A Celebration and a Warning Regarding Playfulness

If your life doesn’t have enough playtime then there might be something seriously wrong with you, at least that’s what Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute of Play, suggests.  I’ve been considering his ideas ever since a friend shared this video with me, and I think he might be on to something.  The video is about thirty minutes long, but it’s worth watching. (You can see a larger version of the video on the TED site here.)

As a writer, I keep my eyes open for new ways to understand others (and myself). That’s not just about getting better at my craft, although that’s a nice bonus, but there is something intrinsically compelling and beautiful about getting closer and closer to the truth of a person.

After reflecting on Stuart Brown’s ideas, I’m now convinced that you can get a  decent sense of a person just by considering his or her play history. At first that might seem silly, but let’s consider the idea a bit.  Aren’t you a little more wary of someone with whom you’ve never shared a laugh?  And if playtime was insignificant, why does our society value sports so highly?

Professional athletes, highly skilled individuals who train extensively to play games in public, are some of the highest compensated members of our society. Successful movies, music and shows often feature visual gags,  amusing variations on a theme, and witty dialogue  (they don’t call them plays for nothing, folks).  Let’s not forget about video games: According to the NPD Group, the United States video game industry generated more than $20 billion worth of revenue  in 2008.

The Lute Player - Frans Hals

Playfulness isn’t just a financially valuable attribute to some folks.  Frank Capra, the director of films like It’s a Wonderful Life, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, uses playfulness or its absence to reveal character.  In Capra’s World War II documentary Why We Fight, the narrator asks us to, “take a good look at these humorless men.”  This happens just as the camera reveals grim footage of men like Rudolf Hess, Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, and Adolf Hitler.

The implication is that because these men appear humorless, they are not to be trusted.  In comparison, consider what Capra says about comedy in his autobiography, The Name Above the Title: “Comedy is fulfillment, accomplishment, overcoming.  It is victory over odds, a triumph of good over evil.”  Did you get that? As far as Capra is concerned, comedy is what happens when goodness prevails, and without playfulness there is no comedy. It mixes well with the ideas of Dr. Brown, does it not?

Would you like a more contemporary example?  No problem.  In the world or Harry Potter, we are allowed to enjoy the playful side of magic only when we’re around the good kids. The bad guys are only interested in the magic that allows for cruelty and domination.  Are you starting to see a pattern?

Perhaps this is a redundant point, but the moments that feel most corporate at work and in my personal life are decidedly unplayful ones. Work is going to be hard and frustrating sometimes, I know.  Otherwise employers wouldn’t be so quick to entrust us with their hard-earned cash.  That’s not what I’m getting at.  I’m more interested in the cruel or banal moments in our lives that make it harder for us to keep alive our own inner sense of playfulness.

Being playful doesn’t have to be the polar opposite of doing business.  That’s one of the key ideas from a different TED lecture given by a man who is also named Brown, Tim Brown in this case.   He is also the CEO of the design firm IDEO as it happens.  Here’s the video link, if you’re interested.  (It’s the last video link in this post, I promise. Once again here’s the link to the video on TED.)

Tim Brown suggests that there is a connection between the playful environments of places like Google, Pixar, and IDEO and their ability to solve problems  in creative, but also highly effective ways.  It’s as if a playful environment makes it feel a little safer to bring a sense of a playfulness to the work at hand.

Research he references concludes that the most playful kids are the ones who come from the most stable and loving families. It follows, then, that companies who are smart enough to value playfulness should do whatever they can to make the workplace feel more like a supportive family.

Let’s get back to Stuart Brown, the guy from the first video.  It’s interesting, isn’t it, that Stuart Brown doesn’t just ask us to set aside some time for playing.  Instead, he advocates an ongoing state of playfulness. It’s a subtle distinction, but it’s worth addressing.

If play time becomes a mandated thing, then it could quickly turn into something ugly.  By ugly I mean something like a mandatory Nerf-powered shootout in cubicle land where the ambivalent employees have to face off against the obnoxious office go-getters.  Then playtime would get measured, and employees would get evaluated on key play metrics.  At this point, the management folks would quite possibly turn this data  into sheets of uncompelling bar-graphs, and these sheets would be distributed to unsuspecting employees in the name of promoting playfulness.  Honestly though, whose idea of fun is that? (Not mine.)

Stuart Brown is right: The real magic happens when you can bring a sense of playfulness to any situation, but only a true saint can preserve a sense of inner playfulness even in the most trying of circumstances. Whenever I’ve seen the Dali Llama speak (on TV not in person), I’ve noticed an almost jovial lightness to him no matter what he is discussing. The Apostle Paul is another great example to consider.  Even in jail he was  writing about how he had learned, through the grace of God, to be content with all things.

I know being content and being playful don’t mean the same thing, although I do believe they go hand in hand.  When was the last time you remember being simultaneously jealous and playful?  What about being both playful and malicious or conniving?

I don’t about you, but my soul has been muddied from time to time with malicious or conniving inclinations.  In those moments it wasn’t so hard to be persuasive or assertive. I could even muster up a kind of contrived imitation of playfulness, but I couldn’t be truly playful until I put aside, at least temporarily, those ignoble preoccupations.  That’s why I buy into Stuart Brown’s claim that playfulness is an essential part of building trust.

Senecio - Paul Klee

Now comes the warning: not everything done in the name of playfulness is good.  Sometimes things are going to hurt. I think part of becoming an adult involves learning to face the pain in our lives without always looking for a way to anesthetize it, to make it seem more fun.  It is the unfiltered sting of truth that lets us better see the broken parts of our lives, but many of us, myself included, find it easier to pour some sugar on our problems as we keep on dancing to the same old dissonant song.

Do you have friends who are always joking around even in serious moments?  Those kinds of  people might seem amusing enough right now, but what if ten years go by and they still aren’t working to improve the world around them?  What about the hardcore gamer who stops providing for his family just so that he can play more games or the sports fan who does nothing but watch games on TV?  What about the partygoers  who bankrupt their futures just to buy a few more temporary thrills? These are all examples of how an inclination toward playfulness can turn tragic.

Stuart Brown tells his patients to explore the most joyous moments of their lives and to adjust their lives accordingly.  That’s great advice.  Let me also suggest that it might be helpful to consider the moments in your life when being playful seems most difficult or when your inclination to play seems most excessive. Do what you can to figure out what it was that robbed you of your ability to enjoy the moment in those situations, and then try to face similar situations in a better way.

I’m going to explain that in a kind of indirect way but also in a personal way, so bear with me. It’s not easy for me to use myself as an example: writing honestly and in a personal manner doesn’t always make me look good, but I wouldn’t respect myself as a writer if I did any less.  In my more optimistic moments I believe that by being honest about my struggles, I can help both you and me in the process.   The wisdom or foolishness of that concept will, I’m sure, reveal itself over time.

In any case, with my life being what it is, I have to believe that the truth, and not my profit margins or my badass quotient, can eventually set me free, free to be the best version of myself, the man I someday hope to be. Maybe you think that’s a foolish thing to believe.  Maybe you’d rather get tips on expanding market share or becoming more of a badass?  If so, then by all means go and find something else to read.

Intrigue - James Ensor

But then, maybe a few of you can relate? If so, then thanks for sticking around.  I hope I can reward you for your patience and your desire to get beyond the surface of things.

With that said, here are some examples of  when it is hard for me to be playful. In  the past, I had difficulty finding a sense of playfulness about my work.  It was too important to joke about because it was the only way I knew of determining my value as a person.  It was an awful way to live.

Now I’d like to think that I don’t take my work as seriously.  I’m participating in a silly one-act play over at the Smithfield Little Theater later today, for example, but sometimes I still get caught up in the belief that my work is the only thing that matters in my life.  Kind of a corporate way to think, right? I know, but when I think that way, I don’t have to put myself in a vulnerable position when dealing with others.

Speaking of other people, I have a hard time remembering playful moments that I shared with my dad when he was still alive. My mom and my sisters played lots of games with me, but not my dad.  Like many other dads, he was too busy with work and with other pursuits to have much time to play with me.

He was helping his patients fight off cancer, and that is admirable enough, and yet the absence of a dependable and playful father figure in my childhood made it harder for me to bond with other guys, whether in sports or in class.  It is still hard for me to form lasting, sincere and playful friendships with others.  Don’t get me wrong: ultimately, I hold myself responsible for the quality of my relationships, but my dad’s interactions with me didn’t make this kind of thing easier.

Earlier I mentioned an admiration for the Apostle Paul’s ability to be content regardless of his situation.  I am, on certain days, the exact opposite of the Apostle Paul: I sometimes have difficulty finding a sense of harmony, of playfulness, even in the most comfortable of settings, and in those moments my world becomes unbearable.

Self Portrait with Masks - James Ensor

Anything that can make the moment feel more enjoyable becomes very appealing, whether or not it is good for my long-term goals or even my soul.  In those God-forsaken, loveless moments, the only thing that matters to me is finding some way back to that illusive state of bliss, no matter what it takes.  I try to avoid taking the easy way out when tempted by such toxic siren songs, but I don’t always succeed.

