I find it pretty tough to avoid the process of reflection at this time of year. As much as the transition into a new year may feel like an arbitrary measure of time, the urge to reflect upon the past and envision a future seems to seep in from all sides. The holidays have a dual effect of making me excited to spend big nights out with people I love, while also making me crave solitude.

I’ve indulged both wishes this year; festive nights of food and drink, followed by gentle days savoring books and thoughts. Today I will begin some reflective writing and extreme journaling. As I eased into this space of introspection, I thought of a horoscope I had recently read. Last year, my New Year’s Eve post was fueled by a horoscope as well, and Richard Reeve expressed exactly why the images and metaphors of horoscopes might appeal to me:

I think having archetypal images like this to inspire the energies that often lie dormant within us is an excellent way to engage with our path.

As Richard suggests so eloquently, such images and symbols work wonderfully to awake what simmers within us. This week, my end-of-year horoscope evoked a theme that had already taken deep root in my thoughts. Speaking of the influence of Saturn, Rob Brezsny writes:

My experience is that the ringed planet provides the greatest gift imaginable: motivation to become the person you were born to be. It steers you away from pursuing goals that aren’t in alignment with your soul’s code. It pressures you to give up vain fantasies that even if fulfilled wouldn’t make you happy.

I have been thinking a lot about focus, and this text fed right into those thoughts. I am trying to move into a practice of greater focus, both in my daily actions and my broader pursuits. Part of this translates into re-cultivating little habits that I’ve neglected in recent months, but much of it translates into questioning myself (constructively) consistently and writing more often. Although I’m quite open to perpetual movement and change, it can be easy to go for stretches of time without questioning whether I should keep moving forward — but what about turning left? Veering softly to the right? It’s important to me to have a stronger sense of my own pulse, to make sure everything I do is deeply thoughtful and intentional. Although writing can lead to dwelling on the past or future, it can also be a beautiful, flowing record of the present. Amid my motivation and broad pursuits, I hope to be fully present. And so, as I reflect upon the past and envision a future, I will put my strongest energy into being fully conscious of my present.

What about you? Where are you finding yourself these days?

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A few weeks ago, I was looking up a farm in upstate NY where a friend works. As I searched the internet, the first relevant reference to that farm finally popped up. It was an article about a raid on the farm to arrest undocumented immigrants. I scrolled down to view the comments, and was shocked by the hatred poured out on the page. Hatred for immigrants  — both with papers and without — was expressed nakedly and often with vulgarity. But why was I shocked?

My friend at the farm is an immigrant. A documented immigrant who is too focused on creating new lives for his family to complain about the prejudice he encounters. I want these very human stories to play a large role in immigration debates. I want to challenge xenophobia. But after reading those comments, I realized you can’t fight intelligently unless you know who you’re fighting against.

If all the news and information I read fits nicely with my socio-political leanings, then how do I know what to bring to the other side?

I’m curious; when’s the last time you read news and thoughts from the other side? What if we tried to understand the roots of those views instead of indulging our initial ugh… where could we go with that? Would we ever blur the line between us and the elusive other?

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Koldo Barroso is a Spanish illustrator and storyteller who moved to the US in 2008 with a suitcase full of grotesque characters, dark stories and impossible visions. He describes his world of Art and Illusion as a mere act of “making visible and invisible world of magic, mystery and imagination.” His latest published work is a series of illustrations for Judy Dyble’s “Talking With Strangers”, the latest CD album from the legendary singer of Fairport Convention.

Koldo Barroso spoke to me about his experience during the making of “Talking With Strangers” and answered a few key questions about the creative process in illustration and storytelling.

How important is research in storytelling and illustration?

I think it’s essential because without a certain dose of reality there is no credibility and then you can’t reach your audience emotionally. If you’re creating a story, it’s very important to do your homework first and be consistent about the little details because small details can say a lot on a subliminal level. Besides that, it has never been so easy to research as it is today, with the Internet.

