Consistent or variable?
Scheduled or spontaneous?
Canned or from scratch?
Always the same way or always improvised?
Where do you measure? Where do you eyeball?
What’s scripted? What's extemporaneous?
* * *
Part of our creative wayfinding is in discovering our personal balance between repeating and inventing, reciting and improvising — choosing which things go in which buckets.
A hand-tossed pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven will have an irregular shape. It might be charred in areas. Each bite will have a slightly different flavor profile and texture.
By contrast, a factory-produced frozen pizza will have a perfectly round shape and a remarkably consistent flavor throughout.
We want consistency and predictability in many areas. Medicine and consumer goods, for example.
But sometimes — especially in the art we create — nuance, variation, imperfection, and surprise are exactly what we seek.
When we hear that someone is biased, it suggests prejudice and unfairness.
But we can use bias in positive ways, too.
A bias toward action. A bias toward generosity. A bias toward inclusion.
Our job? Not to be neutral, but to lean with intention.
As an adult, I’m not particularly interested in my own birthday. I don’t draw attention to it. It’s another beautiful day among many. A little older. A little wiser. A little more grateful.
But for a three-year-old, a birthday is still worth noting.
With that in mind, Happy Birthday, Savenwood Blog. You’re three years old today. Many happy returns.
You will miss something beautiful today.
It will be right in front of you and you won’t see it.
Why?
Because beauty is everywhere. Everywhere. All around us. Within us, too.
And yet we don’t always see it. We’re busy. Our attention wanders. We’re distracted. We forget to look for it. Or we intentionally ignore it.
But beauty surrounds us. Envelops us. Emanates from us.
We just need eyes to see it and the presence of mind to recognize it.
I know what the salt container looks like. It’s cardboard. Dark blue. White text. Silver spout. Little girl with a yellow dress and an umbrella. Same as it’s always been. Same as it was growing up.
We know what things look like. And when we go looking for them in the cabinet, we know what to look for.
But there are other things that we don’t always recognize. Even when we’re searching.
Success. Forgiveness. Progress. Friendship. Regret. Remorse. Fear. Love.
We have an idea of what these things look like, but sometimes they present themselves in ways that we don’t recognize until much later.
Getting what we want can often be far easier than deciding what we want.
H/T: David
A courtyard can be a wonderful space, filled with natural light and fresh air.
It can also be a compelling metaphor: protected, but open.
What happens when we allow that open space? Not abandoning our walls completely, but allowing enough openness within?
Three questions to ponder:
What’s the dream?
What’s the GPS telling you?
What’s your next move?
Sit with these questions. Ruminate. Wonder. Then, do what you feel called to do.
Sometimes our most emotionally-driven, negative reactions occur not because of our frustration with others, but because of frustration with ourselves.
For us, it takes wisdom to see this. For others, insight and kindness.
If you want things to change, you will be upsetting a certain group of people.
For some, life is good as-is. They are happy with the way things are. They do not seek change. They cling to the status quo. They will spend vast amounts of time and money to that end.
Meaning, they will fight you. Passively or aggressively, they will resist.
The lesson is this: if we work for change, we cannot keep everyone happy. We have to accept this.
However, if we’re successful in making things better, those who once fought us might acquiesce. They could even become our partners, allies, and advocates.
In proofreading a note, I noticed that I had closed by typing “Live,” instead of “Love.”
I appreciated the thought that it prompted: to love is to live, and to live is to love.
They are often the same.
There are two styles of four-wheeled shopping carts.
With the first kind, there are fixed wheels in the back and swiveling wheels in the front.
With the second kind, all four wheels swivel.
One might think that the second kind is best. It’s the most agile. It has the smallest turn radius. It affords the most freedom of movement.
But that mobility can make the cart tricky to pilot. It’s more challenging to push in a straight line. Harder to turn once it’s going straight.
In the first kind of cart, the rear wheels help to hold a consistent path. Their inability to swivel creates an overall stability for the whole apparatus.
The principle is true in life, too: built-in constraints can work wonders for maintaining an established direction.
It could be that some of your constraints are working in your favor.
You might not be an art maker, but you could be a pedestal maker.
You might not be an actor or a musician, but you could be an impresario.
Whether or not we make beauty ourselves, we can always point to it — so that others might see.
Artist Joseph Cornell advised us, “Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time, with eyes of a child, fresh with wonder.”
Consider how drastically our lives might change for the better if we could embrace this.
Not child-ish, but child-like.
Imagine how alive we might be.
You could gather three or four of the most skilled people you know, and say, “Let’s identify a problem worth solving, and then work together to fix it.”
You could.
Of course, it’s a lot easier to bathe yourself in busywork and digital distraction, and hope that other people are focused on solving big problems.
* * *
We don’t coordinate efforts because we’re bored or because we’ve reached the end of the internet. We coordinate efforts because there are complex problems that urgently call for our attention.
If we’re not careful, we begin to judge others based on the game we’re playing.
Which means we’ve forgotten that not everyone is playing our game.
Not everyone is counting what we’re counting or watching what we’re watching.
Not everyone is keeping up with the same Joneses.
We each play our own game with its own rules and its own winners and losers.
It starts with just one day. And then another. And another.
And before you know it, you’re an alcoholic.
Or a runner.
Or a writer.
Or an embezzler.
Or a leader.
Or an artist.
Or a patron.
Or you.
What daily acts are shaping the person you’re becoming?
Admission: every night, I look into the bathroom mirror and think to myself, “I don’t want to floss.”
Then immediately afterwards, I floss my teeth.
It’s amusing to me that the trigger for my habit is my thought of not wanting to do the thing.
Some good habits are formed not by falling in love with the task, or earning a reward, or being otherwise compelled. They’re formed by consistently taking the right step even when you acknowledge that you don’t feel like it.
The street sweeper. The snow plow. The vacuum. The medical staff.
When good work is being done, we move aside. We clear the path. We try to make the job easier.
We make way.
And there are many ways we can do it. It’s not just about physically moving aside. It’s about greasing wheels, making connections, offering encouragement, helping with family, quietly solving problems … maybe even taking a back seat.
When good work is being done, we make way. And often, others make way for us too.
