Ordinary things are everywhere. The benches, the goofy elephant picture, the water fountain, even the tropical leaves in all directions were not in themselves the source of inspiration. Inspiration comes from following through with goals. It comes from doing the work. It comes from noticing events of the day, the chaos of monkeys howling in the trees, the acrid tang of a poorly maintained pick-up truck’s exhaust, the sweet burst of a freshly picked orange.
Read MoreSOMEWHERE IN NEW MEXICO THE FIRST ASTRONAUT TO MARS LEARNS ALGEBRA
Creativity takes a gutsy, tireless person to see something in the intangible spaces between us, something you can’t touch or easily characterize.
Read MorePORTMANTEAU
If you want to make new things, you need to know the history of field in which you’re working. A working knowledge of the past gives you tools to function in the present. Woody Allen couldn’t exist without Groucho Marx knocking ash from his cigar. The Tesla couldn’t exist without the Prius silently pulling out of the garage.
Read MoreFEVER DREAMS
Ideas often come when I least expect it. When they burst into mind unannounced or unescorted by linear thought, they’re often my clearest creative lights, regardless of the subject. The obvious dilemma is figuring out how to keep a grip on what I was doing a moment before without losing the details of the new thought that’s just appeared.
Read MoreDOUBLE RAINBOW
Sometimes there are moments of beauty or epiphany or surprise that simply need to exist in the moments you experience them. You have to make peace with the thought that there simply won’t be a “later”. There won’t be a “future”. There won’t be a “payoff”. There is the experience, right now, and you just so happen to be lucky enough to experience it.
Read MoreHEART OF DARKNESS
Sweet things taste special precisely because they’re infrequent. They’re pure pleasure, but I’d never want a diet of chocolate and ice cream.
Read MoreTHE ROMANCE OF SPACE, THE IDEALIZATION OF NASA
People also care about NASA because it represents what's right about government, at least in principle. It holds out promise and hope that someone —someone—in charge can get beyond petty arguments about superficial things and actually bring something complicated--like a mission to another planet!-- into being. NASA represents the nation we wish were our own no matter what nation we call home.
Read MoreTHE ANGST OF OVERABUNDANT EXCELLENCE
Like automatons racing to our own worn out decrepitude, we risk profound loss of meaning by pressing for endless achievements without deeply appreciating what they mean.
Read More
A trail of smoke, caught in a beam of light, is like each of our lives caught in the sight of another person.
THANKSGIVING 2013
WE LIVE
We are artists. We live in the world. The world is made of stories, not atoms. We are artists. We tell stories. Stories always include people and ideas. We are artists. Stories demand our engagement with the world. Stories give shape to the intangible essence of relationships and ideas.
INFORMATION
Information is not the same as story. Context makes information live. Stories shaped by people automatically invest context. Information is not the same as story. People contextualize information. Contextualization qualifies relevance. Information is not the same as story. Relevance makes opportunities for decisions. Decisions determine invention.
INVENTION
Invention creates meaning from the intangible. Relationships are always intangible. Meaning is a function of intangibility converted into invention. Invention creates meaning from the intangible. Inspiration in service to invention requires effort to make things real. Things that are real have the potential to prove themselves upon our pulses. Invention creates meaning from the intangible. Intangible meaning is much more relevant than physical matter. Reality therefore is a function of making choices.
PRESTO
Nobody creates in a vacuum.
WE LIVE TO LIVE
We are artists. We live in the world, and the soul of our days is the endless transmutation of intangibility into meaning. It's therefore appropriate for the week of Thanksgiving to say "thank you" to the closest people in our lives who empower and inspire us to create, to tell stories, to live.
--MS
@michaelstarobin
facebook.com/1auglobalmedia
facebook.com/michael.starobin
Are you a friend of 1AU Global Media? Yes? Take 90 seconds and share our blog with your friends!
DIGGING IN SEYMOUR'S CAVE
In the solitude of infinite, even useless labor, things begin to make sense. Without a goal beyond work itself, we are free to discover those things that really do matter.
Read More