more thinking required.
All this said … I go back to my original thought on making employees successful … focus.
I could argue that the deeper you have to intensify your focus <the deeper the interruption> the more energy and time it takes to re-focus on something new.
Therefore … the communication blizzard is consistent … simply with different dynamics over time.
Which is worse <or more difficult>?
Hah.
Pick your poison.
My real point?
Geez.
Lets all quit bitching about technology distractions and how the world is so much more difficult today in managing all the random messages we receive and whatever we want to call the blizzard of communications we live in.
Today.
Yesterday.
20 years ago.
Heck.
40 years ago.
Sitting at your desk at work has always been overwhelming in terms of communications.
Are the distractions different today then they were in the past? Sure.
Are these distractions any more … well … distracting then they were in the past? No … not really.
Not all distractions are created equal. But we certainly have an equal amount of distractions.
We should all just admit we live in this blizzard … and … well … deal with it.
“So it goes.” – Kurt Vonnegut <Slaughterhouse 5>.
Which leads me to:
“Nature is neither kind nor cruel but indifferent.” – Richard Dawkins
So.
Life is always interesting if you pay attention to what is going on around you.
Awhile back I was sitting at a bar somewhere on a Caribbean island typing away <and sipping a beer> and got a glimpse of two diametrically opposed views on life.
On one side of the bar was a young lady crackling with energy … perpetually dissatisfied with life … reading Slaughterhouse 5 … a new college graduate wondering what the hell she was doing working on an island.
At the bar was a young man bartender … pretty satisfied with a no stress life … a new college graduate wondering why the hell would anyone want to do anything but work on an island.
There was an instant dislike between them.
They sought different things out of Life.
I loved them both <at least once I figured out I could never ‘fix’ the bartenders view on Life and figured out how to show the young lady she didn’t need to prove to me she didn’t belong on the island>.
And I thought it was interesting that Life decided to throw Slaughterhouse Five into the moment.
Because while I believe Slaughterhouse Five suggests a moral view about war in that it can dehumanize us to a point of almost indifference to Life … I believe it suggests an even more important point.
While Life goes on almost indifferently … with a nonstop barrage of births, deaths, wins, losses, despairs, hopes, tragedies … and triumphs <so it goes … so it goes> … you can quite easily be an impassive participant … or you can choose to participate.
You can be indifferent to what is going on around you … and maybe even move on in some way <so it goes> and remain silent … albeit in a sometimes mind numbing world your silence may be simply self-defense … or you can participate <in Life>.
And participation can make a difference … not just individually but in totality.
And when combined with the Dawkins quote I thought of two things:
– Survival <of the fittest> is written by the winners <just like history>.
– I want to rewrite his quote to say “life” instead of “nature”
Ah.
Survival of the fittest <or maybe the Survival of Life>.
There is survival as in … well … existing <the bartender> … and then there is survival as in winning <the young lady>. Both are definitely survival just different aspects.
And it is quite possible that how you define survival defines how you view Life … and what you want from Life.
And you know what?
While it may drive us crazy if we run into someone who defines it differently … we are no more right than they … or maybe they are no more wrong than us.
I also find the funny contradiction in that so many of us more experienced older folk view the bartender’s life with some envy … the perception of no stress or pressure and the ability to relax more often.
And the young, with all of Life ahead, views the same person with some disdain. Disdain as in ‘waste.’
Ah.
So it goes.
Life is indifferent. Therefore it is we and our constant questioning of ideas and things that came before us which often defines how we view Life.
It is not always an easy or comfortable pursuit … but it is what makes the process of Life active in some form or fashion.
And in that idea the restful bartender and the restless young lady shared a commonality <although they couldn’t find it in each other>.
They both questioned what is.
They both thought about what will be.
They were simply coming up with different answers.
Stanley Kubrick said … The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning.
All this questioning shows us a path to realize our life’s purpose.
Any and all of us <as I imagine I found it even in myself surrounded by this contradictory pair>.
Now.
It is extremely easy to attain an attitude of indifference in ourselves. Or what may look like indifference.
And in doing so to withdraw from the sometimes overpowering and overwhelming aspects of the world … and inevitably start seeking inwards. And within … we stay … while without … the world moves on.
The bartender oddly enough was quite articulate in his inward journey.
Reflecting upon the world and its many issues he quite easily came to the conclusion that the craziness <in which he had no desire to participate in> appeared to be mainly due to deterioration of value systems.
Everywhere he looked he saw see people filled with greed and intent on self-gratification.
He saw people ever willing to compromise on values to make personal gains.
Interestingly … his ‘so it goes’ attitude was … in his eyes … a version of ‘no compromise.’
In other words … he desired to remain true to himself <adamant in fact> … and feared he could not do so in today’s world. It is his own self defense mechanism.
As Billy in Slaughterhouse 5 says “so it goes” … the bartender’s life philosophy was “shit happens.”
And the power of ‘so it goes’ retains its glory not for the expression and passion behind the words … but the lack of.
These “world-weary words simultaneously accept and dismiss everything.”
Unlike many quotes, the repeated ‘so it goes’ from Slaughterhouse-Five isn’t notable for its unique wording so much as for how much emotion <and lack of emotion> it packs into three simple, world-weary words …words that simultaneously accept and dismiss everything.