Yes, sometimes I’m the guy who is pursuing playfulness in the wrong way, the one who laughs too much, the one who has a few too many drinks.  I’ve been the guy at the party who has made others shake their heads with disapproval and ponder the uncivilized creatures that this world can produce.  It does wound me so to get that reaction, and yet that’s probably the look I would give to myself if I was a third-party observer.

I try very hard not to be that guy, but sometimes it is easier to laugh and joke and make an ass of myself than to face the truth of the moment.  The only remedy I know for that kind of thing is to acknowledge the pain, to give the moment back to God, and to open my heart to the love that’s out there. It’s not an easy remedy, and I’m not good at adhering to it, but it’s the only thing that seems to work even in a subtle way.

In the book City of God, Saint Augustine writes about the importance of enjoying the presence of God.  He writes that no one is foolish enough to suggest that a man who drinks from a fountain is doing something good for the fountain.  Nor does a lamp benefit when a traveller uses it to navigate.  Why then, asks Augustine, do people assume that God is meant to be loved and enjoyed for the sake of God and not for the good of the souls who love and enjoy Him?

I believe the only way anyone can maintain the ongoing sense of playfulness that Stuart Brown advocates is to enjoy the presence of God moment by moment. It’s OK if your conception of God is different than mine. You might not even believe in God, and you might be better off in this life than I am.  Obviously, I don’t have it all figured out, so there’s no reason why you should take my advice if it doesn’t somehow ring true.

Even so, I still think you might benefit by trying to reconcile yourself moment by moment with something bigger than you, a higher power if you will, in case you find that phrase less objectionable than the word, “God.”   If you and I diligently seek out the truth,uncomfortable though it may be, and listen carefully to the still small voice that speaks with love inside our hearts, then I believe (when I am not distracted by anger or despair) that someday we’ll wake up and discover that our worlds are once again filled with playful possibility. Why take my word for it, though?  My soul is, after all, still a murky blend of light and darkness.  Seek for yourself.

Several Circles - Wassily Kandinsky

(This is one of my favorite abstract paintings. It made an impression from the moment I saw it.  Serene and playful, the circles gracefully overpower the darkness around them.)

Let me end with another reference to Frank Capra.  Towards the end of his life, Capra was involved in a video tribute for the late director George Stevens, the man responsible for Shane and other cinema classics. I was captivated by Capra’s playful demeanor even in old age.  Up to that point, I had assumed that older people were by definition more severe than younger folks.  Frank Capra, though, had more vitality and twinkle than a lot of kids I know.

He was talking about looking up George Stevens when he got to heaven so that they could work on something special together.  That kind of cheerful disregard towards death is what it can look like when the good kind of playfulness prevails.  And so, I’m going to pray for more of that kind of playfulness for me and for you.  Here’s to a more playful, less corporate world!

Peculiarly Uncommon Thoughts on Twitter and Celebrities

I once assured myself that I would never write about Twitter.  Everyone these days has already written about the subject, especially all the social-media marketers out there, and I’m not a jump-on-the-bandwagon kind of guy.  Still, I spend a bit of time thinking about authenticity, transparency, and celebrity so this post was bound to happen.  

Before commenting on how celebrities use Twitter, I want to explain how I use it, and why I have a love-hate relationship with celebrities.  (It relates, I promise.)  For one thing, Twitter offers a chance to share my thoughts and feelings with the world and to meet interesting people from different backgrounds, and by different backgrounds I mean more than just different types of social-media marketers.  Those folks are useful in some cases, but I follow enough of them already.  I’m more interested in meeting honest and talented people who do unique things and have captivating ways of seeing the world.  I don’t care so much about people trying to sell me things, but I do care about people, when I’m not fighting off my own inner demons, and I am curious to learn how my fellow humans navigate through this strange, but miraculous, journey of life.  

At its best, I also see Twitter as a way of counter-acting a profit-worshipping, depersonalized culture of buracracy and venality.  The casual nature of this simple-to-use online service encourages honest disclosure.  Go ahead and criticize Twitter for encouraging an ethos of oversharing, but at least people on Twitter are less likely to proclaim that everything about themselves and their world is great.  In real world conversations, people are tragically far less honest.  Don’t believe me?  Go ask a few random strangers on the street or even acquaintences how they’re doing.  Did any of them, perchance, mention that they were doing fine or doing great?  What a surprise that is, right? 

(I despise the kind of self-congralatory marketing that some individuals and companies use in a delusional attempt to persuade the world that everything really is great all the time.  It goes something like this, "I’m unconditionally awesome right now just like I’ve always been, and I’m going to continue to be more and more awesome each year."  Not to rain on your parade, but your ability to produce profits that just go up and up into infinity is somewhat impeded by the reality of your eventual death.  Sorry.)  

To continue with our experiment, go find a few random people on Twitter and pay attention to how they answer the previously mentioned, now implied, question.  I would be willing to bet good money that there are more compelling, more transparent responses from the Twitter crowd. There’s something special, almost magical, about being part of a community that is fueled by honest discourse.  To benefit from that transparency while withholding it from the group is a form of resistance, a selfish action that makes it a little harder for the community’s ideals to prevail.  

I embrace that sense of transparency that comes with Twitter while recognizing the risk it brings.  If I am too honest, I might convince some people that I’m an idiot or a jerk.  Maybe they won’t hire me or maybe they’ll use my words against me as a result.  But, I’m willing to face those risks because being transparent forces me to live a life worth sharing.  I acknowledge dark spots in my life on Twitter to be honest about who I am and to bring those dark spots into the light.  You see, I care more about becoming whole than about gaining market share, although there is nothing wrong with gaining market share if done in an honest and excellent way.  If you think that’s a foolish outlook, then by all means avoid doing business with me.  I don’t sell to everyone, and we’ll both be happier if you take your business elsewhere.

I’ve said my share of dumb things on Twitter, but I’ve made a point of not deleting those tweets.  (I have deleted one or two of the more impulsive and grammatically incorrect ones, but I haven’t done that for a few weeks.) I’d rather let you get a glimpse of what I’m really like than to make you think that I’m more noble than I am.  Again, at stake is the correcting influence of transparency, and if I’m going to embrace that idea then I should walk the walk.

Onward we go to discuss celebrities. I know, I buried the lead.  It was on purpose: honesty not fame is the foundation from which I hope to build the ideas that follow.  

Like almost everyone else, I admire people who are excellent at what they do.  I’m astonished by George Lucas’s cinematic wizardry, Tiger Wood’s concentration, Nicole Kidman’s elegance, Michael Phelp’s dedication, Oprah’s graciousness, Steve Job’s vision, Tom Wolfe’s depth, Tim Burton’s style, Brittany Snow’s sincerity and so on.  Even the celebrities who are famous for being famous tend to have some enigmatic quality tat captivates our collective attention, and yet the selfishness and baseness of some celebrities does much to screw up the world.  

(The next paragraph that follows may seem abrasive, but please trust me through it.  I need to make an important point, and I don’t know how else to do it.)  Have you ever reduced, in your mind, a celebrity to the status of a stupid skank who exists only to corrupt and to earn more money for powerful, amoral mult-national corporations?  I have … but, when I remember that we are created in the image of God, I can’t continue to maintain that thought.  Even the celebrities I am tempted to despise are loved b God, even they have something special to contribute.  

Now that I think about it, I’ve done my sare of thoughtless and skank-like things, and usually it was because I was hurting and I didn’t know how to better resolve the pain.  Maybe then I shouldn’t be so quick to judge, right? Same goes for you too.

From that perspective, it’s harder to see even the seemingly shallow celebrities as completely useless human beings.  They may be tragic examples of spoiled potential, but they are still children of God, and so they still matter by definition.  

I suspect that the angels and demons fight harder for the souls of celebrities since they are blessed with their awe-inspiring gifts.  

I suspect that the angels and demons fight harder for celebrities since they are blessed with the awe-inspiring gifts that they have. 

  

 

I once assured myself that I would never write about Twitter.  Everyone these days has already written about the subject, especially all the social-media marketers out there, and I’m not a jump-on-the-bandwagon kind of guy.  Still, I spend a bit of time thinking about authenticity, transparency, and celebrity so this post was bound to happen.  

"Illusion" from flickr.com/demisone

 

Before commenting on how celebrities use Twitter, I want to explain how I use it, and why I have a love-hate relationship with celebrities.  (It relates, I promise.)  

On Twitter, I’m interested in meeting honest and talented people who do unique things and have captivating ways of seeing the world.   When I’m not fighting off my own inner demons, I do care more about people than about selling stuff, and I am curious to learn how my fellow humans navigate through this strange, but miraculous, journey of life.  

At its best, I also see Twitter as a way of counteracting a depersonalized culture of profit-worshipping and dishonesty.  The casual nature of Twitter’s simple-to-use online service encourages honest disclosure.  Go ahead and criticize Twitter for encouraging an ethos of oversharing, but at least people on Twitter are less likely to proclaim that everything about themselves and their world is great.  

