On solving creative block

March 10, 2010


To those encountering someone who works in the creative industries:

The best antidote to self-doubt – and by doubt, I mean the crippling block of creativity that all writers and designers and programmers and artists assume will lead only to ruin – isn’t reassurance. Reassurance is just words; regardless of sincerity, the creative will see them as platitudes – flimsy and loose, like paper in a three-ring notebook.

Nor is it enthusiasm, sympathy or understanding. These often result in dismissal, resentment and further doubt, respectively.

Offer your trust, however, and things change. The minute you place your trust in a creative’s opinion is the same time those previous doubts begin seeming inconsequential. Silly. And then, just like that, they vanish.

It’s a play to the ego, in part. But more than that, it’s comfort in knowing our creative skills are still worth something. That we can still make a difference, and you’re willing to risk your own project to make it happen.

Tags: Career, On..., Writing |

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On the empathy of a toddler

March 1, 2010


I couldn’t do it any better. None of us could. Not one, not a single person.

Not unless you, too, were two years old. Not unless you, too, were so filled with innocence; your heart still sporting an unbroken seal, the cotton still lodged firmly in the top, clogging the cynicism, soaking in the barbs.

Still shielding doubt. Still accepting the pain of others as your own.

This is still how Sierra sees the world, and it might be both the tenderest and the most genuine thing I’ve ever seen. Her friends? Their hurt is her hurt. Her parents? Our sadness is her sadness.

“When Isaac cries, it makes me sad,” she says. And it’s that honesty – that unbridled empathy – that I have yet to experience in anyone else.

As we grow and live and understand that some people use emotions as weapons and every unit of communication can be a war, we can’t help but to sometimes doubt sadness. We lose our ability to empathize. Little by little, it calluses. The seal long gone, all that remains is a quarter teaspoon of aspirin dust and the dull shake of the remaining pills.

Outside of a few select friends and loved ones, we protect ourselves from being manipulated. And just like that, our culture begins seeing empathy as weakness.

I still like to think I feel it. I know I do with those I love. With those in awful situations. I might even be more sensitive to others’ pain than most, if routinely tearing up during certain Ben Folds songs is any indication.

But not like Sierra. Not like any two year old. Unwilling to accept that people can be bad, they still believe in empathy. And they use it without understanding how much it means to the rest of us.

Tags: On..., Sierra |

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Three Lists about Traveling to St. Cloud, Minnesota

January 28, 2010


Things that fly by on a four-hour trip to St. Cloud, Minnesota.

• Snow-packed hills
• Local Hardee’s franchises
• Universities I’ve attended
• Available bladder room
• Cities named after legendary Native Americans
• Trucks that don’t look like they should be running at all, let alone on a highway going 55 miles per hour
• Cenex stations

Things that fly by on a four-minute drive down Division Street in St. Cloud, Minnesota

• Patience
• Your life, before your eyes
• Red Lobster

Things that DO NOT fly by on a four-hour trip to St. Cloud, Minnesota

• Time

Tags: On..., The Top..., Travel |

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The chemical nature of shame

January 12, 2010


My mind was in overdrive. Still winding down from work, with my Over-Stimulation Meter hitting red (thanks, in part, to the combined noise of two children clamoring for dinner) it wasn’t a surprise that I broke the plate.

It would be cliché to say I saw it in slow motion. But it sure felt like it, with 30 seconds of airtime separating release from impact. I stood still, my hands shaking, their movement betraying their guilt.

I couldn’t speak. My head dropped. I felt ashamed, as if I was 10 years old, clumsily handling the fine china after Thanksgiving dinner and dropping the gravy bowl, watching my family’s faces as they soaked in the destruction of a family heirloom.

But this was no heirloom. It was a small Fiestaware plate that can be replaced. The teacups, which have sat alongside the plates since the beginning nearly seven years ago, had already witnessed a casualty just a few months after purchase.

Sensing my frustration, Kerrie laughed. “I’m surprised we hadn’t broken one already,” she said.

Comforting, I suppose. But something about that crash, that absolute loss of control, the destruction that renders the plate useless. Despite the fact that I knew it wasn’t a big deal, I couldn’t help but be delivered to childhood, dipped in the shame that we all experienced en mass.

Breaking that plate made me a kid again. And while it wasn’t a safety mechanism, that kid-like feeling of innocent shame felt like an innate chemical, as natural as adrenaline or serotonin.

Tags: On..., Vilhauer |

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Food of the future

January 8, 2010


Schwan'sWe’re Schwan’s customers, or, at least, we’re Schwan’s customers as much as is allowed while only purchasing ice cream every four weeks. It wasn’t a choice – it came with our house. Or, to be clear, the handsome Schwan’s delivery driver came with the house, a bi-weekly reminder of our mortality.

“Only TWO gallons of ice cream?” he says, burrowing a deep gaze into our resistance.