The three words neatly encompass a whole way of life.
Conversely.
The young lady and ‘so it goes’?
Shit happens, and it’s awful, but it’s not okay. We deal with it because we have to.
And dammit … she was going to deal with it. While the bartender stayed within as self defense … she was more than willing to go ‘with out’ … on the attack.
Somehow, someway, somewhere … she was going to deal with the world because … well … we have to. I am not sure she knew any other way of looking at it <and I imagine I gravitated to this energy and passion>.
She was restlessly dissatisfied with the world … and herself in way <in that she wasn’t an active participant at the moment> and she wanted to get in the game and ‘deal with it.’
She just didn’t know how yet.
She only knew working on an island and reading Slaughterhouse Five at a bar was not her way.
She only knew that the bartender’s way was not her way.
She had disdain for what she perceived as a blatant unconcern for life.
In the book … ‘so it goes’ follows all accounts of death in the book whether it is the mass death following the bombing of Dresden or the death of the lice and bacteria on soldier’s clothes as they are cleaned.
She saw ‘so it goes’ as a death to her dreams and desires and ambition.
She rejected it as she read the book.
She rejected it as she put the book down and heard the bartender say it without him actually saying the words.
I also found it interesting that <pulling from Slaughterhouse Five> that when a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse all they think is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment … but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments.
The bartender saw dead people as simply in bad condition with better moments to come.
The young lady saw dead people as … well … dead. No life.
The bartender seemed to feel the “sheer helplessness, the total ineffectuality, of anyone caught up in such a massacre” expressed in the novel. He saw only that Vonnegut realized that he could not effectively write about an event that made no sense in a sensible fashion and that things always have existed and will always exist.
He created some distance from this Life … as self-defense … the need to prevent and avoid suffering.
The young lady?
All she wanted to do was to start talking about values and ideas and anything but ‘so it goes’ and go out and shake the etch a sketch in the minds of people in some form or fashion believing it will do the world some good. She wanted to make a difference in terms of impact.
In the end … these two wonderful young people reminded me of one of my favorite quotes about finding the sweet spot balance in Life:
“We must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.” – Indira Gandhi
Both of them were seeking their place in life as well as their life balance.
One was still in the midst of activity.
The other was vibrantly alive in repose.
Both have yet to reach out and tug a little on the other side of living Life to find the balance.
It is difficult to do so.
It is sometimes dirty difficult work to rethinking Life.
Equal parts ruthless self-reflection and some trite literary parables <so it goes> all illustrating the challenging reality that trying new things … creating new beginnings … looking at things differently … is hard.
Shit.
Growing up is anything but ‘so it goes’ … it is hard.
There are seemingly thousands of potential missteps that make for an epic failure and seemingly thousands of potential insights that make for epic success.
And in between are seemingly thousands of Life moments passing by indifferently but impacting your fate and future.
I imagine it all comes down to assuming responsibility for your own shit <Life>.
And it isn’t one path … or one way … and in fact a Life best lived is actually probably a combination of still in the midst of activity and vibrantly alive in repose.
What I loved about both of these young people was that despite the fact they were diametrically opposed in how they were living Life <and I imagine how they viewed success in Life> … they both adamantly rejected the politically correct tripe being thrown at them.
The one that says … “None of your problems are your fault. Everything bad in your life is somebody else’s fault. Blame the environment. Blame the educator. Blame your parents. Blame anybody else, but it’s not your fault. If you get in an accident, it’s never your liability. It’s always somebody else’s fault.”
They both rejected that tripe and clearly assumed responsibility for their own life.
In fact.
While viewing Life quite differently … they both wanted to change the world … albeit in completely different ways.
Ah.
Young people.
They can often remind us that there are many ways of being satisfied … and positively dissatisfied <a state of perpetual dissatisfaction> … with Life.
And while Life may be indifferent … there are many many different ways to become involved in Life … and make a difference.
The key to survival of Life <and the fittest>.
Be true to thineself.
So it goes. So it goes.
“WHY do you pander to them?”
This question kept being put to Marian Salzman, the boss of Havas PR, by her older workers in the days after the firm launched its latest recruitment advertisement. Featuring eager young things using snazzy mobile devices, the ad highlights the company’s lack of hierarchy, and how recruits can choose their own work and talk back to their bosses, as they begin their “personal development journey”.
Although huge numbers of young people today are starting their working lives in one of the least welcoming labour markets in modern history, those with the right skills have never had it so good.
Employers have become convinced that they are at the start of a period of famine, and that the best talent has to be won at almost all costs.”
–
Winning the generation Game article from the 9/28 Economist
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Well.
This article from The Economist really got me steaming.
It almost made my head spin counterclockwise.
This kind of thinking drives me frickin’ crazy.
To be clear. It is not the part about discussing the challenges of managing generations with significantly different expectations in the work place <because … despite all the rhetoric … has always been existent in the workplace in some degree>. That is always a good pragmatic organizational discussion.
But there is this whole idea of pandering and <in my terms> ‘winning new employees at all costs’ using … well … what I would call ‘features’ that is nuts. Absolutely frickin’ nuts.
Features?
In other words … selling to young people on why they should be working some place not based on what company does but rather what the company will do for them or give to them.