In real world conversations, people are tragically less honest.  Don’t believe me?  Go ask a few random strangers on the street or even a few acquaintances how they’re doing.  Did any of them, perchance, mention that they were doing fine or doing great?  What a surprise that is, right? 

In case you didn’t realize it by now, I despise the kind of self-congratulatory marketing that others use to persuade the world that everything really is great all the time.  It goes something like this, “I’m unconditionally awesome right now just like I’ve always been, and I’m going to continue to be more and more awesome each year.”  Not to rain on your parade, but your ability to produce profit that goes to infinity and beyond is somewhat impeded by the reality of your eventual death.  Sorry.

"nopants spectrum" from flickr.com/kenyee

 

To continue with our experiment, go find a few random people on Twitter and pay attention to how they answer the previously mentioned, now implied, question.  I would be willing to bet good money that there are more compelling, more transparent responses from the Twitter crowd.

There’s something almost magical about being part of a community that is fueled by honest discourse.   That’s why I’m compelling to protest against the people who use Twitter only to sell things.  To benefit from that transparency while withholding it from the group is a form of resistance, a selfish action that makes it a little harder for the community’s ideals to prevail.  

I embrace that sense of transparency that comes with Twitter while recognizing the risk it brings.  If I am too honest, I might convince some people that I’m an idiot or a jerk.  Maybe they won’t hire me or maybe they’ll use my words against me as a result.  But, I’m willing to face those risks because being transparent forces me to live a life worth sharing.  

I acknowledge dark spots in my life on Twitter to be honest about who I am and to bring those dark spots into the light.  In addition to that, I’ve made a choice not to delete tweets just because I regret writing them.  That way it is easier for you to see what I’m really like. 

You see, I care more about becoming whole than about gaining market share, although there is nothing wrong with gaining market share if done in an honest and excellent way.  If you think that’s a foolish outlook, then by all means avoid doing business with me.  I don’t sell to everyone, and we’ll both be happier if you take your money elsewhere.

Onward we go to discuss celebrities. I know, I buried the lead.  It was on purpose: honesty, not fame, is the foundation from which I hope to build the ideas that follow.  

Like almost everyone else, I admire people who are excellent at what they do. I’m astonished by George Lucas’s cinematic wizardry, Tiger Wood’s concentration, Nicole Kidman’s elegance, Michael Phelp’s dedication, Oprah’s graciousness, Steve Job’s vision, Tom Wolfe’s depth, Tim Burton’s style, Brittany Snow’s sincerity and so on.  Even the celebrities who are famous for being famous tend to have some enigmatic quality that captivates our collective attention, and yet the selfishness and dishonesty of some celebrities does much to screw up the world.  

"Tiki Alien" from flickr.com/pete4ducks

 

(This paragraph may seem abrasive, but please trust me through it.  I need to make an important point, and I don’t know how else to do it.)  Have you ever reduced, in your mind, a celebrity to the status of a stupid skank who exists only to corrupt and to earn more money for powerful, amoral multi-national corporations?  I have … but, when I remember that we are all created in the image of God, I can’t continue to maintain that thought.  Even the celebrities I am tempted to despise are loved by God, even they have something special to contribute.  

Now that I think about it, I’ve done my share of thoughtless and skank-like things, and usually that was when I was hurting and didn’t know how to better resolve the pain.  Maybe then I shouldn’t be so quick to judge, right? Same goes for you too. 

From that perspective, it’s harder to see even the seemingly shallow celebrities as completely useless human beings.  They may be tragic examples of spoiled potential, but they are still children of God, and so they still matter by definition.  Besides, I suspect that the angels and demons fight harder for celebrities since they are blessed with the awe-inspiring gifts that they have.  

Let me give an example to explain what I mean: I know that I’m ultimately responsible for the decisions I make, but films with strong moral centers have influenced me to do good after I saw them.  On the other hand, I’ve done reprehensible things while under the influence of values-deficient films.  I know I’m not the only one who has even been influenced by what he’s seen, heard or read, because if that were true, companies wouldn’t spend millions of dollars on advertising.  

The shiny, illustrious people we call celebrities have a similar influence, for good or evil, since they are similarly larger than life and also have access to our collective attention.   They can use that attention for good–to inspire us, address problems and point us toward the light–or they can demoralize us and lead us towards decadence and decay.  I talk about this more in my post entitled, How to Avoid Being a Corporate Artist.

I know it’s hard to believe, but celebrities are people too, and being a celebrity is not as easy as it looks.  They have to deal with thousands of people who want their limited attention, time, and money.  Some folks out there want to exploit or humiliate them while others try to seduce them with drugs or sex.  This is why I pray for celebrities on occasion.  (To be fair though, I’ve also thrown curses at some of them.  I do let my anger get the best of me sometimes, but I’m trying to get that right.) 

In any case, our collective future depends in part on the choices that celebrities make.  Their choices matter as much, if not more, than the choices that ordinary folks make, so it’s not a bad idea to care about the celebrities we admire and maybe even for those we don’t.  

With that said, it would be nice if celebrities would also care about their fans, and Twitter is a good way to do that.  Some already do, at least to some extent.  

Hugh McCloud, a cartoonist with wry and insightful observations who writes gapingvoid, follows me on Twitter.  He’s got a new book about creativity coming out in June.  It’s called Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity and it’s already selling well through pre-orders on Amazon.  

Jeff Heusser also follows me on Twitter.  He’s one of the founders of fxphd, one of the preeminent online training programs for visual effects in the world.  

Paul Coelho is the internationally renowned writer who wrote the best seller, The Alchemist.   He’s another guy who is following me on Twitter.  He’s currently promoting his new book about the excesses of celebrity called The Winner Stands Alone, a digression from his more fable-like tales, but a book that I’d still like to read.

I mentioned the products above because they seem interesting and because they are from people who matter to me.  Whose stuff didn’t I promote?  The stuff from people who aren’t following me back on Twitter.  The Gospel of John reminds us that we love God because he first loved us.  In Twitterland that translates into this: I care about you because you first followed me. 

"Man in the mask"ot; from flickr.com/68137880@N00

 

I don’t expect every celebrity to follow me back.  They often have more important things to do, and if they follow everyone they will get flooded by tweets they don’t value.  Fair enough, a celebrity who doesn’t follow me back had better add value with interesting, thoughtful, or amusing commentary.  If the celebrity in question or his staff writers tweets dozens of times a day, my patience for self-indulgent commentary greatly diminishes.  (I tolerate more self-promotion and self-indulgence from those who follow me back, because they can’t be so bad if they are smart, sophisticated, and decent enough to be following me.)  

Speaking of staff writers, it is dishonest to have someone else write tweets on a celebrity’s behalf without disclosing as much. It’s 140 characters or less, people.  How hard is it to write your own 140 characters for your fans?  Why not care enough about the people who help you enjoy the lifestyle that you do by  sharing things to delight them and show your appreciation.  

If you must use assistants to write your posts, then why not disclose as much?  Much as it pains me to admit this, Britney Spears sets a good example in this arena.  On her Twitter page, her tweets are distinguished from those of her managers by attribution lines.  It’s a sad state of affairs when Britney Spears takes the moral high ground that you avoid.  

Since there are a growing number of fake accounts, it is hard to tell the difference between what is a real account and what isn’t.  Sometimes these fake accounts are created by over-zealous fans who should have better things to do.  Other times, I suspect the devils who try to control celebrities perpetuate lies so that their celebrities can be everything to everyone.  For example, you could have one celebrity account geared to the Goths and one to the soccer moms.  By keeping the accounts ambiguous in nature, you can encourage others to believe that the fake niche account they found is really the celebrity in question.  And market share goes up and up!

"Budwing Feeds" from flickr.com/destinysagent/

 

 

Yet the more market share you gain in this dishonest way, the greater the risk that you turn yourself into a soulless product.  Sounds great, except people don’t care about products; people care about people.  Consumers will devour a product until it is licked dry.  Fans, on the other hand, will go out of their way to help the people they cherish.  Wouldn’t you rather have long-term fans than short-term consumers? Then my dear celebrities, offer honesty and affection to the people who support what you do.  

Fans and celebrities both have a responsibility to treat each other as people, not as products to consume or as numbers to hoard for ego-purposes.  (Yes, Aston Kutcher I’m talking to you.)  To do otherwise is to perpetuate foul one-sided relationships that lead only in death.  There are bigger things in this world than just your ego, your lust, or your profit-margins, so don’t be the jackass who ruins them with your selfishness.  

"String of hearts" from flickr.com/aussiegall

 

 

I close with a hypothetical.  What if certain people really are meant for each other, meant to collaborate, support or love each other, and together they could go on to do greater things than they could apart?  Wouldn’t that make life a little more magical?  But what if corporate, build-up-the-numbers thinking distorted the truth and prevented these destined pairs from harmonizing?  Wouldn’t that be a lamentable if these people never go on to fulfill their grander purposes together?  It could come in the form of celebrities who never inspire and get inspired by their fans, friends who never meet, or star-crossed lovers whose love never takes root.  

