Be Innovative

The last bit of an interview from an old copy of Lürzer Int'l Archive (Vol. 1-2011):

Interviewer: Why are you innovative?
Gideon Amichay: Probably because it can make my life better. I enjoy my day more this way. Just think that, every day, you can invent something. Not only to create, but actually invent. After 20 years in the business, it is so great! It is so easy to create things we already know, things we have done in the past. That's nothing. In fact, when I ask people "to bring to the table the ideas they think we cannot do," it takes the entire agency to a better place. We cross borders and make our way into uncharted territory. 

A month or two ago, I went to this talk at the Toronto chapter of Miami Ad School. It was something like advice from thriving creatives. A few months ago that, I went to another talk where the speaker said something like creativity can change the world.

I think - I truly believe that creativity can save the world. It may even be the only thing that can save the world in the state it is today.

It is incredible and inspiring and breathtaking the things we can do with creativity, with a creative and explorative mind. To be innovative. To think of things that haven't been done yet. To challenge the notion of 'what if'. For this, I most admire children and the way they think; the way they imagine and dream. Anything is possible. In fact, the wilder the better.  Wouldn't that be remarkable?

Be innovative. Stop thinking about what can't happen, and just imagine - even for a second. What did I want to happen as a child? What did you want to happen as a child? How do I bring that into the world? How do I keep dreaming and wondering? How do I live that expansive imagination again?

From Sapiens II

It's taken about two months to finally finish this book. I think it's so interesting and important to read. There's a lot to take in and a lot more to explain. What I loved in particular was the afterword at the end. Here it is.

From Yuval Noah Harari:

Seventy thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystem. Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction.

Unfortunately, the sapiens regime on earth has so far produced little that we can be proud of. We have mastered our surroundings, increased good production, built cities, established empires and created far-flung trade networks. But did we decrease the amount of suffering in the world? Time and again, massive increases in human power did not necessarily improve the well-being of the individual sapiens, and usually caused immense misery to other animals.

In the last few decades we have at least made some real progress as far as the human condition is concerned, with the reduction of famine, plague and war. Yet the situation of other animals is deteriorating more rapidly than ever before, and the improvement in the lot of humanity is too recent and fragile to be certain of.

Moreover, despite the astonishing things that humans are capable of doing, we remain unsure of our goals and we seem to be as discontented as ever. We have advanced from canoes to galleys to steamships to space shuttles - but nobody knows where we're going. We are more powerful than ever before, but have very little idea what to do with all that power. Worse still, humans seem to be more irresponsible than ever. Self-made gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction.

Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don't know what they want?

Bill Bernbach

A quote from an advertising legend - "Human nature hasn't changed for a billion years. It won't even vary in the next billion years. Only the superficial things have changed. It is fashionable to talk about changing man. A communicator must be concerned with unchanging man - what compulsions drive him, what instincts dominate his every action, even though his language too often camouflages what really motivates him. For if you know these things about a man, you can touch him at the core of his being. One thing is unchangingly sure. The creative man with an insight into human nature, with the artistry to touch and move people, will succeed. Without them he will fail."

YOU ARE A BADASS

I have been reading a lot of books that fall under the self-help umbrella. Is this ageing? Is this all part of my quarter-life crisis?

I'm currently working on You are a Badass: How to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life by Jen Sincero. It is a New York Times bestseller with over one million copies, the cover page tells me. I am in between loving it and hating it. I hate her writing style but I cannot doubt her attitude. Not yet, at least.

Some quotes I have on my mind:

1. The Big Snooze operates according to your limiting false beliefs. This is the garbage that was stuffed into your subconscious as a kid that doesn't ring true for you, as well as the decisions you've made about yourself that are less-than flattering or empowering. It gets validation from outside sources (I'm doing this to win your love, your opinion of me is more important than my opinion of me), it's reactive (My circumstances control my life, I am a victim), fear-based, and extremely committed to keeping you safely confined within the reality you've created based on these limiting false beliefs (otherwise known as your comfort zone). The Big Snooze lives in the past and in the future and believes you are separate from everything around you (p. 42).
2. Self-perception is a zoo.
   