Holy shit.
Is that ass backwards or what?
We cannot be this stupid <business leadership wise>.
Approaching this topic this way is like suggesting you can build a loyal customer base off of coupons or promotions <… oh … you cannot>.
That kind of approach is simply encouraging an addictive relationship in which as soon as you stop the drug <the coupons or price-off promotions … or in an organizational case … the features in the work place> the people will seek the drug elsewhere.
By the way … if you are running a business … this is bad.
This whole issue seems absurd to me.
We have lost sight of what a business is supposed to be.
Attracting young talent … shit … any talent … isn’t about ‘features’ and free cell phones and working from home or even money <insert some exclamation points here> or even ‘personal development journey’ … it is about leadership and purpose and sense of belonging <with a business purpose in mind>.
And when I say purpose I don’t mean some altruistic vision <although it certainly is not a bad thing> but rather ‘doing something’ type stuff … stuff that is exciting, useful, adventuresome, different, powerful, etc.
It’s almost like everyone has forgotten in all this discussion about different generations’ and their likes & dislikes in the work place … is that people, yes, even employees <of all ages> like to be led.
Not always told what to do and how to do it … but led. Think ‘look at the compass and let’s go’ type leading.
Alrighty then.
So then let’s talk about leaders and leadership and character and managing the younger generation in business.
Just a reminder to get the logical part of my my rant started.
I wrote this in an old past called “elephants and leaders“:
– Inability to deal with younger employee dissatisfaction.
Whew. This one is a humdinger these days. This elephant isn’t even invisible and it gets ignored. In fact, many leaders just stare at the elephant and shake their head and go “oh well, there’s that damn elephant but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
It’s crazy. I have written about this before and, yes, I am going to generalize … but … this doesn’t have anything to do with “this generation’s work ethic” or “young kids just don’t have the same attitude as we did” (gosh, anyone reading that I would hope would feel old if they know they have said it themselves) … this is about leadership.
It’s not about being cool or wearing flip flops to work to show you ‘relate’ to the generation.
In fact, dear leader, they don’t want you to relate … they want you to lead.
A leader doesn’t have to be a ‘giant’ like I have written about before but they have to be a leader. Employees don’t have to like you (although it helps) they have to respect you. And that crosses any generation at any time with any age employee. Being a leader (and however that particular leader utilizes leadership-like charisma) will overcome 90+% generational issues (flip flops in the office should take care of the rest).
—————
Look.
This whole generations in the workplace topic is misguided because it is actually avoiding the key topic businesses should be talking about.
Who is leading the damn company?
In other words … what has happened to leadership?
Now.
Not everyone can lead.
And not everyone in a leader position is actually a good leader.
Great leadership is inspired by great ideas and great beliefs and a great vision and the ability to make mistakes with nerves of steel … and deal with those mistakes in a way that the organization doesn’t lose its overall ‘hope.’
What does that all really define <albeit you will not see it in any dictionary>?
Strength of character.
They may not be the smartest.
They may have charisma and they may not.
They may not be the best at any responsibility they have had up until that point <functionally>.
But they know how to lead.
And people follow … not blindly <just to be clear> … but because out of respect and trust for their long term hopes.
<note: because I had a fabulous discussion on the significant difference between ‘following and being led’ – of which I believe there is a massive difference between the two – I will offer a follow up post on this topic>
These leaders don’t give ‘features’ to entice employees and they don’t talk about flexible work hours … they give words and inspiration and direction and hope.
Good ole Napoleon who, for all his egotistical warts, knew something about leadership said … we are dealers in hope.
By the way.
Hope is not a feature <not even really sure it is a benefit>.
Anyway.
Because I have always wished I could be a great leader I am always watching out for leadership type thinking and words … and I have kept this speech in my files for decades.
———
– “A Company of Adventurers”
“There had to be something special about this enterprise to attract the talented and venturesome people who have come together to exercise their considerable talents and to derive from it the things that make for full and satisfying life.
When I talk of this company, I am not thinking just of a legal or business entity. I am using the word in the older sense, as in a company of scholars, as a company of adventurers, or a company of voyagers. I think our companionship partakes of all these things.
Our relationships are subtle and highly sensitive relationships ….
Our job must be to share authority without losing it …
The whole staff must have a proprietary feeling about the company’s work.
We are a permanently dissatisfied company and so far as I can see, we shall not run out of things to be dissatisfied about. I think our work, in most instances, is the best of its kind in the world – and yet not good enough. Not as good as it is going to be. There has not been and there should never be a year when it is not better than the year before.
Our audience is getting more demanding all the time – it is not a question of talking down to them. The problem, the opportunity, is to talk far enough up to them.
We must be dynamic for purposes bigger than ourselves. “
Author: Sam Meek, ex – CEO of J. Walter Thompson – delivered in 1965.
———–
Well.
That, my friends, is someone to follow.
I would trust my future and ‘personal development journey’ to this guy. I don’t know him and I imagine I may not even like him if I met him <he sounds like a ball buster who is never satisfied> but I don’t have to like him … I just need to follow his damn ass toward another frickin’ adventure.
C’mon.
‘Be dynamic for purposes bigger than ourselves’?
Sign me up.
