When perspective is advantage.

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ladyCrone

 

Perspective is powerful.  Perspective informs approach.  If you see things from a certain viewpoint, it will changes your understanding.  What you take for granted, might be the very thing that is eye-opening to another person.

 

One of my favourite adverts is the one with the two Twix brothers, because it shows what happens when when the same idea is executed with different approaches.  Although the end result is the same, in real life that’s often not the case. Two people can have the same idea, but because they are informed my different perspectives, the execution differs.

 

Perspective becomes an advantage when a person is able to capitalise on what others cannot see, or choose to ignore. This is not to gather round the campfire, and say we are all special snowflakes with wondrous insight. Your lived-in perspective might not even seem so special to you, because you live it day-in-day-out.  Perspective has to be acted upon from a position of recognition, before it can be advantageous.

 

On Creativity

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I find you in the pieces.  

In the stolen moments, or recaptured events of the day. You’re a thought here or there, an overheard phrase that becomes the bit of inspiration. You’re the observed interaction, the thing I saw that nobody did. Nurtured, developed – some call you craft.  

Craft is a loaded word. It connotes, focus, skill, intensity. I imagine a dedicated carpenter, inspecting his workmanship with a special kind of ferocity, millimetres away from his naked eye. He dusts, measures and removes the splint before it even becomes one.  

How does he know this? Craft. 

If he has built his craft, I am crafting still. I am learning to hold you with what I discover each day. I am learning to carry even when it seems like I should let go. Bit by bit, these are the layers in the making. It’s in the pieces.

In Development

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Inspired by a draft, that is – you guessed it – in-development.

buffer

 

When was the last time you went on YouTube because you wanted to watch a video buffer?

Exactly. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

If Forrest Gump was set in 2015, his mother would’ve probably said, ‘Sometimes life is like a video buffering. It seems like you’re waiting for the main event to load.’ Which actually makes more sense than a box of chocolates, because there’s always a guide telling you exactly which chocolates are available. Unless you are opening the box with your eyes closed and randomly picking, in which case, why? I digress.

Being ‘in-development’ isn’t necessarily a negative thing. Even in waiting, life is still to be lived, joy can still to be found, life is still to be shared, and dreams are still possible (case in point – Genesis’s Joseph). Things might turn out the way you envisioned, or they might not. But the irreplaceable time in-between is not the site of loss, but a place from where you can grow. And in conclusion, got to go – my video’s ready.

We are all just strangers on a bus.

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There is a strange intimacy that exists on public transport.  So close, yet so closed off.  Averted eye contact, the peculiar curling of lips into a shape that’s several stages away from forming an actual smile.  Forming, but never quite there.

The routine as familiar as the route itself.  We do not fully know who the other is, except as an unknown entity.  Yet, there is familiarity.  We’re literally all in this together. To you I am another nameless, nondescript commuter and vice versa.  These are the boundary lines.  They fall in expected places.  And so it goes, and so it goes.

 

 

Finding your voice, and other spirited cliches

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microphone-430425_1280

 

 

It’s the stuff of romanticised self-discovery voyages.  Find your voice.  Go on a journey, discover your personal declaration and you’re sorted.  The end.

The idea of finding your voice conjures the most dramatic movie imagery in my head.  I can see the fumbling protagonist, struggling to put things into meaning.  Aha!  A sudden turning point.  Cue learning montage, followed by the big moment in which everything culminates (usually in a dance-off. Even in the event of a chess championship, I would still personally expect some sort of dance-off – because why not?).  They triumph, win the trophy and overcome.

Except it’s not always like that in real life.  We’re not usually one pop-and-lock away from personal victory.   Even if we are, the story doesn’t end there.  Finding begets more finding, more tuning.

In addition,  this notion of finding your voice puts you front-and-centre.  What if it’s not about you, though?   In an age of ‘personal branding’  what if your voice isn’t a thunderous boombox, but a meaningful whisper that inspires someone else to raise their voice?  Is that enough?

I (much like Sway) haven’t got the answers.  That’s what the finding is for.