   We spend our lives drifting between glimpses of our own, infinite glory and the fear that not only are we totally incapable/unworthy/lazy/horrible, but that it's only a matter of time before someone blows the whistle on us. We torture ourselves incessantly, and for what purpose? If we can glimpse the glory (and I know you can), why do we waste our precious time giving any energy to the other options? Wouldn't life be so much more fun, productive, and sexy if we fully embraced our magnificently delightful selves?
   
   Takes the same amount of energy. The same amount of focus. So why do we choose all the drama? (p. 49). 
3. You are perfect. To think anything less is as pointless as a river thinking that it's got too many curves or that it moves too slowly or that its rapids are too rapid. Says who? You're on a journey with no defined beginning, middle or end. There are no wrong twists and turns. There is just being. And your job is to be as you as you can be. This is why you're here. To shy away from who you truly are would leave the world you-less. You are the only you there is and ever will be. I repeat, you are the only you there is and ever will be. Do not deny the world its one and only chance to bask in your brilliance.
   
   We are all perfect in our own, magnificent, fucked-up ways. Laugh at yourself. Love yourself and others. Rejoice in the cosmic ridiculousness (p. 50). 

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Something to think about.

1. Physiological needs - hunger, thirst, warmth, pain avoidance, sexual release, and others
2. Safety needs - housing, clothing, financial and physical security
3. Love and belongingness needs - social acceptance and personal intimacy (Maslow argued that much of mankind's frustration stemmed from inadequacy in this area, since lower-level needs had been met. People can often say that they have eaten enough or own enough clothes, but who can say "I am loved enough"?)
4. Esteem needs - feeling of adequacy and achievement, approval, prestige, social status
5. Self-actualization needs - the need to understand, cognitively and aesthetically; the ultimate integration of the self and realization of one's highest inner potential

An excerpt from The Power of Habit

Small wins are exactly what they sound like, and are part of how keystone habits create widespread changes. A huge body of research has shown that small wins have enormous power, an influence disproportionate to the accomplishments of the victories themselves. "Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage," one Cornell professor wrote in 1984. "Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win." Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach. 

By Charles Duhigg, p. 112

The Course of Love by Alain De Botton

I found a book I am in love with, perfectly describing everything I want out of a relationship, everything I am, and everything I want out of love, every way I want to fall in love.

-- There is, in the early period of love, a measure of sheer relief at being able, at last, to reveal so much of what needed to be kept hidden for the sake of propriety. We can admit to not being as respectable or as sober, as even-keeled or as ‘normal’, as society believes. We can be childish, imaginative, wild, hopeful, cynical, fragile and multiple – all of this our lover can understand and accept us for. 

They are back in the playful spirit of childhood. They bounce on the bed. They swap piggyback rides. They gossip. After attending a party, they inevitably end up finding fault with all the other guests, their loyalty to each other deepened by their ever-increasing disloyalty towards everyone else.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

The following passage can be found on pp. 192-193:

Sometimes you almost forgot: that you didn't look like everyone else in homeroom or at the drugstore or at the supermarket, you listened to morning announcements or dropped off a roll of film or picked out a carton of eggs and felt like just another someone in the the crowd. Sometimes you didn't think about it at all. And then sometimes you noticed the girl across the aisle watching, the pharmacist watching, the checkout boy watching, and you saw yourself reflected in their stares: incongruous. Catching the eye like a hook. Every time you saw yourself from the outside, the way other people saw you, you remembered all over again. You saw it in the sign at the Peking Express - a cartoon man with a coolie hat, slant eyes, buckteeth, and chopsticks. You saw it in the little boys on the playground, stretching their eyes to slits with their fingers - Chinese - Japanese - look at these - and in the older boys who muttered ching chong ching chong ching as they passed you on the street, just loud enough for you to hear. You saw it when waitresses and policemen and bus drivers spoke slowly to you, in simple words, as if you might not understand. You saw it in photos, yours the only black head of hair in the scene, as if you'd been cut out and pasted in. You thought: Wait, what's she doing there? And then you remembered she was you. You kept your head down and thought about school, or space, or the future, and tried to forget about it. And you did, until it happened again.