I will even pay for my own cell phone and I will come into the office and not work remotely.
This is character driven leadership. Not ‘feature-driven’ leadership.
Now.
Please note.
This leader may not always be always popular <or well liked> mainly because they don’t fear telling people that they are wrong <because they are influencing the organization through a set belief/attitude structure>.
This type of leader influences throughout the organization like a pebble in the middle of a pond with their philosophy and beliefs and hope … as guidance for ideas and purpose.
A character driven leader tends to be respected <but … and noted earlier … not always liked>.
A character driven leader works towards what is “right” <not what will make people happy> and the benefit of the organization & people rather than acting in order to be recognized.
A character driven leader empowers responsibilities that enhance the people and the organization <and often will be almost invisible in the success … unless they also combine charisma with character>.
Bottom line.
The best leaders don’t just lead.
They have character.
They recognize that business is about dollars and cents <in that if you don’t generate enough dollars and cents you have no business> but they also recognize that dollars and cents isn’t why they themselves come into the office day in and day out … and that their organization doesn’t really want to come into the office day in and day out for that.
Frankly … these types of leaders know that ‘features’ and ‘money’ is a house of cards from which to build an organization.
By the way … that is a Business Truth regardless of an employee’s age, experience or generational attitude.
Now.
Hope is a tricky thing … particularly in an uneven seemingly semi-chaotic world.
Therefore part of a leader’s burden is giving hope in the face of fear.
And a substantial portion of the burden is while the vision and hope and desire he/she is offering is somewhere over the horizon … many of the organization are worried about ‘hope today.’ Fear is shoved splinter by splinter into the hand offering long term hope.
A great leader absorbs the daily pain, removes splinters and keeps everyone moving toward the horizon.
And maybe most difficult? Encouraging action when there is a temptation to freeze … and there is a temptation to doubt … and <sometime even worse> a temptation to second guess..
I could say this about everyone … but suffice it to say … young people want someone to ‘show the way’ or at least show ‘what could be.’
And be believable.
By the way <once again> … nowhere in all of that … even if I squint between the lines … do I see any pandering or features or free smartphone giveaways … all I see is some tough love and hope.
Oh.
And leadership.
I am not suggesting this is the easy way.
In fact … offering ‘choose your own work’ or ‘lack of hierarchy’ or any of those things – which possibly compromise a good efficient and effective organization – is actually much much <insert many more ‘muches’ here> easier.
But you know what?
The heights of leadership is rare air coupled with a burden of many aspects.
The greatest accept the burden.
And by the ‘greatest’ I not only mean the individual as a leader … but an organization … a business … as a leader.
So, please <said with dripping sarcasm>, stop with the ‘doing whatever it takes to get the young people into your organization’ tripe.
So, please <said with dripping sarcasm>, stop overstating the generational issues in the workplace and get on with leading.
Because, frankly, any leader bitching about ‘behavior in the workplace’ when referring to emailing or using smartphones in the office or any of those types of things needs to get their head out of their proverbial ass and just frickin’ lead.
In the end.
All my ranting aside.
People working toward a common business purpose – who are well led – are focused, passionate <when needed> and pragmatic <see ‘working hard’> when it is called for and they get good shit done.
Now there is a vision … ‘getting good shit done.’
I could start a company with that vision alone … keep my head in the game as a leader focused solely on that in guiding a business … and I gotta tell ya.
People would line up to join. Young, middle aged and old.
Why?
Well my friends.
That is called a “tangible display of hope.’
What do I mean?
– 1. I hope I can be dynamic beyond my own purpose.
– 2. How will I do that?
– 3. By getting good shit done.
Anyway.
“Choose their own work and talk back to bosses”????? … please … someone just frickin’ lead.
“There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated. No secret can be kept in a civilized world. Society is a masked ball where everyone hides his real character, then reveals it by hiding.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
<by the way … he wrote this in the 1800’s before twitter, facebook, internet or even cable tv>
“I confess … that any theories which I had formed from the newspaper reports were entirely erroneous.” – Sherlock Holmes
Whew.
I will begin with the belief that 24 hour news is the bane & burden of this generation. Now. I opened with the two older quotes because news reporting has always had the ability to erroneously guide our thoughts and attitudes <but hopefully not our behavior>. It just that in today’s world … well … it is 24/7 download of ‘whatever they have’ to download to us.
Never has an entire population had too much & too little information … at exactly the same time.
We are barraged with soundbites of truths, semi truths, quasi truths and non-truths. So much so we either blindly grasp at any one of them and pass it along as something we believe as truth … or ignore them all remaining indifferent to what is happening around us and focusing on ourselves <our own little world>.
Me?
Basically I have a love/hate relationship with news these days.
And after thinking about it I believe it all comes down to 24 hours and supply & demand.
Not people’s demands but rather Time’s demands. 24 hour news means news people have to supply something over the 24 hours.
I didn’t say supply ‘news’ but rather ‘something.’ Earlier I called it “whatever they have.”
News is often forced to deliver incomplete, inaccurate, speculative, rehashed or simply pointless information because they have time to fill up <and silence doesn’t sell>.
Well.
That, my friends, is supply & demand at its worst.
Where demand is not driven by the user but rather by the distributor.