This was the case of the “Harp Song” illustration that I did for Judy Dyble’s album “Talking With Strangers”. It’s the largest illustration in the album for a 20+ minute-long song that tells a story about the relationship of the singer with music throughout the years. The illustration is full of details and hidden imagery. The mutant monsters are inspired in three different musicians from Judy Dyble’s musical past, the most recognizable of them is guitarist Robert Fripp. There are also elements that resemble King Crimson‘s masterpiece “In The Court Of The Crimson King”, since the song features a classic Crimsonesque part and the collaboration some members of the legendary band. So these details and small elements may not be noticeable at first sight but they create a concrete atmosphere, a concrete first sight feeling. This couldn’t have been possible without research and visual resources.

What comes first, the story or the image?

This is an interesting question. I guess it depends mostly of how visual or how narrative you are. In my case, I’m a visual person first and foremost. But mainly, it depends on the project. If it’s a commissioned project to illustrate a story by someone else’s text, obviously the text rules the work. But when I work for myself, the image always comes first. Then I sit in front of it and say: “tell me your story”.

Are emotions important in the creative process?

Emotions are the key of spiritual awareness because only through them we can tell when something is right or wrong. We feel good when we see a baby laughing and bad when they cry in pain. In the creative process, it’s just about the same. Through emotions, we can explore hidden parts of ourselves, let our ego go and be ready to find things that might be hurtful but necessary for us to heal the past.

This has a lot to do with the illustration I did for “Neverknowing”. It’s a beautiful song written by the producers of the album Tim Bowness of No-Man and Alistair Murphy and which is interpreted as the recovering of something precious that was long lost. The whole album has a lot to do with that encounter with the past so I used the brambles and thorns all over the illustrations as an analogy of the old abandoned memories that keep growing up in our within. They kind of protect us but, even if it’s harmful, one day we realize that we need to face them and clean them in order to advance.

Do tight specifications make the creative process harder?

I hear artists complaining about this all the time. Nobody likes to wear tight corsets while being creative! In my case, I think it has more to do with not trying to be someone else. That’s the kind of job I never accept. When someone wants me to do a drawing just like someone else or to do something that I know from my experience will never work. It’s a matter of being honest.

Besides that, I don’t think that tight specifications should narrow down freedom and creativity but the opposite, if the specifications make sense to make the cover the needs of the project. For me, it was pretty challenging to illustrate the song “Talking With Strangers” because the lyrics are very descriptive: a woman who spends a lot of her time with her Internet friends and her dogs require her attention and pleading her to come back to reality. John Hurford had already painted this same scene for the album cover, before I was invited to join the project, and of course he did a great job. So I decided to go a little further than the lyrics and the album cover. I envisioned a ship city crossing the sky, representing the strangers from the Internet world. It’s like taking the advantage of a narrow situation and take it to the limit, pretty fun!

What happens when the story to illustrate is too abstract to put into images?

This rarely happens when you’re illustrating children’s books and novels, but very often when I work for poetry and music. I love this kind of work because I can do a parallel journey and bring a new dimension to it. I thing it’s very interesting because this way people will have different versions of the concept. In this case: the music, the lyrics, and the illustration.

For the album, I had to illustrate the song “C’est La Vie,” whose lyrics were written by one my favorite lyricists, Peter Sinfield, he is famous for his work with King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. The song is about a man who says to his lover that he can’t tell her how much he loves her, so they end up accepting the situation in resignation until the love fades away. I decided to create a story within the story and I saw in my mind this little scene of a woman and a rock by the sea. They’re in love but they won’t tell each other. The woman needs the rock because that’s where the lighthouse that will guide her in the night is, but they just accept the situation and part ways.

How to achieve the desired result?

In my experience, the only way to achieve the desired result is by not focusing on it. The process is the most important, not the result. To be open, to be true, to be honest, to be humble, to be ready to let go, to be authentic with my work. If all this happens, the result is always right.

When you focus on the result, you don’t allow creativity to happen truthfully, you close the door to infinite possibilities that may come to you. These possibilities are gifts that we should accept from life, being humble and playing with them, letting them happen without fear and restrictions. My only restriction about creativity and ideas is that I need to feel them true, I need to feel them authentic, that they’re really supposed to be. It’s kind of an instinctive thing. When I work this way, then I feel free.

So I’m not really concerned about seeing the final work if I know that the process was authentic. For instance, in the case of Judy Dyble’s album “Talking With Strangers”, I haven’t seen a copy of the CD yet but many people has told me that it looks great. If they enjoy what they see I think it’s because they’re tuning with the feeling that I experienced during the process. So I’m very happy that they can see the result, but my joy is first and foremost in the process.

