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Sometimes the heart
Should follow the mind.

Sometimes the heart
Should tell the mind to
Stay at home and
Stop interfering.

…Just sometimes.

The countdown begins.

There comes a point in life where you either accept whatever you’re doing here and just exist, or stop talking about what you used to be and do something about it.
Its time to make that choice.

What to do.

All I ever wanted was to know what to do…
I’ve been paralyzed by the quiet,
and for a moment something spoke to me,
and I came here,
Driftwood from the heart.
Intermittently there were answers.
Intermittently there was a sweet chorus
and it sang to me
and pointed to all the right paths,
I was watching and approving and took it by the hand.
But just as often,
there was silence,
A hidden mystery of still, of limbo.
So I stood blinking under the sun,
Under the black velvet sky,
All I have to think of is what to do next.
What’s coming next?

Backwards thoughts; Forward thinking

Be the other one.
The bigger one.
The bolder one. The braver one. You’ve come this far.
The one that calls back, asks on dates, makes the choice, that finishes the milk, that uses the hot water up and that takes the blame.

Be the captain, cook dinner from a microwave box.
Do whatever you want – you can you know, you don’t have to tell everyone that they are ‘looking well’.
Have the last chocolate – the one everyone wanted. Even if its licorice or strawberry cream or out of date…EAT IT.
Draw a moustache on your face for work tomorrow – be the one that taps your pen at meetings. Hurry up. Say sorry. Be the world changes we need, be the closet arranger, the piss-taker, the start over in another country, the ‘fall asleep on the tube till the last stop’.
Refuse to fake tan, don’t wear fluro. Just don’t wear it.
Be the investigator. Pay the bill, accept the predictable, learn an instrument – even if its just the recorder… or £3 harmonica.
Snore. Wear boxers, shower in cold water, change your mind whenever you like.
Don’t dress up at a fancy dress party. Say “Shut-up!” and DO expect it back.
Eat sugar sandwiches and cupcakes and drink someone else’s coffee. It tastes better.

Never say never. “Yes your ass looks fucking huge in that.”
…Sorry about earlier; I was a bit brash. Don’t save cash. Take your top off at the beach. Leave it on in the pubs. Have three. Stay out till dawn.
Say ‘hate’ if you want too. Don’t say ‘random’ (…work on it). Crunch ice.
Own up to having a crush. Its all irrelevant. Say it out loud, search for something more and don’t be afraid to take two steps back. It is in fact two steps closer to where you’re going. Wherever that is.
Change the rules as you go along, draw outside of the lines. Guides get you nowhere. Use ideas, don’t be afraid. Wake up early; there’s decisions to be made.

(Streaming thoughts, ideas and dreams. Thankyou.)

One step up and two steps back…

You wanna know what living life to the fullest actually is?

It’s waking up on Monday morning with no complaints.
It’s knowing you always deserve to laugh.
It’s doing what feels right no matter what. Doing what you want regardless of how stupid you look.
Its following your heart and not worrying about the mistakes you made.
Admitting that you’ve changed your mind.
It’s about being yourself, because no one can tell you you’re doing it wrong.

So it begins… A new idea.

Knocking on doors

I just want *something*.  That special something other than what I have exactly at hand. I can almost see it from the corner of my eye, but it’s feeling like a peripheral delusion at the moment.

If I ever just stopped to look around and see that everything I ever needed was right here, right now, I would never really get anywhere. I sure as hell wouldn’t be in London.
I constantly fight myself with ‘what to do with my life’, and it’s silly really, because what I’m doing with my life *is* simply searching. I know deep down what I want and I’m chasing it. I know it doesn’t happen overnight.

Sometimes it feels like the harder I search though, the tighter everything gets, the more locked and sealed all the ‘windows’ are – like some over complicated sailing knot called The Fisherman’s Eye (don’t run off to Wikipedia now, I made that up). But it seems the harder I try the less I get there.

But where is there?

I’ve been a graphic designer since 2004. And I’ve been fighting for it, for just as long.
Fighting to find the perfect job, the perfect ideas, against the digital world (as many of you know) and fighting myself on occasion too.

There is something in all this uplift and confrontation – all this bitching and moaning (that I am currently pursuing quite well), that actually makes me *feel* alive.

Known fact. It is harder than it looks… Commitment.
A commitment to working on my life and to sticking with something when the going gets rough in this new place.
C O M M I T M E N T. Bah… How boring.  Doesn’t commitment mean same old, same old? Here it comes… BOREDOM.
Bang.

So what am I afraid of? I fear boredom, of not having anything to do, of finding myself at a loss, of being lost within myself, of disconnecting, of losing drive and soul for it all. Although I know it wont happen like that.
So far the fighting and finding – is far to strong-winded and ‘loved up’ to let anything stand in the way.

