The post about repairing things
Spent a few afternoons around the house repairing things, moving things out of the way, putting things away. I thought about writing this yesterday, but I let it mature for another day instead.
One of these things is related to my professional life, something you have certainly noticed yourself through the years: that watching (or following) people in your own line of work online is unfulfilling, to you as a person, and to you work. I wager that people like you and me expected some sort of inspiration or motivation from these, let us be honest here: videos mostly. And it just doesn’t happen: instead, I just stare and have vague feelings I can’t put into words (put I imagine myself looking like the poor little sh*ts in Donna Stevens’ collection of portrait photography of children watching TV)
In my case, having a full wall of thumbnails on YouTube made up of graphic design content choked the creativity out of me. More than that, only now, after dismantling this wall, have I gotten back into my own projects, following my interests in graphic design and my own curiosity.
In every way that counts to me, I believe that everything that is not graphic design actually feeds into my need and interest to design.
And, to me, turning what interests you into a passive kind of entertainment, the kind you watch, the kind you consume, will do horrible things to your own creativity, productivity, and well‑being.
Without looking deeper into this, I believe that the target audience of these people are NOT other professionals in the same field.
Like that one man I met a few years ago lamenting the quality of television and of how “everything” has gone bad, the world, his health, and so on, the news mostly really, he never considered the following:
if it makes you feel bad, it is not for you.
Or, more generally: if it doesn’t spark joy, you can throw it away.
Because it is a product. Not your life. Or your work.
This is more of a note to myself, and to you, if you are tuned into that kind of thought.