Thank you Zoë for giving me this opportunity to talk about my experience and for sharing this experience with your readers.

Koldo’s present projects are a modern fairy tale for grown up readers and a sleeve design and illustration for Kimara Sajn forthcoming CD. His latest published work is a series of illustrations for Judy Dyble’s “Talking With Strangers”, the latest CD album from the legendary singer of Fairport Convention. The album, due to release in September in the US, was produced by Alistair Murphy and Tim Bowness of No-Man and it features the collaboration of renowned musicians from King Crimson, Pentangle, All About Eve and Fairport Convention.

You can visit Koldo at www.KoldoBarroso.com. At his web site, he hosts creativity workshops such as the Kooky Pets where readers contribute with crazy ideas to create new characters every week that he brings to life with his pen.

photo by moriza

During a lunch meeting last week in New York, the woman I was chatting with described a conference she’d been to and said something to the effect of, “Once all the distractions and clutter of everyone’s lives were stripped away, even the people whose ideas and lifestyles had seemed to clash with mine suddenly seemed like beautiful people.”

This idea kept popping into my head as I was sitting on the subway or hanging out in cafés.  Sitting quietly in a crowded place or walking along a bustling street often washes a certain effect over me — I sometimes become almost overwhelmed with how much human thought, history, and emotion is flooding the space. I dive briefly into someone in the room — the lanky woman reading in the corner, or the old man slicing his muffin — and inevitably, that person becomes a beautiful tangle of humanness.

It’s not easy to enter that depth of uncertain perspective. It’s easier to laugh at the woman whose shorts are a wee bit too short, rather than to think about whether or not her mom used to tell her she was pretty. It’s simpler to get angry at the guy who aggressively shoved past you in the street, rather than to wonder if he’s late for his girlfriend’s opening night.

But what happens when we do explore the humanness of others? What possibilities unfold? What connections become conceivable?

Aside from our daily interactions offline, I think this is worth thinking about in online terms as well. The internet offers a new landscape, but it does not automatically mean all barriers come down. Check out Dana Boyd’s thought-provoking paper, “The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online“.

What do you think?

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Sometimes simple questions are most effective at unraveling spools of thought.

When Reese asked the following question on Twitter, it ignited some ideas that had been quietly sitting at the bottom of my mind.

How often do you choose comfortable & familiar over remarkable & life-changing? What about when prior remarkable becomes comfortable?

I often make it a point to choose unconventional paths that test my limits in some way. In the words of my about page:

People aside, there are two loves in my life to which my devotion has been consistent: words and uncharted territory…

Though the implications of “uncharted territory” seem quite grand, I simply mean those areas outside my experience. I am willfully drawn to boundaries, if only for the chance to push them. This drive translates into a desire to travel and to transform the distant into the familiar.

But going along with Reese’s question, what happens when the once-distant does become familiar? Take my life in Thailand, for example. Before moving to Thailand, I had never even been to Asia. The transition inevitably came with torrents of novelty to explore, whether it was northern Thai foods, Buddhist ceremonies, or drinking styles. Two years later, it’s quite amazing to remember some of the things that once shocked and amused me, and now seem so commonplace. Once that familiarity begins to set in, so does a degree of restlessness. I crave the uncertainty of new experiences, and the way they tickle the boundaries of what we believe.

Yet the uncertainty and the novelty are also intimidating, and questions like these make me realize that I progress in waves. Moving to Thailand on my own and beginning to work independently involved a long (and ongoing!) learning and changing process. Once I started to feel comfortable, I though I should cut myself a bit of a break before pushing my limits again; but that mindset never felt quite right, and I started to wonder if I was settling into boring familiarity by remaining in Thailand. I started scheming new places to go, convinced this was the necessary next step.

And then I stopped. The more I pondered and planned, the more I realized it was no “solution” to go somewhere simply for the sake of going somewhere else. It was doing something new — not going somewhere new — that I truly craved.

The realization itself was quite invigorating, and I began pushing myself to work harder in current projects and endeavors (this blog included). That extra push of doing stuff plunged me forward through a handful of new doors, and I found the novelty and limits-testing I’d been itching for in new projects, instead of new places.  A couple of the projects were locally based — for a change from my normal tele-commute style — and this actually unveiled a whole new face of my life in Thailand.

