a little pondering on creating

on way to the Old Town Market Square

Even in Warsaw you can ‘eat fresh’ at a Subway. Surrounded by all sorts of cafes and restaurants you find a Subway humming along. Does this distress the other restaurants? Or do they shrug and consider that those likely weren’t their target audience to begin with? It can be like that now more than ever as we write, share, create, and post on the internet.

It dances around the issue of why we write and who we create for. If we want the largest loudest audience then watered down, hyper-sensationalized, easily consumed is the way to go.

But is that really what all of us want? Maybe it’s not about the numbers at all, but rather about sharing work with those who resonate around our shared vision and purpose. Creating images, telling stories, and putting forth things that might make people pause and dream, or stretch, or grow.

I’d like it to be about something more. I’d like it to be conversation and dialogue. I’d like it to be about aiming higher and reaching further. I’d like it to be about finding our passions, our strengths, our own adventures, and living this life with ambition and eagerness in the face of fear and confusion.

Yes it’s easier to go into Subway and know that you want a foot long sub with all the familiar fixings. And then to never know what was in that cafe down the road or the restaurant next door.

This is our life. This is our chance. Each moment new. Each moment an invitation to live and to be a part of what we want to happen.

I want a world with deeper conversations. I want to hear the thoughts of people like  who is now moving his writing on to his blog so he can better create and articulate his thoughts.

Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, the easy social media flashing by, can be a good place for many things. It’s where I’ve met so many wonderful people and have had my life enriched. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now without the support and encouragement of my community of friends I met and made here. But the medium is not the end of our voice and it has limitations.

The invitation is to take these learnings and passions formed here, nurtured here, and do the riskier writing, the more elaborate projects, the greater curations. Blog your way to finishing a book. Curate a selection of work and invite a group of photographers who you know and respect to give feedback on it. Record an album, one song at a time.

Grow and go and get better. (I’m saying this to myself as well). It’s ok to not be perfect, and we get better by doing it. It’s going to be awkward, but it’s worth it.

Thanks  for your post that directly influenced the writing of this one. A little bit of G+ magic still lurks in the corners, because it harnessed a little of the magic of community, and humanity, connecting across the digital world.

We only have the one life, so lets do the hard work, the good work, the better work.

and on that note… I better start cooking some lentils and getting together the ingredients for lunch. I’m learning new recipes and new skills cooking with/for my girlfriend here in Glasgow, Scotland.

Life is to be lived.

Also with lentils.