Whatever the case may be, it’s a tragedy, but it is a tragedy we can avoid if we aim for excellence with the honesty and love that heaven puts in our hearts.  That’s not a bad way to make the world less corporate, don’t you think?

On the Wondrous Madness and Merits of Confronting Failure

The possibility of writing about some subjects is exciting enough to keep me motivated until the end of thing.  Failure is not one of those subjects.  I did not want to write this post, but the universe, or perhaps its God, would not let me forget about it. 

From past experience, I’ve learned that it is best not to fight these things.  In Vegas, the odds favor the dealer; in the cosmos the odds favor the guiding will of Providence, whether you like it or not.  I don’t always like it, but it is presumptuous of me, is it not, to assume that the universe should unfold exactly as I expect.

Yes, there is more metaphysical talk ahead.  Consider yourself warned.  In case you haven’t figured this out by now, I don’t write for everyone, and perhaps you would be better served by watching Entertainment Tonight or by reading Seven Secret Steps Toward Infinite Profitability or something along those lines.  You could always just read another article on the amazing marketing potential of Twitter, if you prefer.  

For those of you still around, thank you for staying. Now onward to more metaphysics.  I am not one of those people who proclaims that success or failure is entirely up to fate.  Our future is in many ways what we make it, and yet the turtle can work as hard he wishes, he can watch all the inspirational videos in the world, and read all the textbooks, but he will never fly with the same gracefulness of an eagle.  Like our friend the turtle, we cannot necessarily become anything we want to be, but we can live up to or fall short of the potential we’ve been given. In other words, fate and free will both have a hand in our successes and failures.  

"Faded glory" from flickr.com/jamesjordan

 Let me elaborate.  Sometimes repeated failure can be a good clue that tells us to put our energies elsewhere.  In other cases, it’s just a sign that we aren’t trying hard enough.  Fail enough times at something and you’ll discover that it can be tricky to distinguish between these two categories.   When you get to that point, maybe it’ll help if you take note of the circumstances that have or have not worked out in your favor.  

Have you ever gotten assistance in your endeavors, where something worked out unexpectedly at just the right moment?  That could be God whispering in your ear to persevere.  On the other hand if the doors you keep fighting to open swing shut with uncanny consistency, perhaps you should rethink your endeavors.  Or maybe not.  You have to make that call for yourself.  

The idea for this post first came when I saw this commercial from Honda about failing.  I was intrigued that a car company took such a strong position on the subject. The Honda employees being interviewed not only mentioned specific failures that Honda experienced, but they also gave fairly recent examples, as late as 1994.  It’s a bold move; someone could say to themselves, well if Honda made engines that had problems at one point, then I don’t want to buy from them ever again.  But, that person would be a fool. 

Everyone who does anything worth doing makes mistakes at some point, so wouldn’t you rather buy from a company that publicly acknowledges those mistakes and then works to correct them?  I would.  But all too often our success-worshipping world strives to sanitize failure out of our awareness. That’s one reason why it’s politically more appealing to shield others from the consequences of their failures.  Unfortunately, that kind of thing just keeps the AIG fat cats of the world healthy enough to be rapacious.  

In our haste to protect others from tragedy we sometimes forget that allowing others to confront their own failures can be the most considerate course of action. Enough unsheltered failure can cause others to re-evaluate their pursuits and to redirect their energies toward areas where they can better succeed.

Not sold on failure yet? Well here’s something else to consider: A free society is one in which its citizens can openly discuss the perceived failures of themselves and their leaders.  It is by no means historically inevitable that a person can choose the kind of work that he or she does. With the freedom to choose your work comes the freedom to evaluate whether your occupation provides the best rewards for your abilities and whether you’ve fully developed those abilities.  Slaves do not have the luxury of considering such things.  

"oasis" from flickr.com/photos/jonnelson

Do you think that former President Bush was an unconditional failure? (I don’t.) Because we are still a free people in the United States, you can, if you wish, declare that he was the world’s biggest failure and a Nazi,  and you could do so in the most juvenile way imaginable without fearing for your life.   How odd that the citizens of Nazi Germany did not have such freedoms. But since we’re speaking of dictators, when was the last time you heard Kim Jong-il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hugo Chávez talk about the failures of their countries?  It’s been a while, I think.  In comparison, both President Bush and President Obama have, in the past few months, acknowledged that their country and even their respective administrations could have made better decisions about some things. 

All of these points that I’ve made about failure are not the reasons I was dreading this subject.  Here’s the thing, the topic of failure actually hits a little too close to home.  As I write, a short video project I’ve been developing for a few weeks now stands a good chance of crumbling into nothingness, due to factors outside of my control.  If that happens then the project will become one more resident in the expanding graveyard of my unsuccessful endeavors.  

I recall those failed creative projects and think, “I had such high hopes for that little guy, and I saw so much of myself in you, and you, you had so much potential that I’d smile when thinking of you.”  I imagine that’s not too different from what parents feel when they lose a child prematurely.  And yet, I am determined to persevere through another failure if a failure it becomes.  I must.  It’s already hard enough to keep my self-destructive tendencies in check, and giving up on my creative aspirations would only fuel the flames.  

My work is not the only aspect of my life where failure resonates.  Too many of my relationships have whithered away in a similar manner.  You see, I’m not easy person to get to know. I long for deep, meaningful relationships and a sense of community, and yet I do everything I can to keep people at a comfortable distance.  Shallow jokes are good for that sort of thing.  So too are metaphysical rhetoric and political commentary.

For those of you keeping score, I used all those tricks in this post.  It was the only way I could persuade myself to write this.  I take comfort in knowing that most readers will not get this far.  But the possibility that even a few of you will read this is a little unnerving. How can I possibly keep a safe distance now that I’ve revealed so many of my secrets?    

 

"A gift of golden light" from flickr.com/photosan0

There is the beauty of it, though.  As transparency grows, it becomes harder to avoid the difficult subjects, the very things that stand in the way of real progress.  For me, less wiggle room might mean that I eventually learn to form more sincere, more radiant relationships as I move closer to wholeness.  But to play the devil’s advocate for a moment, because even the devil should have his day in court, there is also the possibility that such openness could leave me vulnerable to more heartache, the very thing that could drive me to despair and toward a purposeless, dissolute life governed by booze and whores.  I do not favor such an outcome, but I don’t think it is an entirely impossible scenario.  

That kind of life would be the ultimate failure, and I want to do what I can to defend myself against it.  It helps when I can find God’s presence in the quiet beauty of the moment.  In those all too rare moments, I discover a sense of harmony and purpose that has been otherwise absent from my life.  It is a kind of self-correcting presence; In those moments, I do what I should just because of that presence reaching out through time with love.  And yet, most of the time that presence is hard for me to see. My perception is distorted by the ugly stains of lust, anger, and anguish in me and by the stupid, banal and vicious aspects of our material world.  

My dad helped to shape one of the more contorted stains.  We got mad at each other for some inconsequential reason that I can’t even remember, and in a moment of anger he called me a failure. He did not mean that had I failed at a recent endeavor but that failure was a defining quality of who I was. The words did not sting as much as the raw honesty they conveyed.  We were celebrating my birthday that day, and he told me that right before we were going to bring out the cake.  Nice timing Dad.  My response was to tell him that he was going to die soon, and that I wouldn’t cry at his funeral. 

He didn’t live to see my next birthday. He died two years ago from this week.   I did cry, but at the funeral, I was more restrained.  Still I did cry even then, in spite of what I told him.  We had talked a few more times after that big argument, but he never convinced me that he didn’t mean what he said, even though he apologized, as did I.  

His words haunted me for a while.  Last year, around this time, I did something I’m now ashamed of doing, partly out of anger at him, at the world, and at God, mostly at God.  At that point in my life, though, I was willing to do anything to prove to myself and to him that I wasn’t a failure, even if that meant doing something self-destructive.  That’s what a sense of failure can do if you don’t confront it.  

"Marsden" from flickr.com/sovietuk

I have (mostly) forgiven my Dad for what he said.  I’ve said my share of hurtful things too, and he was a well-intentioned, but not an entirely good man, who dedicated his life to helping others battle cancer.  That’s admirable enough.  As is often the case with me, he did not intend the harm that he caused, and he said what he did  in part because he couldn’t quite come to terms with his own personal frustrations.  

I could never have written this last year, but God is good (at least that’s what I believe most of the time). He’s brought me little moments that helped to get me to this point.  Here’s an example:on Monday afternoon, when I first started writing this post, I discovered that the May 2009 edition of Reader’s Digest had arrived in the mailbox.   It featured a story about several people who bouncing back from failure in an inspiring way.  One of the people profiled was a lady in Norfolk, Virginia who failed to save someone’s life in the past, but that experience helped her save someone’s life a few years later.  

The naval base in Norfolk, Virginia was the reason my family first came to Virginia, so the story about the Norfolk lady had a special significance to me.  I’ll be honest, I thought about deleting this post a few times, but the Reader’s Digest story was one of the reasons that I didn’t.  It made me think that maybe one day something good could also come from my devastating failures and heartaches.  Wishful thinking perhaps, but it made an impact at the time.  