The time to change places will come (and these six weeks of traveling are offering me plenty of place-changing!), but sometimes I have to remind myself that the more obvious changes — like moving to a new country — don’t automatically satisfy as deeply.

So… How often do you choose comfortable & familiar over remarkable & life-changing? What about when prior remarkable becomes comfortable?

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photo by doubledareyaa

I connected with Lisa Baldwin of Divine Order several months ago, after being intrigued by her laid-back yet insightful approach to simplifying and de-cluttering. Lisa is a master of clearing space, minds, and time, and she offers a fresh, empowering perspective to us creative folks. I’ve been hoping to get her on this blog, and now that she’s generously agreed to an interview, you can all vicariously pick her brain with me!

Now seems like the right time to publish this interview, as Lisa is working with Leonie on a “Divine Decluttering & Magical Space Clearing e-course” that guides you in the process of creating a space that not only feels right for you, but also supports your projects and passions. Lisa and Leonie have offered me warm words of support and guidance many-a-time, so I’m very happy to support this unique, wonderful project. When I first stumbled upon Leonie’s work, I thought she was too hippie-woo-woo for us to really relate, but I’ve since discovered that her beautiful values make her work completely accessible and appealing to even the skeptics among us. As a team, Lisa and Leonie create a pretty awesome dynamic. The e-course is geared toward the ladies, but this interview is valuable for everyone!

Interview with Lisa Baldwin

1. How much do you believe physical clutter affects our mental processes? Does a messy desk open the door to a scattered mind?

Clutter is very much in the eye of the beholder – some people are genuinely happy surrounded by a lot of stuff and would find it difficult to work without it. Others get irritated by even the tiniest mess. Most of us are somewhere in between.

The important thing to consider is how you feel about your space. Is it supporting you or holding you back? Do you feel comfortable or stifled? If you feel held back or stifled by your space, then that’s going to affect you regardless of the actual amount of stuff. The effects can be surprisingly far-reaching – focus, confidence and energy can all be affected by a space that feels icky to you. Sometimes we don’t truly recognise that until we start clearing.

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2. We all know the stereotype of the messy creative. But in my personal experience, it’s often tough to be creative when your space is stuffed with clutter. Is there a balance for people who want space for unrestrained creativity, but who don’t want a crowded, chaotic workspace?

Well, the creative process itself is messy — that’s just how it rolls — but the finishing is also part of the process and that’s where you get to make the internal and external space for the next project. So maybe there are parts of what you do that thrive in a little chaos, but there are other parts that need space and order. When you take a mindful, compassionate approach to clearing, you can allow for both needs, either physically or in terms of time.

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3. How did you end up as a “professional simplifier and space-maker”?

I got interested in clutter because I had a lot of it. My home and my life felt overstuffed and overwhelming. As I cleared more space for myself, I realised just how much all that stuff had affected me and how powerful the clutter clearing process could be, and I wanted to help others experience that. It’s about so much more than a pretty space or the perfect container – I help people make space for their awesomeness.

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4. You once commented on a post I wrote about consuming vs. creating, and you wrote:

“What surprises me is that while my clients arrive ready and willing to let go of stuff, few have seriously considered buying less. I don’t mean that as a criticism – to me, it reveals the conflict between a desire to live more simply and the effects of growing up in a time when shopping became an accepted (and expected) leisure activity. (Yes, 1980s – I’m talking about you!) We want to have less, but we’re not quite ready to buy less.

My belief is that we’ve been slowly tip-toeing out of the age of consumption for some time now. It’s a slow shift but we’re noticing that more stuff does not equal more happy.

My hope is that we are now entering an age of discernment. An age where, instead of being distracted by the pursuit of baubles and gadgets, we measure the quality of our lives by the quality of our time, our relationships, and our contribution.”

Do you think decluttering/purging/simplifying often leads to a lasting lifestyle change, or do most people end up reverting back to the former state of clutter/consumerism?

Decluttering is an ongoing process and it can be a lot like changing eating habits or starting an exercise program. It’s so tempting to try to change everything at once, yet that’s the quickest route to burnout; we end up feeling deprived or overwhelmed and go straight back to our old ways. Then, for extra fun, we beat ourselves up because we’ve failed again and that’s not very motivational at all. Who wants to set themselves up for that?

