Fragments
Fragments
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Nemesis
Ray my sausage dog has an archenemy.
And it’s Bilbo the silver cat next door.
Bilbo appears each day on the shared garden fence, slowly flicking his tail while Ray goes ape shit in his presence.
And seeing this drama unfold reminds me that loveable villains calmly press buttons whilst enjoying the whole show.
Too perfect
Certain things - ironically - work better when low quality.
Viral memes.
Super market music.
3AM takeaway.
Low quality is comforting in a way that highly polished ideas struggle to be.
An unsolicited visit from an expensive suit is a reason to put our guard up.
Some things are too perfect to be comforting.
Dance
To me, dancing is one of the most beautiful activities we humans enjoy collectively.
For when we move together, we play a part in something much bigger than ourselves.
And I’d be hard pressed to find a better metaphor for people taking a step towards coming together in peace.
Dance then, wherever you may be.
Why
The question of why I create art has eluded me for ages.
I’ve answered it in many different ways, but after a decade of soul searching, I think it comes down to this:
I create art because when I create art that helps others feel better, I feel better about myself too.
And with every step of progress I make, this logic is amplified internally.
That’s why.
Small talk
I never used to enjoy small talk.
It was a social obligation I performed with as little effort as possible without appearing rude.
And I think this is exactly why small talk has never really felt pleasant to me.
Small talk is simply a bid for connection.
But it is nothing if one half does as little as possible to make it happen.
For genuine connection to occur, it requires both sides to be fully invested.
And it turns out this is an investment that pays off far more often than I expected it to.
How are you?
Jokes
This morning, on a tight schedule, I managed to fall into a small river on my usual dog walk.
And if I wasn’t already late for this mornings appointment, I definitely was then.
At the time, my wife recognised this was in fact a funny story being told, but kindly listened with a straight face.
But if I’m honest, the happy part of this day didn’t start until we burst out laughing about it together this afternoon.
The funny side is the better side.
Five years
A piece of advice Cher swears by.
If it doesn’t matter in five years, it doesn’t matter.
And what a wonderful way to slam things back into perspective.
Counterfeit
The reason that wearing counterfeit is cheap isn’t because it looks fake.
It’s because the spirit of relying on image to appear succesful is fundamentally cheap.
The spirit of counterfeit is to focus entirely on superficial details.
Everything underneath breaks easily.
Helpful
I am a fan of one of the Janitors at work.
She’s a chirpy lady who works in all areas, and has unexpectedly inspired me heavily.
She talks about how she likes working on cancer wards because she’s very useful there.
Cancer patients going through chemotherapy inevitably vomit. A lot.
And she tells them its okay, keep going because it keeps her hired.
Every time she manages to make them laugh, it gives her a sense of purpose.
And this attitude has stayed with me since.
Detail
Charles Eames famously once said “The details are not the details. They make the design”.
Everything we put in a piece says something about us.
As such, there is an argument to omit anything that doesn’t have a strong reason to be there.
For every detail added to an idea that is irrelevant, we risk diluting our message.
Detail is where precision matters.
Minimalism
Minimal is about essence.
What could you take away from this idea, without breaking it?
Which is a tough question to answer if we don’t really understand the idea.
And without this understanding, the opposite happens - stuff gets stuffed in.
Minimal isn’t just what feels good when we’ve taken everything away.
It’s fundamentally understanding what the core of our idea is made of.
Heard
“I don’t care mate, I’m gonna end it”
A giant 25 stone bald headed beef cake came crashing through the front doors of our Emergency Department.
He eyed up every staff member who passed him, all the while swaying about smashing into cabinets intoxicated.
He had taken an overdose.
It took five people to calm him down, before he eventually slumped against a trolley.
He had just lost his job, had no where to go and could no longer face himself.
But ultimately, he was here because he called the ambulance services.
And rather than an overdose, I feel what he really needed was simply to be heard.
Gift
When we open the door, give a compliment or literally gift an item, it’s a gift if it’s sent without expectation.
But the moment it’s loaded with expectation it stops feeling like a gift, and feels more like an unsolicited emotional transaction.
When we frame our creative work as a gift - without expectation - it’s easier to weather a poor response. It was a gift.
But the irony is, we enjoy reciprocating gifts more than completing transactions.
Keep gifting.
Fashion
Any business that lives or dies by trends is in a fashion business.
The key question in any fashion business is - what do we show next?
Show people something too fresh, and they may not get it. Show people something too familiar and it feels stale.
So a go-to strategy is to bring back a formerly fashionable idea and adapt it to a new generation oblivious to it.
This dynamic is what makes fashion recur in cycles, and why learning the history of any art form is immensely valuable.
Fresh artists connect the past to the future.
Validation
When our contribution is meaningful, we will never feel the need to rely on external validation to feel valuable.
We validated ourselves the moment we contributed meaningful ideas.
But if the meaning of our contribution is to be validated..
We will always feel empty without others validating us first.
Meaningful work validates itself.
Birth
My first born son Ren (蓮) arrived a fortnight ago. He’s a tiny little nugget (0.4th centile for size) and he’s absolutely perfect.
When one expects a child, it feels like the arrival is the big moment, but of course it’s only just the beginning of the next chapter.
And with it comes the sharp reality - waking up multiple times to feed, changing diapers every other hour and making sure we don’t fall asleep and accidentally kill him.
I feel every important thing we create feels like this - the gruelling after care and sustain matters as much as the birth itself.
But when I see him smile for even a second it all feels totally worth it.
Creation is an act of love.