Think of it kind of like a retail store and how they decide to open and close their doors. Except in this case the store doesn’t give a shit about the quality of what they put on the shelves … they simply have decided to keep the store open 24/7 and put whatever they have available on the shelves on the off chance someone comes through the door.
As I further thought about the ‘supply’ issue I was reminded of a semi-fantastic book <it could have been half its words and been 100% fantastic> called It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News.
It was written by Fark.com founder Drew Curtis who delightfully skewers the media industry by examining the consistent patterns of the ‘go-to stories’ they use when there is a lack of any real news to report.
<note: I used to be an avid Fark visitor if only because they rehashed the real news and the absurd news in equal amounts with outstanding headlines>
Anyway.
The consistent patterns for everyone:
– Media Fearmongering contains news stories used to scare the audience. Examples are terrorists attacking, ‘what if’ weapon scenarios and the Avian Flu.
– Unpaid Placement Masquerading as Actual Article is about news stories which, whether intentionally or not, advertise a product or organization. An example is an article indicating that 90 percent of the ocean’s large fish are extinct—an unconfirmed statistic written by an author promoting a book about damage to the environment.
– Headline Contradicted by Actual Article are news stories which have misleading or contradictory headlines that are the opposite of what is implied by the article. An example is an article run by the Detroit Free Press titled “Asian Vehicles Rank Low in Survey” which later contained the statistic that 29 of the 31 cars that earned a top reliability rating were Japanese.
– Equal Time for Nutjobs is about articles published just to give an opposite side to a story, even if that opposite side has been proven false. Examples include 9/11 Truthers, the anti-vaccination movement and climate change.
– The Out-of-Context Celebrity Comment relates to articles which give a disproportionate amount of attention to a comment made by a celebrity, like Brad Pitt’s position on stem cell research or the Dixie Chicks’ position on the Iraq War.
– Seasonal Articles focuses on recurring articles published the same time every year. An example is AAA reports related to increases in traffic during the Christmas holidays.
– Media Fatigue refers to stories examined and exhausted and continuously rehashed past their relevance. Examples would include the September 11 attacks or the Benghazi embassy and pretty much any JayZ/Beyonce or Michael Jackson controversy.
– Lesser Media Space Fillers are non-categorical articles which consistently reappear. Examples include the coverage of missing white women, random road rage and extreme weather in obscure places.
Oh my.
In most cases we are being bombarded with the obscure and the random to the point where it becomes difficult to believe these things aren’t happening everywhere <despite the fact it is one event in one place at one time in some time frame longer than a month or two>.
And this doesn’t count the ‘unbiased’ outlets spewing skewed information about key topics.
Well.
What this all translates to is that we “the people” certainly understand philosophically what impartial is but we just can’t seem to find it in the media.
But how do we save ourselves from the idiot box and the idiots pushing stupidity under the guise of news experts.
Sure.
There are a gazillion sources and opinions and we have countless options to choose from <which, by the way, is actually a good reflection of a democracy working at its best> … but who has time to sift their way through all that stuff?
Which then leads me to what we see and hear in the news and relevance.
It seems to me that journalists have a responsibility to spread news as quickly as possible to educate the public on important events.
But … watching the American 24 hour television news cycle, it is as though the country had been occupied by an army of Islamist radicals, right wing <or left wing> nutjobs and never ending local disasters.
No wonder it feels like the apocalypse is upon us.
Here is a truth.
24 hour news is derailing the sense and composure of America.
Heck.
I would argue 24 hour news is derailing the sense and composure of the world.
The media likes to cash in disaster and bad news … even if it is simply some isolated local event … which just stirs up people.
The 24 hour news cycle has caused so much misinformation or partial information to be put out in front of the public it can make you crazy if you try and keep up. They spout ‘what they have’ out of fear of not being the first to report often before even a cursory fact check and quite often in spite of a fact check.
Unfortunately … whether we like to think of ourselves this way or not … we people … if a lie or incorrect or distorted “fact” is repeated often enough many begin to believe it.
What this really means is that if you use any one of the 24 hour news sources as your sole source of knowledge then you are not only doing yourself a great disservice but you are getting screwed.
Screwed in what information you receive.
Screwed up in your head.
At its best … the 24 hour news cycle can merely put a topic out there and leave it for the public to decide its importance or relevance.
At its worst … the 24 hour news cycle can hammer home falsehoods until they are believed and inevitably inform opinions and even create them for some people.
Interestingly … I can draw on Sherlock Holmes <again> to state our dilemma as normal every day schmucks <like me> trying to discern real news and truth:
“It is one of those cases where the art of the reasoner should be used rather for the sifting of details than for the acquiring of fresh evidence. The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete and of such personal importance to so many people, that we are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis. The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact–of absolute undeniable fact–from the embellishments of theorists and reporters. Then, having established ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty to see what inferences may be drawn and what are the special points upon which the whole mystery turns.” – Sherlock Holmes <silver blaze>
Whew. “The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact–of absolute undeniable fact–from the embellishments of theorists and reporters.”
Geez. Did Sherlock have 24 hour news cable tv? This is exactly the challenge we face day in and day out <actually 24/7 with news>.
Oddly … I remember how delighted we were initially over how great it was to have so much news, entertainment and information.