With patience and compassion, we can make tiny shifts over time that add up to sustainable change. Clutter clearing is an act of self-care, not a one-day endurance event. When space-making is approached as a long-term lifestyle change, it’s far more likely that it will last. We become more aware of how stuff comes into our lives, and how much time and energy it takes to manage it all.

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5. Why is it so difficult for some of us to clear space and simplify? Are messy people incurable, or do you think we can all cultivate the habits of simplifying and space-clearing?

There are all kinds of reasons why space clearing and simplifying can be difficult. Overwhelm can be a big issue — knowing where to start, where to finish, or trying to do too much at once can all make a nap look like a better option.

Feelings of guilt and shame can also make it difficult — if you know you’re going to spend your clearing time beating yourself up, then avoiding it is a perfectly sane and reasonable thing to do.

Then there’s the follow-up stuff that gets overlooked — a one-off purge can be wonderful, but without changing some habits here and there, it’s easy to slip back to where you started.

Are messy people incurable? Well, I’m a messy person by nature, but I also crave space, order and simplicity. If you looked at my desk mid-project, you would never guess what I do for a living, but my recovery time is so much faster now. I have less stuff to manage, and I have a good idea of where to put it all when I’m done making a mess.

I believe that we can all find the sweet spot where we can be our messy selves, if that’s who we are, but also be supported by our space. When that happens, we can spend less time looking for the paintbrush and more time making the art, literally or metaphorically.

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What does your creative space look like? Do you flourish with a wild, messy workspace, or do you need a clutter-free canvas?

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You can connect with Lisa on Twitter at @zenatplay, and if you’re interested in the e-course, click here!

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Add your comments below, or click the title of this post if no comment form is visible!

Note: The above links to the decluttering e-course are affiliate links, which means that if you sign up for the course using one of those links, I get appreciation money for helping Lisa and Leonie find their right people for the course. As always, absolutely no pressure to use those links!

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photo by Norman B. Leventhal Map Center

As I began writing this post, I realized it was going to be a lot longer than I had planned. I also realized that the one-year anniversary of my blog falls on Sunday, June 28th. So I’m publishing this long, personal post today because I am in reflective mode, musing on the changes and evolutions of the past year. I hope it feels right for those of you who take the time to read through it.

When people learn that I came to Thailand on my own, started doing independent work, and figured out how to support myself and do stuff I love, they often think it’s pretty wonderful. Reactions range from “Cool, me too!” to “I wish I could” to “Wow, what’s it like?” But for all the people who are completely supportive, there are plenty of people who just don’t get it. People who think I came to Thailand to escape “real life,” that I’m just roaming aimlessly through Southeast Asia, or that I’m not being realistic. They’re waiting for me to get a real job, to get started on real life, and to stop thinking life’s so damn amazing.

Honestly, I have a bone to pick with anyone who has this perfect vision of what is real and what is not. There are plenty of philosophical discussions to be had on this topic, and I’m open to learning much more, but my life experience so far has led me to believe that human experience isn’t necessarily limited to a single reality — we create, inherit, and explore realities, because our realities are simply our ways of experiencing the world. We humans just can’t escape the fact that everything we know, see, hear, and think is inescapably shaped by our perception. We are always subjective, and that can be an incredible thing. Homogeneity gets pretty boring.

This concept of accepting different realities has been highlighted and cemented in my mind by travel and living abroad. When I moved to Thailand almost two years ago, it was my first time in Asia. Although I had always considered myself to be a very open, reasonably well-traveled person, I came face to face with fundamental things that were completely different here — different to an extent I had not yet encountered. See, there are certain things — like societal values, what is logical, what is beautiful — that are so deeply ingrained in our systems, that we don’t even think to question their universality. They’re invisible, pervasive assumptions. It’s shocking, in a magnificent way, to run head-on into the realization that these things are just part of your reality, not everybody’s reality. What I have always thought to be logical may be absurd to someone in a different reality; this doesn’t mean that their reality is silly or irrational — it’s simply different.

