The past is just that. Go out and design yourself for the now.
….while you are at it, make your art. Do the stuff that only you can do.
The urge, starting out, is to copy. And that’s not a bad thing. Most of us only find our own voices after we’ve sounded like a lot of other people. But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.
The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.
The things I’ve done that worked the best were the things I was the least certain about, the stories where I was sure they would either work, or more likely be the kinds of embarrassing failures people would gather together and talk about until the end of time. They always had that in common: looking back at them, people explain why they were inevitable successes. While I was doing them, I had no idea.
I still don’t. And where would be the fun in making something you knew was going to work?
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Two days ago my phone haywired and with it so did all the crutches of distraction that come with work/social digi presence.
48 hours may not seem like an eternity, but its a lifetime when you think about the amount of information and communication we let invade our lies on an everyday basis; from infinite scrolls and tweets, to texts and frivilous status updates that flood our timelines.
And believe me, I’m not one of those people who has no self-awareness when it comes to smartphone addictions.
I understand how much a handheld device can be a cancer to personal personal relationships.
So let me say with confidence that if you do have an opportunity to go phoneless for a day or two. Do it.
And I mean jump in head first.
Challenge yourself and improvise on ways to connect and make yourself fully available.
I’m not saying be inaccessible fully, but on the totem pole of priorities, come to grips that things can get super cleaner and less cumbersome when you have less digital clutter to manage and no opportunity to connect with fringe players in your circle.
Sometimes less is better than more.
illustration via Felipe Luchi