Experts called it news “choice, convenience and control” and suggested the benefit to us was that nothing would be missed.
But instead of news they have ended up giving us brief bursts of updates.
Every 15 minutes they seem to try and give us an update of the news.
And in between they’re trying to figure out ways to keep you watching.
So they’ll do reported pieces.
They’ll do a lot of interviews.
There are a lot of talk shows.
And there is a lot of things that we would classify as kind of pulpy, quasi-tabloid, quasi-celebrity news.
Oh. That may be bad … but this is the worst.
They will also do anything that implies we are simply waiting for the next great crisis.
Roman emperors used to often say ‘If you cannot give the people bread, give them circuses.’
Frankly … news today is not really about news … it is more about crafting communications by aligning ‘impact words’ with ‘impact images’ to impact the people watching.
I guess I will ask the real question.
Do we really require 24-hour news channels?
Do we really need the 100 odd some of them spewing the same breaking news from dawn to dusk.
In the past all the national and international news could be summed up in prime time news bulletins.
The world cannot have changed so much in the last 15 years that the quantum of really important news has suddenly multiplied a zillion times that we now require minute-by-minute coverage to get through it.
Test it if you want. Just keep switching on the TV at different times of the day and you’ll find that a lead news item that breaks in the morning usually keeps getting repeated right into the afternoon and sometimes well into the evening.
Well.
This made me think about what we did need.
And, no, this is not about that tired subject of “short attention span people.’
So let me digress for a minute and share an idea.
– something about 20 minutes.
20 minute workouts.
20 minutes meals.
20 minute conversations <usually fun & good>.
20 minute meetings <usually never happens>.
20 minute newspapers.
Yup.
20 minute newspaper.
Best selling paper in France.
The big idea?
It matches up with the consumer. Provides value <news> in a manageable time <20 minutes>.
As I look around me (a newspaper lover myself) and I look at decreasing readership I look at this 20 minute concept as an awesome concept (as a salvation concept).
Just as USAToday came in and redefined the newspaper market <traditional format with nontraditional delivery of the news> I believe something like 20Minutes could redefine the market again.
I choose USAToday because of all the papers I know they would be the one who could most likely pull it off.
So what if USAToday became USAToday 20. Today in 20 minutes. Tighten up the editorial and the format and make it the quick easy news read.
If they hired me to tell them what to do that is what I would tell them.
Heck.
They aren’t paying me … and I am still gonna tell them what to do.
Is it a radical departure from who they are and what they stand for? Nope. They have always been about sound bite news delivered in entertaining style. Just tighten it up and they become the super sound bite news in an entertaining style.
Shorter and just as engaging.
People will pick it up in droves.
Will some people bitch? Sure. Of course they will.
They did when USAToday came on the scene scoffing at their ‘amateurishness’ and such (and look how successful they ended up being).
Take your lumps USAToday.
Change the game again.
Why do it?
In 2010, for the third year since 2007, the daily newspaper daily called 20 Minutes is the best-read newspaper in France.
The paper has over 2,675,000 daily readers beating all paid papers. (data from Epiq/Audipresse)
This paper beats even the awesome sports paper L’Equipe (which has about 2.3 million readers).
Sorry. I digressed.
Well.
I imagine my real point is that whether we discuss 20 minutes or 2 minutes or 20 hours … people DO desire news, WILL consume news and SHOULD get news.
But news should be news … and not entertainment.
Oh.
And we really <really> don’t need it 24/7.
Ok.
Lastly.
Pundits, opinion peddling and snarkiness and eyeballs.
The talking heads. The pundits.
They are dangerous. To society, to us … to civilization as we know it.
Anybody who considers Glen Beck, O’ Reilly, Limbaugh, Maher or any of these opinionated <but seemingly smart people> as a true news source … is simply nuts or hasn’t done any homework.
We simply have all of these sources pandering to various fringe groups who are not a microcosm of the whole country but rather a minority voice which the news manipulators have elected as ‘stuff that will create rating points.”
These talking head ‘experts’ are exploiting news to expound upon their personal views on immigration, healthcare and a seemingly nonstop fueling of hatred of Islam.
The danger?
People become aggressively opinionated based on what really are entertainment shows rather than legitimate news sources. They take ‘opinions’ and make them ‘unequivocal truths.’
This is opinion peddling at its worst.
Oh.
Which leads me to snarkiness.
Snarkiness is the key component to today’s talking head experts.
They seize upon the minutiae and nuance and raise it to an absurd level.
About what I mean by ‘snarkiness’:
Snarkiness involves:
(a.) insulting someone or some group in a nasty, heckling way. It is a variant of the ad hominem fallacy because it’s a personal attack instead of a scrutiny of the substance of an argument
(b.) a knowing abuse that appeals to the prejudice or preconceptions of others. The coded insult or innuendo involves slyly drawing attention to an understanding shared by others of a similar ilk. Simply put, an underhanded reference is being made.
(c.) tinged with humour, although the humour is never very funny and is often quite pathetic. It’s a form of “teasing” and “rug-pulling”, as Denby puts it. There may be enough humour, however, to allow an attacker to deflect blame. If the victim gets too angry, that person can be dismissed as a humourless and overly sensitive mope who takes things too seriously.