It’s an interesting coincidence that the magazine would come on the day that I was preparing to write this and that it would have a moving story from a lady in Norfolk and that  I unintentionally ended up writing this post on the week of my Dad’s death.  As it turns out, tomorrow is also the first day of Passover, and again that wasn’t something I planned.  Maybe there is some deeper significance to those coincidences, maybe not.  

In any case, it’s encouraging that I am now at a point where I can write about something that was once so hard for me to acknowledge even to myself, namely that I sometimes assume that my value as a person is defined entirely by my professional accomplishments or the lack thereof.   With that kind of thinking, it is tough not to conclude that I don’t matter when my world is overflowing with failure.  But anyone who is loved does matter, and I do believe we are all at least loved by God.  

My faith takes for granted that everyone will fail at some point and that those failures can’t truly be set right without God’s involvement.  That involvement is not always what I expect or want, but it is there, as best as I can tell.

 

"Singapore White" from flickr.com/dinesh_valke

 

I’d like to end this messy, meandering post with a quote that caught my attention from the Reader’s Digest story that I’ve been referencing: “You might never fail on the scale I did.  But it is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.”  The author of the quote: J.K. Rawling.  Here’s to facing failure and to living life with a little less caution.

Happy Passover and Happy Easter everyone!

How the War of Art Can Help Us be Less Corporate

This written conversation pertains to a book I finished a few days ago called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Like other good books I’ve read, it is filled with ideas that have stayed with me and taken on a life of their own as I’ve wrestled them into my view of the world. I want to share with you how those ideas can help us become less corporate, but first let me  reiterate in a new way about what being less corporate means and why it is a good thing.  

To do that, please allow me a confession: I face an ongoing battle in my mind about the merits of advocating a less corporate existence. For one thing, I work for Canon and I hope to work for and with other companies in the future, and there is a real possibility that my thoughts may come off as anti-business. They are not.  

I am very enthusiastic about businesses, big and small, that help people to improve the quality of their lives, learn, and make positive contributions to society. As I’ve explained before, I don’t fight against businesses but against the banal, thoughtless, and evil things that businesses, organizations, and people do to interfere with our chances of becoming the radiant individuals we were meant to be. 

I place a significant value on honesty in my life, but even more so in my writing. There are a lot of rough edges and murky spots in my life, and these stains on my soul are things that I’d rather not face moment-to-moment. I try, but I don’t always have the courage to do so with dignity and fortitude all the time.

My hope is that if I write with an honest and open heart, I will get better at living with an honest and open heart on a daily basis. Here’s another way to phrase that: I’m trying to be less corporate, but there’s this fear that haunts my mind.  It suggests that I accomplish nothing more with my writing than convincing the world that I am crazy or not worth hiring. 

 

Ancient of Days - William Blake

 

 

Also, my inner accountant likes to remind me that this kind of writing takes longer to do and it depletes time that could be used to do or find more paying gigs or to at least schmooze for the sake of recognition and career advancement.  As a somewhat related side note, if you want to see me at my most corporate, bring me to a networking event and trick me into thinking that my potential for success depends not on being myself while striving for excellence but in finding the right people who can advance my career if I win their favor. The devil’s minions have used that trick on me more than one occasion, and unfortunately it can still work all too well for them.

I think Mr. Pressfield would describe these doubts I have as the resistance I face in my own personal war for art. (See, it wasn’t a pointless digression after all.) For me, writing about this stuff is something I have to do.  It helps me get closer to what I’m supposed to do with my life.  

I can’t explain why. It is just something I know to be true, at least I know as much when I’m writing. When I’m not writing, I doubt and find reasons not to do more writing or more of the creative projects that sing to me from the depths of my heart, begging for attention even as I try to muffle them.

By now some of you might think I’m a little insane , but some of you, I believe, know exactly what I’m talking about. You can relate; so can Mr. Pressfield. The art he advocates doesn’t pertain to a few cliched talking-points about the value of the humanities in our lives. No, his is the art that pleads with us to pursue our own unique calling, our reason for being put on this earth that only we can discover.

Presenting his case, he writes this: “Unless I’m crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you as it has ten thousand times, the calling that is yours and yours alone.” Did you hear that voice whispering as you read that? I did.

So what is less corporate about the book and it’s ideas? First of all, Mr. Pressfield writes from experience. He has written books like The Legend of Bagger Vance and Gates of Fire, both of which are well-regarded best sellers. In other words, he’s not writing just for a paycheck.

He’s also not afraid to define the enemy in bold terms. He calls it resistance, a force inside and outside of us that gets in the way of our God-given purpose. Corporate thinkers do not like this. They care more about conforming, about being agreeable, about avoiding conflict.  How can you live up to other people’s expectations and be like everyone else while also seeing a menace both inside and outside of your tribe or yourself? You can’t.

That’s why corporate people don’t talk about such things. They prefer to tell you that you can be anything you want to be and that the customer is always right. The customer isn’t always right, and as Mr. Pressfield explains “ We can’t be anything we want to be. We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny.”

About that idea of having a special purpose, a destiny: it’s a strange one isn’t it? And yet it still resonates with us in a way that corporate pie charts and bar graphs do not. I’m fairly certain that our lives have more significance than the amount of profit we generate for Sony, but it’s hard to see that sometimes with all of the distractions and desires that consume us.

Accepting the idea that my life may have a greater meaning than just the sensations of the moment is one thing, but it is another thing to believe that even the irritating guy at the office, and the high-school kid who makes life miserable for others, and the dropout who posts stupid videos on YouTube all have a special purpose in this world that they may or may not achieve. Did He who made the lamb make thee?  Indeed Mr. Blake, indeed.  

When I think about people like that long enough, it becomes harder to reduce them to simple character types, to talking, breathing adjectives who are there only to serve my ends. It makes me wonder what things would be like if everyone was as complex as I am.  (Here’s a secret: I think they are.)

 

Jacob's Ladder - William Blake

 

 

To discuss pre-programmed purpose for our lives in any meaningful way without acknowledging God somehow is virtually impossible. Sure enough, Mr. Pressfield admits that he believes both in God and in a metaphysical reality that transcends the truth of our daily existence. Does he care that metaphysical thinking is out of favor with today’s prominent intellectuals?  Of course not.  Only corporate thinkers care about such things. 

You are free to conclude that only measurable results matter. Forming your own opinion  is a respectable thing, something I celebrate even when the perspectives in question conflict with mine.  Today’s technological world of quarterly reviews, productivity stats, and page clicks certainly fuels and validates that kind of thinking.  

And yet, history’s great thinkers and creators, people like Socrates, Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Kant, Goethe, Tolstoy, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Frank Capra, Dr. Martin Luther King, George Lucas, and J.K. Rowling, among others, would reject the idea that a merely materialistic view of things is good enough or all there is.  It is possible that you are wiser than those men and women, but it is just as possible that you are not.  With that in mind, perhaps you should not be so quick to discredit the things you cannot understand, especially when those things have survived the test of time.  I too will do likewise.  

To his credit, Mr. Pressfield builds his case without statistics.  Statistics and citations have their place, but sometimes they become a handicap that corporate types use to avoid appealing to a person’s own inner sense of things.  Do you really need a survey to know what’s right to do in the moment or to conclude that the iPhone is a well designed product?  Only if you’ve forgotten how to trust your own instincts.

The only point of contention I have with Mr. Pressfield’s excellent and inspiring book is his claim that “Creation has its home in heaven.”  I would be more comfortable saying that Creation often but not always comes from heaven.  

Call me judgmental if you like, but I don’t consider Hitler’s Mein Kampf or the Saw movie franchise to be divinely inspired creations.  As I’ve explained before, artists can produce corporate and evil stuff just like anyone else, but this is a small dispute with an otherwise inspiring and life-affirming book full of resonating truths.  

If you want to make the world less corporate by focusing in on your own special purpose for being on this earth, I cannot recommend this book enough.  

Being Less Corporate is Good for Your Business, Your City, and Your Soul

In this new year in a tumultuous world, why should you care about being less corporate? For one thing being less corporate can lead to more sales, as I’ve explained before.   But really, most of us don’t do things just for the sake of earning more money.  We pretend we do sometimes, though. That way we don’t have to talk about what really drives us: a desire to belong, to be useful, to be loved, to matter.

At The Moulin Rouge by Toulouse Lautrec

Talking about that stuff leaves us vulnerable, and that’s not an easy thing to do.  Instead, it is much easier to discuss things that can be measured, a paycheck, material possessions, and other quantifiable signs of status. What’s wrong with that, you ask?  I answer by calling your attention to the bizarre human ritual known to sociologists and common folks alike as the dinner party.