Which draws me to a quote that’s sort of moved me this week, from a book called The Artist’s Way.

“We say we are scared by failure, but what frightens us more is the possibility of success.”
- Julia Cameron

I can be a little terrified of the critics who will tell me I don’t fit the ideal. Of the big time professional agencies and the creative director of ‘X’ company that receives my folio and just doesn’t get back. Especially here in a city of many closed doors. Well, I no longer want to be afraid.

So you out there requesting applications, when you get to work in the morning, coffee in hard and morning traffic on your mind, check your inbox with a little love.

The rest of you,  …cross your fingers for me?

Words in Golden Silence

When I read a newspaper, listen to the radio or overhear what people are saying in a cafe as I walk by, I often feel an aversion, even disappointment sometimes at the same words written and spoken over and over-

at the same time expressions, phrases and metaphors repeated. And the worst is, when I listen to myself I have to admit that I can endlessly repeat the same things. They’re so horribly frayed and threadbare, these words, worn down by constant use.

Do they still have any meaning?

Naturally, words have a function; people act on them, they laugh, they cry, they go left or right, the waiter brings the coffee or tea. But thats not what I want to ask.

The question is, are they still expressions of thoughts? Or only effective sounds that drive people in one direction or the other.
I don’t know if its the same language spoken in a different tone, accent or what have you. But it lets you listen a little closer I guess.

Ampersand Deluxe Carrying Case

Ampersand Deluxe Carrying Case. Of couse.
I <3 this!

Thanks to The Ampersand Blog for the link

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The rhythm of change

Every year, right around this time, I develop a warm feeling of excited anticipation.

I wake up in the morning and the air smells like possibility,
the sun on my face feels like a rhythm that my life is about to change.
As I wait for the change to start happening,
I always find myself dreaming of what it might be:
a new job, a house change,
winning the big bucks possibly?
Usually, the change is almost always more like realising that it’s time to do the laundry and suddenly hitting the jackpot with clothes I’d forgotten about completely. Regardless, this feeling always surprises me, and I treasure it each year, whatever form it choses to take.

It’s sort of like a reminder that I am not yet at all jaded by life,
that I still believe in great impossible things such as moving my whole entire self to a different country or becoming something I’m not yet.
I cling to this part of myself like a child who knows the Tooth Fairy isn’t *really* real, and yet refuses to admit it.
Perhaps this is my version of refusing to achieve maturity.

But hey, if that feeling of pure joy and eagerness disappears, all that’s left of autumn is the air getting cooler and the grey mornings getting darker, then how boring is that?

I don’t think I will ever quite stop dreaming about the changes, the could be’s and the will be’s… which is why this time the impossible rhythm is really quite something.
It might be enough to take my heart and soul, my ideas and my life to another level above laundry baskets and hidden socks to an unknown mystery.
But I wont know till I get there.

London here we come.

The Big Picture

Not too long ago, I found myself traipsing around the Andreas Gursky exhibition in Melbourne.
I was with a sweet boy, uttering issues about work, life and love. As you do.

Moving along now.
So while sinking into Gursky’s photos, which are tremendous images of humanity’s simultaneous isolation and communal sharing of experiences, we we’re trying not to talk too much about the work and other nefarious issues, but instead talking about the photos, because we both feel it utterly necessary to live a life inspired (some prefer to say distracted) by art-slash-design–slash-photography.
Naturally.
So, as we stand in front of an oversized landscape of an apartment building, (The Montparnasse, Paris ’93) which shows more than a hundred windows, each different, bold, beautiful and intrinsically unique.
He made a frivolous comment about the poor guy who had the lilac and burgundy blinds, and how much he must hate living there.
I thought quietly for a moment, gazing into the windows that filled my mind before me and turned around promptly to the sound of an oddly quiet voice that could coat the most prophetic announcements.
“It might look bad from where he’s standing, but it works so beautifully as part of the whole.”
A young boy about the age I started appreciating design and art in a bigger scope was standing closely behind us. Starring amusingly at the giant print, analysing more than any adult in the room could ever have imagined.
Instantly, the fundamental point in my mind emerges.
He was right. The entire exhibition exemplified a deliberation of fine detail, infrastructure and how each and every unit, person or colour became a pawn within an entire landscape.
Which now had us asking; How does everything we do fit into the whole world view? How does the dynamic change when we take the long view? Or the outside perspective? And if you change your blinds (or job for instance…), do you need or even want to think about the surrounding picture? …What comes next?

The Montparnasse, Paris

Maybe Gusky was onto something afterall.