<source: Snark by David Denby>
As Denby correctly points out, snarkiness tends to be a form of intellectual laziness and conformity. Snarks tend to use hackneyed terms and expressions. The snarky comment lacks originality and imagination. Old sayings and jokes are recycled. The language used is neither well crafted nor clever. Thus, an adversary is put on the defensive by an attacker who expends the minimum amount of effort. If someone lacks knowledge or expertise, they can attack the adversary to discredit their views while diverting attention away from their own inadequacies. Thus, snarky comments can be a form of evasion. Is it any wonder that snarkiness is a popular technique among lazy pundits who can’t bother keeping abreast of their area of supposed expertise? This inherent laziness also means that the personal attacks tend to pick on any available vulnerability.
As Denby puts it: [Snarkiness] seizes on any vulnerability or weakness it can find—a slip of the tongue, a sentence not quite up-to-date, a bit of flab, an exposed boob, a blotch, a blemish, a wrinkle, an open fly, an open mouth, a closed mouth. It exploits—slyly, teasingly—race and gender prejudice. When there are no vulnerabilities, it makes them up.
All of this tends to reinforce conformity and mediocrity. Snarkiness is a characteristic of the less capable, although Denby makes a distinction between high-brow and low-brow snarkiness based on how cultured the attack is.
Well.
I included this because snarkiness seems to be mandatory to be successful in today’s 24 hour news world. Next time you listen to your favorite ‘expert’ maybe take a step back and assess their level of ‘snarkiness.’
Ok.
All that said.
The big close.
Here is where now that I have skewered the news media I will shift to us <the viewers>.
We have 2 things we could work on:
– Not caring about knowing everything as soon as it happens
– Question everything, believe nothing
Propaganda style reporting, sensational headlines, adrenaline pumping hyperbole, speculating panels of experts, distortion of facts happen all the time … and not only can we ignore it … but we can also question it.
Me? personally I have two pet peeves.
– Equal Time for Nutjobs. It’s funny when you talk about people not believing in moon landings, or who think an alien crash-landed somewhere or who believe that there was once an ancient Mediterranean civilization in Florida. It’s another thing entirely when people start to believe that denying the Holocaust is a valid opinion.
– <a derivative of nutjobs> Using a minority point of view for scaremongering. Its not funny when someone begins encouraging kids to not be vaccinated. Its not funny when the wacky minority <less than 2% of ‘experts’> who try and stall efforts to address climate change get airtime and headlines <but we can live with that> … but when something affects our health or security? That seems crazy.
<I include a letter to help make my point>
—–
Your article “Fifteen Years After Autism Panic, a Plague of Measles Erupts” (page one, July 20) illustrates the very serious concern for the health and welfare of people when misinformation is dispensed.
As a public-health nurse, I administered the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella and was confronted by concerns from parents regarding the relationship of MMR vaccine and autism. Many parents got their false information from the media, including newspapers and television, as well as the Internet, and convincing them that the information was wrong wasn’t easy.
The media have tremendous power in people’s lives and has a responsibility to be unbiased and accurate. Furthermore, people who have never seen the devastating effects of these diseases become complacent about being immunized until outbreaks occur.
Mary Ann Putnam, R.N.
—–
Regardless.
24 hour news is not going away. And I do not really sense that any of them are planning on taking the responsibility high road any time soon.
So think about this.
The Fark guy was asked once: If you had to limit your information intake to less than 30 minutes a day (excluding email), what would you consume/read/watch?
<his response>
Nothing. I’d wait until my friends asked me “did you see that?” and then say “no, why do you ask?” and see if their response is interesting. You can always catch up later. Oftentimes when news breaks it’s hours or days before anyone knows what actually happened. Wait until next week for the summary if it’s that important.
Take two weeks off. Don’t watch any news, don’t read any news, don’t listen to any radio talk shows. Then tune back in. Did you miss anything? Nope. It’s the same old crap, different days. That’s what I’m talking about in my book — the media patterns that are used to fill space. It’s 95% or more of the content of any given news show.
Look.
Those that provide the news must come up with words, subjects, interviews, etc. to fill 24 hours and, let’s face it folks, not that much changes from day to day … with the exception of some truly breaking news.
And while 24 hours news has a bad perception issue <a PewResearch study revealed a steady decline in peoples’ belief that news media “gets the facts straight” and as of 2009, this number was at a staggeringly low 29 percent> … that fact it is not slowing them down any. The full display of facts continues to be obscured and random events become hyped to the point they appear typical.
So it is up to us … we the people.
Anyway.
We should not treat news as entertainment … its news for gods sake.
But I imagine if you are required to have ‘news’ 24 hours a day … and sometimes there is no real news … you have to entertain.
“Bring in the clowns I say.” – Me.
This is about an older French movie <a docudrama I imagine it is called> called The Class.
It is a movie where a real-life high-school teacher, François Bégaudeau, plays a version of himself as a teacher at a Paris high school in a poor neighborhood.
<Here is the trailer for the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUzKu51bY04 … >
Whew.
If you have ever wondered what life as a teacher is like … don’t hesitate to watch this movie.
It is a frightening glimpse into how every class is a balancing act teetering back and forth between deeply disillusioning and goose bump inspiring. You will experience such frustration almost to the point of despair and within moments you will experience the unexpectedly touching moment.