It is an unstated rule that every good guest at any self-respecting dinner party must acknowledge how great things are going for himself (or herself, the dinner part is a undiscriminating taskmaster, after all).  That is why you will hear witty variations of the following dialogue at almost any dinner party you attend:  ”Yeah, I’m doing great.  The job, wow, really great.  The kids … really, truly great. The new house and the car, you’re not going to believe this, but they’re so unbelievably great that I can’t even describe how great they are.” Fantastic stuff, is it not?  

This is not to say that only great things are discussed at dinner parties.  Of course this is not so.  The weather is an acceptable topic that can safety deviate from greatness. Also it is perfectly acceptable, according to the dictates of dinner party etiquette, to point out how other people fail to live up to the essence of greatness, namely the greatness that any given speaker so magnificently exhibits.  

Let’s be honest: do any of you enjoy that kind of thing when you are stuck reading it and not enforcing it?  Probably not. (If you’re one of the few people who does enjoy hearing that sort of thing, you should probably stop reading this blog and look for a more dinner-party friendly blog, perhaps something like FabulousDinnerPartyBanalities.blogspot.com.)  

At our core, we know that people are more complex than they let on, but we’ve been conditioned to hide our struggles and our shortcomings in the name of pursuing the success that comes from that coveted, perfect image.  And so, the truth of a person is often valued less than the image he forges  in our crazed, perception-driven world, and that’s a sad and corporate thing. 

(To be fair, dinner parties, like anything else in this world can be enjoyable if done with the right intentions.   There is something to be said about sharing a nice meal with friendly, but sincere, companions, and getting to know others in a relaxed and unpretentious setting. )

As long as people avoid addressing problems for the sake of maintaining appearances, they’ll never get the support they need to get better or to fix things. A Microsoft executive could have the smoothest sales presentation in the world with the slickest tech demo, but I would not believe a word he said if he tried to convince me that Vista was a great, problem-free, operating system. However, if he or she acknowledged the problems that users have experienced while explaining steps that Microsoft was taking to correct those problems, then he might earn my interest and possibly regain my trust.  

The picture above is from 192 Creative, Smart & Clever Advertisements, a post that justcreativedesign.com did a few weeks ago.  There are some clever, unconventional ads on display there, so check it out if you’re curious, but be warned: some of the ads are a little vulgar.  Anyway, this picture shows a nice variation of the campaign that Cingular did about dropped calls.

First of all, the campaign focuses attention on a problem that cell phones sometimes have. Here, no one is trying to tell you that cell phones work great all the time. Nor did Cingular claim t0 avoid dropped calls entirely. Rather, their ad says that Cingular has “the fewest dropped calls.”  In other words, they face the problem too, but unlike their competitors, they name the problem and in so doing, focus  attention on correcting it. 

I’ve expressed my disagreements with Obama before, but I do admire his ability to inspire people and his enthusiasm for change.  If Obama refused to acknowledge problems and insisted that everything was it should be, then he’d definitely have far fewer followers. John McCain’s unfortunate quote about the fundamentals of our economy being sound, became for some an indication that McCain would not acknowledge the challenges that reality was serving us. Remember McCain at the next dinner party you attend when you are tempted to sing odes to your own problem-free existence. 

Working at Canon, I’ve learned that it can make a big difference when we acknowledge the concerns of our customers. We don’t have to agree with every accusation that someone brings up, but we get more favorable customer responses when we explain that we are looking into an issue instead of claiming that no such issue can exist under any conceivable circumstance. If we do our jobs well, then our customers will come to trust that if there is a problem with a camera model, then Canon will take steps to correct it, through a firmware update or a service notice as we’ve done in the past. 

Everyone makes mistakes, whether it is a company, an employee, a spouse, a religious leader, or a politician. Learning from mistakes and correcting them are better goals than avoiding mistakes entirely;  Afterall, the only ones who don’t make mistakes are the ones who don’t challenge themselves or try something new. Uncorporate honesty can help with both learning and correcting. 

So many dumb things happen because no one wants to question the boss or the popular one. We tell ourselves that we’re being nice, but we’re really being corporate, spreading banality and failure throughout the world with our unwillingness to speak up. And if you’re not honest enough to ever let others see when they’ve hurt you, then you are robbing them of an opportunity to see the consequences of their actions. 

I don’t believe it is appropriate to bring up every problem to everyone. Some matters are better handled in a private context, but too often people and organizations are hesitant to acknowledge problems even to each other, and that is a problem.  Relationships can fall apart simply because two people fail to sufficiently name and honestly address the points of frustration with each other. Businesses lose clients and damage their reputations simply by sticking to PR half truths for as long as possible instead of acknowledging problems for what they are and fixing them. 

Christ fought for good, but he did not hide the suffering he faced or the problems he experienced. It’s an admirable but very difficult thing to do sometimes. Our instinct is to put more and more armor on, not to take it off, piece by piece. Some days I come close to terror when I remember the things I’ve said and done in the spirit of honesty; By acknowledging my own struggles, vulnerabilities and shortcomings, I’ve given my enemies enough ammunition to do serious damage, but then my honesty has helped me inch closer to wholeness, and that is worth the risk to me. 

I thought long and hard about writing this article. You see, I have to believe what I’m writing or it is almost impossible for me to write anything. Could I really recommend the less corporate path, with my life the way it is? I was set to become a good, if not great, lawyer after high school. I won the debate tournaments in my district, and my advisers and relatives all thought that law school would be ideal for me. I even got to tour one of the big DC law firms, and some of the lawyers involved expressed interest in staying in touch.

I have a great deal of respect for lawyers. The good ones are eloquent and they fight for right and for civility, justice, and order. But that was not me. I cared too much about winning with whatever argument I could craft. I don’t know for certain, but I’m fairly confident that if I went to law school then I’d be making much more money now, although I would probably also be a less authentic version of myself.

Still, far less humor would probably come at my expense during those fabulous dinner parties (yes that’s one reason why I’m not such a fan), and people would actually return my calls. I would be doing something with much more measurable results, and I wouldn’t have to watch one heart-felt creative endeavor after another get trampled upon by indifferent or bureaucratic recipients.

Knowing all those things, could I in good conscience recommend a less corporate life to others? Yes. It’s not the easier way, but I’m a better person for listening to my heart. I’m not perfect, but I’m closer to a sense of harmony than I was before. I may never fix everything that aches or find the success that would make it all OK, but I am not the corporate monstrosity that I could have been. That has to count for something. If you disagree, then take solace in knowing that somewhere out there, a charmingly sinister dinner party is summoning you.

The Mysterious, Illusive, and Tricksy Nature of Giving

(My apologies for the delayed arrival of this post.  Normally I publish a new post each weekend, and do I value consistency and dedication.   With that said,  this is a time of year that asks much from me and you, and avoiding other people and holiday festivities merely to update this blog on time strikes me as a tragically corporate mistake.  For your patience, I am grateful)

If there is any better way to determine the condition of someone’s soul that doesn’t involve their attitude toward giving, then I don’t know what it is. That’s probably why some people put considerable effort into disguising their true sentiments about giving. On the outside, they may be smiling , but in the privacy of their own hearts, they might be hiding obligation, or guilt, or manipulative attempts to get what they want.  Others give out of deeply held convictions and genuine affection, wanting nothing in return. It’s not easy to tell what is behind the giving, but then who said it was easy to see a soul as it is and not as it wishes to be seen.

photo from flickr.com/peturgauti

As counter intuitive as it may seem, sometimes the giving involved in charity work is more selfish than the giving involved in being excellent at work. In some circles, doing community service is the best way to gain status and influence. I prove this with the fading bruises I carry from the disdain of girls too preoccupied with missions work to treat me with respect. But then again, on more than one occasion, I volunteered to do community service for the sole reason of meeting girls. (It didn’t work so well; it rarely does when your heart isn’t in the right place.)

It is corporate thinking to assume that everything done on a volunteer basis is noble and good, while everything done to make money is selfish and base. A good employer will pay you based on the results you achieve, so that you have an incentive to aim for excellence.   And yet, there are various ways to measure performance, but I don’t know of any system that can accurately track every time an employee or business does more than what the job requires.

Think about the friendly, sincere smile given to the customer who won’t leave any feedback or the way someone spends extra time and effort to get the details right that most people won’t notice. Those kinds of things don’t show up on the annual employee reviews, but some employees still do those things because they want to share kindness and excellence with the world.

Consider also the restaurants that give you larger-than-expected portions or replace the tablecloths and flowers at every table, not just every day, but every few hours. These restaurants could make more money in the short-term by keeping the portions small and opting for plastic flower decorations, but they take pride in giving their guests great atmosphere and a satisfying meal experience.  In the long-term, those are the very details that distinguish a restaurant and help it find loyal patrons and financial success, but corporate thinkers tend to avoid this kind of long-term logic and focus only on short-term profit margins and other easily measured statistics.

I’ve read plays like Othello and seen films like the Lord of the Rings several times, but each time I discover something new, and those discoveries surprise and delight me.   That only happens when artists like Shakespeare, Hieronymus Bosch, Mozart, and almost everyone at Pixar labor to put elements into their work that most people won’t notice, but they put them in anyway out of a love for their craft and for the particulars of the things they create.