These types of observations fascinate me. I love trying to understand how we create contexts, how we escape contexts, and how social constructions come to be. So I ended up unconsciously deciding to do such an experiment with my own life. This experiment has influenced my physical space (living and traveling far from where I grew up), my mental space (absorbing the possibilities presented by the various cultures I encounter), and my professional space (mobile, independent, unconventional). Aside from travel and living abroad, technology has also played a key role in this experiment. Technology has enabled me to work independently, to connect and collaborate with people who have complementary aspirations, and to create my own platform. In fact, technology has so blurred the lines between my “professional” and “passionate” work, that using the word “professional” feels inadequate. So although I didn’t set out with the purpose of creating my own reality, that’s what I’m doing. It’s not that I’m especially bold or especially capable, but rather that this is the way that seems most interesting and fulfilling to me. It’s scary sometimes, but it’s more often invigorating and motivating.

This also doesn’t mean that I reject anything viewed as “conventional.” Take school, for example. I think unconventional education — such as experiential learning and immersion —  is truly important and beneficial, but I also love being a student in a classroom. I’m in the process of deciding on MA programs to apply to, because it feels like the right time and it fits with the next steps I want to take. When I graduated university in 2007, I considered going straight into a PhD program — I can’t tell you how happy I am that I waited. In the space of two years, my interests and passions have unfolded, converged, and clarified so that I now have a more solid — but ever-evolving — view of where I want to go. Instead of going back to school because it felt like the obvious next step or because I was scared to leave academia, I will now go back to school because it can enhance my new directions. It’s felt a bit like a domino effect; as I tap into one nerve, someone taps into a new one, and a new direction is unveiled. The people I’ve met in Thailand, the people I’ve met through blogging and social media, and the experiences I’ve lived in recent years have all allowed this new momentum to gain a foothold inside me. Importantly, it’s also given me the confidence to continue living life in perpetual beta, as Melissa Pierce so aptly coined the phrase.

I believe that living life in perpetual beta means being constantly open to new possibilities as you create your path. Although I didn’t make a calculated decision to design such a lifestyle, I think it’s quite fitting to the current climate. Technology — and I’m particularly thinking about the internet here — is pushing us hard and fast into a world that we do not know. We’re rapidly shedding old conventions without having new ones to put into their place. How can we proceed if we’re not flexible, open, and willing to take risks? I don’t believe we can. We have a lot of mistakes to get through before we gain a stronger sense of the spaces we’re entering, but we won’t hit the sweet spots unless we’re committed to creating and trying new solutions. These great shifts have been most obvious to me in journalism, business, and various media, but the edges aren’t defined and many of us are feeling the tugs of inevitable change. I wrote a post a few months ago about Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk on schools and creativity, in which he points out that we’re educating our kids for a world that we have no clue about — a reality that is still unformed. Creativity is paramount, which means the willingness to take risks is too.

A couple months ago, I took a small slip of paper and made a note for myself: When you draw your own map, you make your own rules. I don’t know if I got that from someone else (please let me know if I did), but it resonates strongly with me. It acknowledges that we are still drawing the maps, and so the rules aren’t set. It empowers us to draw that next line, even if it’s not quite straight and even if we end up drawing over it next year. But I don’t think it should be interpreted as individualism at the expense of collaboration — rather, I believe that if we all actively move forward while being honest to ourselves and deliberate in our actions, collaboration will be genuine and inevitable. For example, I’m writing this long blog post filled with I’s and me’s, but my hope is that it will tug a thread inside you, pull forward any of you who are pushing forward with this same momentum.

My life isn’t a perpetual blissfest. My income isn’t always stable. Getting in touch with what I really want to do took some time and some intimidating soul-searching — and I don’t really think I’ll ever stop figuring it out. But you know what? I honestly can’t remember what it feels like to be bored. I’m so high on exploring and pursuing possibilities that boredom doesn’t feel like an option. I love every single project I’m working on right now, and it feels like an honor — though not easy — to get to work each day. I choose to embrace change and uncertainty, because I don’t think any of us can rely on certainty anymore. If realistic means sticking to the conventions that are quickly falling into irrelevance, then I choose to be unrealistic.

What map are you following?

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photo by chelmsford blue

I’m sure you’ve heard that refrain, or some version of it, many times before. I think it’s truly important to remind ourselves of this often, as it’s often easy (though tedious) to spend time fiddling with new social networking services or dithering about the purchase of this gadget or that gadget. Actually doing something cool with these things takes a lot more brain power — and risk.

