A Pep Talk

I needed a pep talk, and maybe you do as well. Luckily, several folks in my feed were offering up some inspirational words. But I'm proposing not just reading and feeling better, but taking some action where you can. What am I doing personally?

• Looking for ways to participate more locally.
• Using social media thoughtfully.

• Making (almost) every ridiculous idea I come up with because I enjoy it.
Proof point: Meditation for Creatives

Via Rusty Blazenhoff

Here’s what I think: Be a Trojan horse. Be a glitch in the system. A joyful saboteur. Smuggle meaning into the mundane. Inject absurdity into the ordinary. Make something that seems playful but carries a spark that wakes people up.

The Dadaists knew this. The Cacophony Society knew this. Look at how Cacophonists describe themselves:

The Cacophony Society is a randomly gathered network of free spirits united in the pursuit of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society through subversion, pranks, art, fringe explorations, and meaningless madness.

You may already be a member.

This is from her inbox zine, Rusty's Electric Dreams, "A way to find the Others—the positive deviants, the culture crafters, the ones drawn to the unexpected."

Via Paco de Leon

What if we redirected our collective attention to the people creating community wealth instead of hoarding it? What if we celebrated sufficiency over excess?

How can we practice small acts of cultural resistance? From supporting local businesses and talking openly about money with friends, to questioning narratives that equate worth with wealth and sharing resources instead of stockpiling them. How are you resisting and challenging the current status quo? And what would our world look like if we all did?

Paco writes about finance for real people via the Nerdletter, and especially for creative freelancers. So if you enjoy vibes like “culture needs to shift from gargling the balls of billionaires” check her out. Also for her solid financial advice.

Via IDEO

Becoming better craftspeople makes us better people because we are more at ease in a world that doesn’t immediately give us everything we want. This is not something we learn easily. It requires a patient deliberation of where and how we can make something fit for our purpose, and what to do when we cannot. We’ll never escape the difficulty inherent in dealing with real material things and with people. Craft teaches us that’s not a bad thing. That it leads to a more august sanity than thinking we can will our way into a frictionless existence, that it shows us that such an existence is not something we want... 

Edges of IDEO is a bit of a think space. And I appreciated this piece by Andy Reischling that says we should hold onto craft because it's good for us as humans and dammit it's enjoyable.

Friction

I’ve noticed lot of talk using the word friction, or a lack thereof, as a cause for the lull of creativity amongst such abundance. The OAS made a physical only dossier which I just received. You can read their manifesto portion here. But they are offering six counterforces. A lot of fifty-cent words here, but I appreciate that they’re offering solutions. And they made a real thing. More to come in a later piece once I digest it.

So many people I know have odd side quests that put cool things into the world. And all I'm really saying is keep doing it.