In every Canon digital SLR, even in the entry-level ones, there’s a handful of features that customers will not appreciate unless they have a strong background in photography.  Since some consumers lack the experience needed to appreciate such features, Canon could get away with not including them and selling the cameras for a greater short-term profit.  But, Canon takes pride in giving optical excellence to the world, and that’s one reason why I’m proud to work for Canon.

photo from flickr.com/andycastro

The artists, craftsman, employees, managers, and entrepreneurs who strive to give the world more than what is expected from the jobs they perform, not out of an exclusive desire for profit, but out of a love and appreciation for excellence, give in a truer way than the self-righteous crones who sometimes pollute the  halls of the non-profit organizations they serve.   Intention is everything, and the ones who give best, whether they be volunteers or paid professionals, are the ones who would still contribute their gift even if God were the only one watching.

That kind of uncorporate giving doesn’t concern itself too much with how it will be measured and paid back right away.  Rather,  a sense of faith that some good will come of the effort, guides the gift into fruition. Here’s the secret though:  If  a worthy gift is given with good intentions, rewards will come whether in financial profit or in a new relationship or in sense of accomplishment, whether in this life or the next, but if you give only to get those rewards, then you’ll never see them.

When you stop and think about it, isn’t a good part of the charm about Christmas decorations found in the fact that they involve a little bit of effort beyond what is expected in daily life?  Lights, wreaths, and Christmas trees don’t have to be there, and yet they are, and so they become friendly beacons of goodwill to all who see them.  What if people took extra steps to spread a sense of celebration and kindness throughout the year?  Wouldn’t that be inspiring in a similar way to Christmas at its best and maybe even in a similarly profitable way?

In the nature of disclosure, I should mention that my own attitudes toward giving vary drastically from day to day. Just think of the vast disparity between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and you’ll get the idea. Some days, I regret to report, my attitude toward giving is essentially this, “well I’d rather burn in hell then help that no-good, dirty, rotten son of a biscuit. (I don’t usually think about biscuits in this context, but for the sake of civility, I’ll take some artistic liberties with the truth. Rest assured though, merry gentlemen and good ladies, the sentiment as a whole is an all too accurate transcription of the thoughts that plague me in my darker days.)

It’s no coincidence that the days where giving seems distasteful to me are the more hellish ones of my existence. The oppressive nature of my own selfishness consumes me and the passage of time becomes an awful, screeching, never ending torment. How much different are the rare days where I re-discover and rest in the love that medieval thinkers called the celestial music of the spheres, the love of God that keeps the planets in harmonious movement and powers every true instance of tenderhearted affection and brotherly love.  In those moments I can give graciously and unselfishly, without regard for whether my efforts will be appreciated or reciprocated.

I wish I could give like that more often, but my own concerns about my future and  career  and carefully crafted image, my insecurities and aches and dark spots, cloud my capacity to give in that way for too long.

photo from flickr.com/brungrrl

Still, in those few moments where I can give as I should, the universe appears right and good and beautiful. It’s hard; it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done but also one of the easiest, depending on my state of mind, to give like Jesus gave and still gives. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it consistently right, but it’s not a bad thing to try in this magical time of year, where we celebrate the birth of Christ, the greatest giver of gifts that the world of men has ever known.

Merry Christmas everyone, and may God bless us all!

The Advantages of Personalized Advertising

If you’ve been paying attention to advertising lately, you’ve probably noticed that ads are getting a lot more personalized.  This is a good thing.  It means companies are spending some time thinking about their customers as individuals with specific perspectives and interests.

Seems like an obvious insight, right?  After all, I haven’t met anyone who prefers to be treated like a stereotype or a generic number that is very much like other generic numbers within a statistical collective.  Yet, there are still companies out there who try to sell you a product or service using Henry Ford’s old maxim:  “You can have it any color you like, as long as it’s black.”

Sometimes mass-production concerns limit variation, so it’s an understandable limitation, but it’s nice, and uncorporate, when companies give you choice.  Sure it may take more effort to produce choices that cater to an individual’s preferences, but it can lead to a stronger connection with the brand, and that’s rarely bad for sales. That’s why you can customize your Google homepage, buy an iPod or car that approximates your favorite color, and special-order your Dell machine to include just the components you want.

Efforts to custom-tailor advertising campaigns to the individual rather than to a broad demographic are relatively new, but the idea is slowly catching on.   Let’s look at three interesting examples:

AMERICAN EXPRESS

Ever since American Express started running their “My Life. My Card” campaign, I’ve been intrigued by the number of respectable celebrities who got involved.  Tina Fey, M. Night Shyamalan, Ellen DeGeneres, and Robert DeNiro are a few of the names who participated.  I’m sure American Express paid them all handsomely, but even so, high-profile figures are  generally concerned to some degree about the appearance of selling out.

How then did American Express land so many big names?  I’m guessing part of their success came from the freedom they gave their participants to express themselves.  In the above commercial notice how the people involved talk about their unique contributions to the world, their projects.  There’s no corporate, generic discussion about how American Express exceeds expectations or how  it puts customers first. Instead we get specific examples of interesting people sharing their passions with us in a personal way.

When I see that commercial, I don’t think, “hey look at all those sell outs.”   I see new sides of people I admire, and I’m left wondering what my special contribution  to this world might be and how American Express could help me share it.    Not a bad message to convey, yes?  I don’t know about you, but the message’s appeal to me is a big reason why I have an American Express card.

EPSON

Most of us with computers use printers to get important things done, but how often do you hear someone begging for geek cred by bragging on his printer instead of his cell phone, or stereo system, or game console?  Not often I think.   I definitely don’t lose sleep waiting for tech specs on the season’s upcoming printers.  Epson understands this.  That’s probably why they came up with epsonalities.

If you go to their site at epsonality.com you can go through several tests to find out which printer is exactly right for your personality.   You don’t get thrown into a broad group based on your age, sex, or occupation, because, after all, you are an individual, and your needs and wants are different by definition from  those of others,  perhaps a little or perhaps a lot. Why shouldn’t that also be true about the printer you use?

The print ads and tv spots used to promote the epsonality site, like the one above, emphasize the particular ways that particular people want to use printers.    Specific examples in the advertising help us imagine how we might use an Epson for our own specific purposes.  And when you think about it like that, it does make printers seem more fun, almost like a beloved cell phone.

ADIDAS

Adidas has run a series of Impossible is Nothing ads that feature more famous people talking about their struggles.  Those are interesting enough for their emphasis on the individual and his specific struggles in achieving success.  The ads don’t generalize about how Adidas helps you win just like (fill in name of famous athlete here).   They look at the particulars and inspire us in the process.

But, what really strikes me about the commercial above is that it celebrates a team that doesn’t achieve undisputed success. To most observers, the featured Saint Margarets team isn’t a triumphant one, but to the team itself that one goal they scored is a colossal victory. 

It’s such a great, uncorporate thing that Adidas is willing to rejoice even with a team that loses the game but still achieves something unprecedented. We can’t all win the big games, but we can all aim to do our very best as we play with our own unique skills and perspectives, and Adidas salutes us for that.  That’s a pretty compelling reason to buy Adidas stuff, don’t you think?

Remember these ads when dealing with friends and employees and clients.  No one wants to be treated like just another number, but treating someone like an individual takes time and effort.  It means taking an interest in someone, not for the sake of getting the sale but for the sake of a appreciating a fellow human being created in the image of God, just like you and me. It means taking the time to understand what motivates, intrigues, and repulses a person and spending more time adapting a specific approach to him or her.

You do it, to some extent, when you’re trying to sell to someone, so why not do it for the rest of the people in your life?  It is, after all, your chance and mine to make the world just a little less corporate.

Norman Mailer: A Theologian for Those Who Dislike Theologians

Religion is often a corporate experience, and that frustrates and saddens me.  Sometimes it even leads me to vice.  I take responsibility for my choices, but bad religion has been, on more than one occasion, a toxic influence that tipped the scales.  

Soon, I want to write about what makes religion corporate, but that’s a tough topic to tackle.  If I don’t articulate ideas in a thoughtful and nuanced but principled way, I could do more damage than good, and I don’t want that.  To warm up for that discussion, I’ll tiptoe into the topic by looking at specific religious-minded people and things that aren’t corporate in the next few weeks.  Today we’re talking about Norman Mailer.  

Here’s a quick background for Norman Mailer, in case you aren’t familiar with him:  Along with writers like Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion and Truman Capote, he gets credit for developing the New Journalism style, a style that smiles at story-driven techniques in nonfiction work.   For his 1979 novel, The Executioner’s Song, Mr. Mailer won a Pulitzer Prize.  That’s not why I find him interesting, but I wanted to establish his respect within literary circles before looking at his theology.  

I had heard of Norman Mailer in college, but I didn’t go through an entire book of his until this interview that he did with Entertainment Weekly (found here).  The interview led me to pick up The Castle in the Forest, a book about the demons who had been assigned to oversee and corrupt Adolph Hitler when he was a child.  Suprisingly enough for a modern novel, it’s a book that takes seriously the idea that angels and demons fight for influence over our personal lives  and our collective histories.  Think C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters with more sex told in context of one history’s greatest villains.  