But I think it’s also important to recognize that new tools do spark new ideas. A new tool will never be a game-changer unless you actively make it that way, but a new tool can certainly inspire new possibilities and ideas.

So where do you think the balance lies? Are you a Luddite shunning all tools, or an uber-techie scrambling for more  — or somewhere in between? Which tools spark your growth, and which tools stunt it?

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photo by malias

I recently finished reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth. This isn’t a book review, but Lahiri has a remarkable way of writing characters and stories that seep steadily into the deep pockets of your mind. The kind of characters who leak into your memories and thoughts, leaving you baffled as you sit at your desk trying to remember who it was that said that thing to you yesterday. Oh yeah, it was a character in Jhumpa Lahiri’s book. Oops.

This is something we all strive for, whether consciously or not, in nearly any project we undertake — having people who really care. Bloggers need people to care about what they think. Activists need people to care about their cause. Fashion designers need people to care how they look. You may not need people to care in order for you to create, but once it’s time to share/show/sell, it sure helps to have people who want to know. It fascinates me to explore why people care — what stories make us invested, what channels penetrate our cores.

You can’t force people to care

But it’s not about making people care. Forcing people to put their heart in something is never a recipe for success. Instead, it should really be about tapping into the part of people that already cares — the part that wants to understand and connect with other people. I think each of us has this part. It’s a bunch of threads scattered within yourself, and you know they’re part of some enormous fabric, even if you can’t always see it or you sometimes lose touch. That fabric is simply — and significantly — the fullness of the universe, and the part we play. It’s that curious wonder of how something unfathomably large can also be extraordinarily interconnected.

Or, to put it in slightly less hippie-woo-woo terms, it’s when something or someone makes you feel like they are speaking directly to your deep, honest self. There are countless ways to describe this, and we all have our personal understandings that feel right to us. But however you look at it, it comes down to this: we humans thrive on connection. Your thrill may be connecting to the people around you, or it may be connecting to those dead white European males who wrote some pretty good books. Or maybe you get a rush connecting with majestic trees and clear waters. Whatever your high, you want to feel like part of something. You want to care.

Tapping into the connections

The triggers of this rush will certainly be different things for different people, but there’s also no denying that some people are more skilled than others at grabbing hold of your threads. This talent for tapping into the urge to connect could be broken down into three main areas:

• the right content
• the right tools
• the right voice

If you want a sustainable network of people who care, the content absolutely must be great. This can mean a compelling cause, a beautiful sculpture, or a useful product. Then you need tools to make, share, improve, and connect. Tools can be anything ranging from a paintbrush to a Twitter account. Next, you need a voice. How will you tell people what it is you’re doing? Will you challenge? Will you empower? Will you ask? This all depends on your voice. Emma Newman wrote a great post that discusses strategies for influencing the masses (hint: it’s not easy).

Now, it’s all very well and good that I’ve laid out the key areas that shape your thread-grabbing capacity, but it doesn’t really answer the question of how you find the voice, the tools, or the content that tap into the urge to connect. I do have a response to the how, but my response has no drumroll, and it may even feel a bit anticlimactic. In the end, I believe it comes down to honesty. Not honesty as in, “If you don’t lie, people will be falling over their feet to care about you and your project,” but honesty in the sense of a deep rawness. Jhumpa Lahiri’s stories tapped into something deep in my flesh, because she wrote honestly about the awkward, the beautiful, and the shamefully painful. A really great blog grabs hold of people because they feel like they really know the blogger, whether it’s through personal details revealed or a strong, honest mind that shows in the writing. People will start to care about a cause when the raw human aspect is under their noses. Your really cool product matters when it latches onto a raw need of our existence, whether it’s a physical need or a deeply ingrained part of our nature.

There’s plenty of talk of authenticity on the web, so this is no new idea. But since “authenticity” has come to acquire that buzzword-ish feel, I wanted to delve into this topic in the simple frame of why people care. We care because it is deeply woven into our flesh to do so; sometimes it just takes some honesty and a few raw stories to coax those threads to the surface.

What’s the last thing that you couldn’t help but care about? Why?

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