Alter Doggo

I often wonder why dogs end up looking like their owners.

Maybe we’re drawn to dogs that remind us of ourselves.

Or maybe we start to adopt each other’s characteristics as we connect.

Whatever it is, it reminds me of how the most loving artists and fans leave an impression on one another.

Audience

When does a stranger become an audience?

When they’ve listened to us once?

When they start following us on socials?

When they’ve seen us at a gig?

Maybe it’s any moment someone’s willing to listen to what we have to say.

And in that moment, it’s worth saying something for both of us, not just ourselves.

Needle

I saw a girl come in the emergency department with spectacular tattoos.

Full sleeve both arms and up to her neck, even piercings on every piece of facial cartilage.

But when we told her we’d need a drop of blood for tests, she broke down into tears.

She was scared of needles.

But amidst the crushing irony I could believe that..

To her, a needle in a parlour represented beauty, whereas in hospital her mortality.

At least, this helped me feel less judgemental about it.

Grace

Ray is a nervous dog. And unfortunately, he will bark at any dog larger than him.

Fortunately most dogs are graceful enough to not bite. They have no real reason to.

When a stranger barks, it’s entirely up to us to take offence or leave it.

But taking bait is seldom graceful. Taking it means we felt threatened by the small dog.

The classiest thing to do is to deny what barking strangers want most - attention.

Keep it classy.

Pristine

Within the sprawling landscape of Kew Gardens stands a giant green house called the Palm House.

It is floor-to-ceiling glass panes, with a chaotic display of tropical plants inside.

The surface is covered with emerald patina and the space bursts with good vibes.

This place is everything pristine is scared of.

To wear its blemishes proudly, to allow uncertainty shape its personality, and to embrace imperfection.

And maybe when we get over a fragile priority like pristine..

We could grow like the Palm House too.

Carrot

I am definitely addicted to my phone.

But I take advantage of this by dangling it behind my morning routine.

Shower, meditate, practice instrument. All before I let myself pick up the phone.

This makes sure I get a few things done before I get screen time.

But having done this for a few months.. the real carrot is the peace I feel from a screen free start to my day.

Manual

I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of hefty manuals.

And when an idea requires an incredibly heavy manual to understand, it saps the joy out of it.

Creating simple ideas that bang is not an act of laziness.

Simple ideas that smack you in the soul results from enormous efforts refining what the idea is.

And giving ideas a chance to fly require us to unshackle it from the burden of cumbersome explanations.

Glass

All ego is made of glass.

It is transparent, and smashes easily.

Calling someones ego fragile is like saying the sky is blue. The ego by definition needs to uphold itself.

So where we fall short is pretending like we don’t even have an ego, and miss the opportunity to address its fragility.

In reality, every one has one and is carelessly smashing it into each other.

Handle with care.

Vulnerability

What do you care about?

Is it obvious from what you create?

Do you feel vulnerable when you share it?

Because if you do, you’re right on track.

Kitchen Dance

When a jam comes on in the kitchen, my wife does a small dance.

First it starts with a hip wiggle, then come the disco fingers.

These small moments are where I find the most joy.

Sometimes that’s all that really matters.

And

The golden rule of improvised comedy is ‘the magic of and’.

Never let a statement die, always pick up a joke and develop the theme.

And it turns out, this mindset is golden for composing too.

Every idea that’s thrown in deserves to be responded to, even if it’s with intentional silence.

Otherwise the voices in a track are just characters speaking over each other, or worse, statements followed by unintentional awkward silence.

If a composition sounds refined but feels boring, consider the magic of and.

Meme

My phone pings as my wife and I watch a rerun of a property show.

She’s secretly sent me a meme of a bedraggled chihuahua captioned “when you’re not a morning person”.

And I quietly giggle as she shifts her focus on my reaction. It’s a spot on metaphor of me in the morning.

And I’m reminded that metaphors are key to memes that feel relatable.

Success

If we accept the premise that every human has their own unique individual quality, then every success is individual too.

Every win, every victory and triumph comes with a hidden cost that goes largely unmentioned in most highlight reels.

The authentic artist may sacrifice financial security for ground breaking projects, and the entrepreneur may trade family time for revenue.

Success is a complex and multifaceted concept that is often over simplified.

And I find it pays more to be happy for the success of others, than to envy it.

Pretence

No one would mistake me for a dancer.

Which is just as much because I’m not.

But I do love dancing maybe because I don’t particularly pretend to be one.

And just about everything in life is more fun when we drop pretence.

Schadenfreude

Of my two sausage dogs, Otis is the sharper, more athletic and confident one.

He’s also more stubborn, complex and likely to get into trouble for misbehaviour.

So in the less common scenario where Ray gets a scolding, Otis is visibly pleased that for once, it’s not him.

And although he demonstrates this schadenfreude, he’ll also go after Ray and lick him to remind him he’ll be ok.

Focus

When I sit to meditate, I sink into the reality that in that moment, nothing really matters.

I simply am.

And as I stand up, I have a choice about what still matters to me.

This isn’t nihilism or a pointless exercise in existentialism.

It’s an exercise in caring less about what doesn’t matter, so I can care more about the few things that do.

And with this focus, I have more bandwidth to go smash the most important things in my life.

Fine!

Professor Albert Mehrabian has published some studies on the relative importance of verbal and non-verbal cues.

In particular, when there is an inconsistency between the message and the accompanying action, we are more likely to believe the non-verbal cues.

Which is why, when we say “I’m fine!” and slam the door behind us, it is transparent that things are in fact, not.

Trap

These days merely picking up my phone feels like a dangerous activity.

Before I know it, I’m balls deep watching ten second clips of random shit on IG for ten minutes.

And then I can’t even remember why I picked up the phone in the first place.

Author Neil Postman writes in his book “Amusing ourselves to death” that our ancestors attention span as humans are being fast eroded by gratifying stimuli from screens.

Which would be fine if it were how knowledge, skill and meaning were effectively developed.

But we all know the boring reality.

It’s not.

High wire

Art about art attracts a very specific audience. Mostly critics and other artists.

And art about art can be too out for the average audience who just wants a cheap hit of dopamine.

The accolade of receiving support from both critics and mainstream results from work that walks the line between Populism vs. Progressiveness and performs on it with precision.

But this is impossible without a solid understanding of cultural legacy, and a sense of where things are headed.

Remaining relevant is a precarious balancing act of respecting the past and bringing something new to the next generation.

Fetching

My sausage dog Otis loves his ball.

And obviously balls, are boring to me.

But seeing how much Otis loves his ball makes me care a lot.

I love watching him light up when I take a ball out of the draw for fetch.

And it makes me realise that when we talk about the things we love, it doesn’t really matter what the subject is.

It’s really about you and the love you pour into it that’s contagious.