When C.S. Lewis writes about supernatural forces battling for a soul, he can count on the support of his faith-based audiences.  (I say that as someone who considers C.S. Lewis to be an excellent, under-rated writer who has had a great influence on my life.)  But, when Norman Mailer does it, he is earnestly embracing an idea that his fellow literary contemporaries would mock with condescending sophistication.  Doing that takes courage and cojones, and that gets my attention.    

In fact, I was so intrigued by the theology and the philosophy found in The Castle in the Forest that I picked up Mailer’s book On God: An Uncommon Conversation to learn more about his religious thoughts.    While some of his other books have religious themes, this is the first one that is  entirely focused on thoughts about God.   I don’t even agree with all of the ideas in it.  So why mention him here?  Because, believers and unbelievers both need people like Norman Mailer to bridge the gap between the secular and the spiritual camps.  

On God has very few quotes or summaries from other theologians or thinkers, and Mr. Mailer begins the book by admitting his limited formal training in theology.   Those are both good, uncorporate things.   I’ve read too many books that have countless citations but no original thoughts.  That happens, I suspect, when the author places more value on what other people think than on what he can discover and observe for himself.

A variation of this is the absurd notion that formal education alone determines someone’s competency in a subject.  I’ve met a good number of talented artists, craftsmen, and thinkers who were self-taught, and I’ve known a few exceptionally incompetent people who were formally educated.  Sometimes formal education can enlighten and illuminate matters, but other times it merely corrupts and clones carbon-copies of the teacher overlords.  Why do you think so many theologians, scientists, or English professors share nearly identical opinions about almost everything?   

There’s no formulaic rehashing of well-known theologies in Mr. Mailer’s book. Instead he weaves all of his experiences together into an imaginative theological quilt that doesn’t whitewash the evil that men can do, nor does it hide doubts.  

Plastic, a tool of the Devil meant to turn our attentions away from solid, lasting things and toward a disposable mentality according to Mr. Mailer, makes its way into his theology.  So does bureaucracy: it can tie up the resources of heaven, giving the Devil a temporary advantage.  So too does the Enlightenment: a time that Mr. Mailer praises for the scientific advancements but condemns for the way it anointed reason the supreme king of our time.  

 

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump by Joseph Wright

 

Norman Mailer may be accused of many things, but I can’t imagine any sensible person would accuse him of having a faith that is fragmented and inconsistent with his life and his work.  People who do not bring all of themselves into the things they advocate tend to produce corporate results.  It’s what happens when a salesperson tries to sell you on something that he doesn’t value.  It’s why the work of an uncommitted dilettante artist is rarely compelling.  It’s not what Norman Mailer or any good writer does.    

When a religious leader advocates a principle that doesn’t mesh with how he lives his life, then corporate religion results.  That’s not the same thing as advocating an ideal that you yourself struggle to meet if the struggle to live up to an ideal is part of your theology.  Norman Mailer is no saint: he stabbed his second wife with a pen, perhaps with an intent to kill.  But in his theology he sees souls as an ever-shifting mix of good and evil, a percentage that can change based on the things we do, so his own life fits into that scheme.

In Mailer’s theology, there is something good even in a mostly vile soul, and there is a sliver of corruption and darkness even in a saint.  This kind of nuanced perception of things is more precise, but it involves extra effort to individualize, and that’s not something corporate people do.  

One of the boldest ideas in the book is Mr. Mailer’s claim that God is not all powerful or all good and that the ultimate triumph of good over evil is not a guaranteed thing.  How else to explain a Holocaust, he argues.  I disagree with that conclusion.  In my way of seeing things, the ability to love is possible only with an ability to choose what and who to love, and that love is such a defining quality of God and of goodness in general that God would cease to be fully good if He deprived us of our ability to make choices or to face the consequences of those choices.  

Still, I admire the sense of mystery that Norman Mailer promotes.  He doesn’t claim to have all the answers.  That’s what corporate people do.  Instead he encourages us to do our best moment by moment, listening to our hearts and to God’s promptings about the good we should do in the moment.  That’s advice I can wholeheartedly embrace, even though I don’t agree with everything he says.  Likewise, I don’t expect you to agree with everything I have to say.  Just listen to heart about the things that are true and the things that aren’t.  If you really want to know, you’ll know what’s right for the moment at hand, but be careful because it may not be what you want to hear.  

I can’t be entirely sure about this, of course, but I suspect that in the grand scheme of things, it’s much more important to do what’s right and good in the moment than to get the theology exactly right while ignoring the dictates of the moment.  How about you?  

Thanks for reading and God bless.

Why the World Needs Corporate Thinking

Here’s a choice for you to consider: The first option involves doing something because it is the right thing to do. It will benefit you and the people around you somehow, and you’ll be able to delight in the truth that for at least once in your life you did the right thing.

Then, there’s the second option. Choose this, and I’ll pay you five million dollars to do something and to do it well. Now this thing I’ll ask of you may or may not be a decent thing to do, but who cares; I’ll be paying you a lot of money to get it done.  Obviously, you’ll have to sign a contract, and if you don’t do it exactly as I tell you, I’ll take you to court.  If I still don’t get the results I want, I’ll ask the militia I control to resolve the matter with force.

image from flickr.com/thomashawk

You can make this decision in private.  No one else will know.  So, which one would you choose?

Let me state the obvious: I’m a writer, at least on occasion, so of course I don’t have five million dollars … yet.  But also, most people would, I believe, admire the idealism of the first choice but acquiesce to the seductive second one, in spite of the potentially corporate or ugly consequences.

I’m not even sure how I would respond to such an offer.  I’d like to think that I’d go with the first option, but then doing the right thing can involve uncertainty and risk.  There’s no guarantee that the journey will be easy, and doing the right thing is hard to quantify.

I mean, how could I use my attempts at doing the right thing to establish status and superiority over others?  Besides, doing the right thing involves trusting others for support. Good luck trying to  stand up against injustice for a prolonged time period without the financial, moral, or physical help of others.

Now that I think about it, I don’t like having to depend on other people because almost everyone has let me down at some point, and five million dollars could sure buy a lot of compliance.  With that kind of money, I could compel others to do my bidding with bribes or coercion.   Wait a minute … I don’t want to be that person, but I could see myself, in a moment of weakness, making the choices that lead me there.

Perhaps though, money doesn’t sway you.  You’re too bohemian to care about that stuff, right?  Well then, what if it came down to doing the right thing or building up indie-rock street cred? For example, you could help a struggling friend start a business, something no respectable indie-rocker would celebrate, or you could jam out for weeks at a time, get awesome reviews from all the right publications, and sip indie-friendly Sunny Delight cocktails while ignoring your friend’s calls.

What if it was a choice between the right thing and respectability? That poor black fellow does look lonely sitting in the church pew all by himself, but really what would the other church ladies think if you sat next to him?  Or, what about a choice between doing the right thing and being surrounded by friends?  For someone like me that could be the hardest choice, since meaningful friendships sometimes feels like the scarcest of resources in my world, and the things most scarce to a person often morph into the roots of temptation. The Devil offered food and power to Christ when he was famished and weary not by accident.

Our society has learned the hard way that people can’t always be trusted to do the right thing, and so we write banal laws and vapid corporate policies, put fences around things, and gravitate toward impersonal interactions throughout the day. A wife nags her husband because she doubts that he’ll do what needs to be done on his own or when asked in a reasonable way.  Some teachers prefer to read their lessons word-by-word from a book so that they can avoid real interaction with kids who might respond with thoughtlessness or cruelty.  Companies stuff their quality control departments with bureaucratic and sometimes nonsensical procedures, because  they’ve learned that employees won’t always do what they’re supposed to do if they aren’t monitored carefully.

All of these examples develop from our reasonable doubts that others will do the right thing or from our own apprehensions about doing right.  But then, we often associate the right thing with the boring thing, at least I do.  And yet … it isn’t, not when it’s done properly in harmony with the present moment.  Think about a favorite movie of yours.  Do you cheer with everything you have in yourself when villainy or goodness prevails?

If your heart’s in the right place and you listen to the moment, or more precisely to God’s whispers in that moment, then you’ll know what you should do without having to depend on a list of rules. I get that kind of thing right less than half of the time, but I know from experience that it’s the well from which true playfulness, joy, and love will sprout.

Heaven is, I suspect, the one place where everyone does the right thing without obligation or pressure.  Until then, we have our vices and our struggles and our corporate ways of doing things, but what’s wrong with trying to bring a little bit of heaven here on earth?

If you reward others with respect, sincerity, excellence, gratitude, and affection instead of offering all the corporate trimmings, then maybe you’ll persuade a few more people to do the right thing rather than the corporate thing. Often enough, that kind of thing even translates into financial benefits from the opportunities that cherished and respected individuals offer you, so maybe you can have your turkey and eat it too.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and God bless.