Ultimately … it all ends up in what one review called ‘a god-awful mess’.
About The Class:
It is an examination of the complex dynamic that develops between an inspired, but humanly flawed, teacher and a diverse group of <cynical but generally good hearted>students.
Directed by Laurent Cantet (Time Out, Heading South), The Class, which won the prestigious 2008 Palme d’Or at Cannes and landed an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film that same year, finds its meaning in the spirit of improvisation. “I try to take a risk in reconstituting the incongruity of life,”
That incongruity is woven into the texture of the story. Loosely adapting a book by French school teacher Francois Begaudeau, Cantet illustrates how this dedicated, idealistic instructor tries to teach a diverse group of students from various social classes and cultures. The results are as diverse as the students themselves. Cantet transforms the material into an entertaining, yet incisive look at how the process of learning can be predicated by certain social and political realities.
Some of my thoughts.
Using a cast of non-actors to play the students the movie provides a facsimile of documentary realism <but it is a movie … maybe call it ‘historical fiction-like’>.
It is a frightening glimpse of how a teacher … not a parent … is faced with the pertinent issues that inevitably grow out of classroom discussions. And the sheer randomness a teacher is faced with as the topics include everything from interpreting The Diary of Anne Frank to arguments about rival football teams.
The Class tries to take a realistic approach as it doesn’t idealize the students and also doesn’t deify the teacher either. To me … it showed kids as kids … and teachers as … well … humans. Teachers are portrayed as flawed but doing their best <especially when inspired> even when their best is possibly just not good enough.
There is a great example of ‘humanness’ of when the teacher attempts to confront the bad behavior of two girls who are class representatives.
He uses an insulting pejorative that has the opposite impact of what he intends.
It becomes easy <assuming you take the time to put yourself in a teacher’s shoes> to recognize that the potential for not dealing with each and every situation at its best is incredibly high. That often I imagine a teacher makes it to the end of a day having all energy sapped out of them simply from weaving their way through the minefield of situations they faced that day <and not by anything to do with actual teaching>.
There is a great scene when the teacher of The Class arrives at the faculty lounge after dealing with a particularly difficult class and several of the other teachers appear shell-shocked, ready to pack it in. he hears … these kids don’t deserve to be educated; they’re like animals in heat; let them rot in their dead-end low-class jobs.
He argues that a teacher’s job is “to bring kids out.”
And he does … until, about an hour and a half into the movie where he ‘loses it’ <if but only for a moment or so> and it all goes to hell.
This quasi documentary is really an intelligent dialogue that doesn’t settle for easy answers or pose obvious resolutions <in fact … the teacher and his students don’t all reach a common end>.
The Class is just over two hours and it is a relentless 2 hours as you view a nonstop battle to engage, engage and engage more with the students … sometimes simply trying to keep chaos at bay. The teacher moves from offense to defense and tries to mediate … but he’s a white male authority figure from a more prosperous class teaching mostly immigrants. When he presses them too hard on, say, a point of grammar, his pupils parrot Marxist maxims and maintain that he can never understand their perspectives.
They are not really wrong but the teacher keeps going on and trying.
There is a delightful scene where he finally truly engages his students within an assignment to write self-portraits. Suddenly they haltingly share their hopes and fears about their bodies, life, families, and <for many> the struggles of an immigrant family … trying to adapt in a country that hasn’t made them welcome.
For a moment you not only see why a teacher wants to teach … but you get a glimpse of our young at their best and most open.
You see the students as destabilizing disruptive progress inhibitors while still recognizing that often their behavior is driven by self-preservation.
Sometimes it is as simple as that in their sometimes simple minded defense rhetoric and behavior is a simple terror of losing face in front of their peers.
There are glimpses of students as in-class people and out of school people. Young adults struggling with Life.
Oh.
There is one scene in particular, before the school system’s disciplinary committee, in which a proud, taciturn teen <named Souleymane> must translate his African mother’s pleas to forgive her son. It is ironic, terrible, heart wrenching. You feel helpless. One of those moments where you almost wish you could step into the movie and help. It is powerful.
Souleymane is defiant and scared and isolated … and the only teacher with a hope of saving him is now is the teacher who cannot help him because the teacher himself is in self preservation mode.
This one scene is heart wrenching … maddening … and reality.
Society has created an almost ‘kill or be killed’ scenario for teachers … within the classroom AND within the administration AND with parents.
It reminds you that the threats come from within the classroom AND outside the classroom as you watch teachers who truly have good intent in mind being tested by the real world.
They make you understand that teaching is moment to moment, an endless series of <grinding thoughtful> negotiations that often teeter on intangibles … on the teacher’s imagination and empathy and the struggle to stay centered … and simply having the energy to deal with the situation at hand.
The movie ends on a bitter note.
It leaves a not so pleasant taste in your mouth while making its point that maybe the system is not broken but rather that, just as in Life, it is complex and flawed … but choices have to be made so that everything can continue to move on.
And as a teacher you just keep on going and try to do better the next time. Teachers … despite the moment to moment teaching energy grind … recognize … in some form or fashion … they are dealers in Hope as much as educators.
The Class.
I think this is a remarkable movie.