It’s the extra 150 pounds or so I’ve gained since moving into this house that put things into perspective. What is this service? In Today’s Turbulent and Volatile Economy, how do people justify ordering frozen food via delivery service, the prices sitting comfortably at around 20% higher than grocery store rates?

My only guess: this is some weird holdover from the 50’s, when convenience was the invention du jour. The catalog reads like one of those Sears Wish List books, with row after row of frozen food, all ready to put into your Kitchenaid Range or, later on, your Panasonic Microwave Oven.

Jetsons Kitchen of the FutureBroccoli. Penne Gratin. Mixed Vegetables. Sushi Rolls. Meatballs (Turkey or Pork). Pretzel Poppers. Tomato Basil Soup. Green Beans. Sliced Ham. Brown Rice.

“Don’t forget to tell them about this week’s special, the Pirogues.”

Yes. Sorry, handsome delivery driver.

This is Schwan’s. Everything – and I mean EVERYTHING – at the ready. Totally prepared and brought to your door. But now, instead of the future, it seems like an old standby of less frugal times.

This, my friends, is the future we were always waiting for. And it continues to serve us, one bag of frozen grilled mushrooms at a time.

Tags: Food, Home, On..., Technology |

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The reports of blogging’s death are greatly exaggerated

January 5, 2010


Things that are new are never new for long. Over the years, they become tarnished, rusted, worn away and picked at. Eventually, something new comes along and threatens their safety. It happens with animals. Appliances. Technologies. People.

It happens on the Web too, where concepts can be readjusted, glossed up and cleaned – like a new coat of paint, or a rebuilt engine – but the basics are always the same. The concept is always connected to launch date. The history still snakes back to the beginning.

For good and for bad. Successful entities continue on, changing to meet the needs of the future but staying true to their solid core concept. Unsuccessful ones refuse to change, and therefore fail.

But old doesn’t always mean bad. And new doesn’t always mean good.

Which is why the idea that blogs are quickly becoming obsolete is as laughable as the idea that radio would die after the invention of television. More laughable is the idea that Twitter is going to offer the deathblow when, in fact, Twitter is making blogging stronger.

Because let’s be honest. You started reading blogs because it was a look into someone’s life, whether literally or through the collected knowledge of that person’s field. Static sites featuring conversations adapted and message boards evolved, bringing in a steady flow of content, LiveJournaling their way to today’s WordPress and Blogger dominated landscape.

But they’ve always been the same. They’re one person – or, in some cases, a collective voice - bringing their words freely to the masses.

I’d compare it to the early days of pamphleteering, or printing, or even the underground zine culture, but it’s not even close. Sure, the concept is there. But the delivery is different. The delivery is open. Everyone can use it. EVERYONE CAN BLOG.

But not everyone should.

And that’s where Twitter is effectively weeding out the masses. Those people who spent days posting cat pictures and breakfast menus and baby trivialities no longer need to go through the hassle of writing and formatting and posting and waiting. It’s just one sentence, click, post, repeat.

So the number of abandoned blogs rise. Those too lazy to read a full article are content to write the entire medium off. And those too lazy to write a full post are content to let it die.

I don’t see this as a bad thing.

Now, after the blog boom (when blogging became a badge, simply one of the grandest things in the world to be a part of) people are realizing the error of the undertaking, that keeping up with a blog isn’t as much fun as saying you had a blog.

At the same time, Twitter has pulled the driftwood from the banks of our feed readers (also dying, apparently) and given the stage back to those who are still passionate about posting, about thinking and writing and offering something to the masses that serve as an audience.

The process isn’t complete. It never will be. But when you look at it this way, Twitter isn’t killing blogs.

It’s saving them.

Tags: Blogging, On..., Technology |

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New Year’s Eve

January 1, 2010


There was a time when New Year’s Eve made me giddy. When the idea of seeing all of my friends and stumbling through a drunken haze was paramount, the date an excuse to let go all of the previous year’s shackles, to reconnect with people who only come together on this, the holiest of party days.

It mattered where I was. It mattered who I saw. The night was for my friends.

Sometime over the last decade, my priority shifted to where friends drifted away and family took their place; where the night was no longer an excuse to drink and be rowdy, but instead an excuse to stay up until midnight reading my book.

Last night, we watched DVDs until midnight. We went to bed. And we woke up with a clear mind, with nothing to hold us back from the new year.

Maybe it’s the natural move toward adulthood. I think it’s simply a stage of growing up. But after a decade where I got married, had two beautiful children, learned a new trade and started doing what I wanted to do as opposed to what I thought I was supposed to be doing, I don’t miss the old New Year’s Eve tradition.

It used to matter where I was.

Come to think of it, it still does.

It’s just that the location has become a little quieter. A little closer. And a whole lot more important.

Tags: On..., Vilhauer |

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