TOW: Anchoring and Moral Judgment

I have been spending the last two weeks thinking about what anchors me, and what keeps me going, day after day.  When I feel strong, I feel like I can count the number of friends I have, the beauty of the good things in my life, and all the things that keep me stable in the changing winds of fortune.

In Consolatio Philosophiae, a lot of thought was put into the value of fame, fortune, and happy middle-class living.  Because of the whims of political fortune, Boethius, a famed scholar and thinker, was to be put on trial and put to death. He often sat, for a time, talking to the muses of art and poetry, in hopes that they could heal his pain.  What he came to realize over time, however, is that all men and women are subject to the Wheel of Fortune:

"I know how Fortune is ever most friendly and alluring to those whom she strives to deceive, until she overwhelms them with grief beyond bearing, by deserting them when least expected. … Are you trying to stay the force of her turning wheel? Ah! dull-witted mortal, if Fortune begin to stay still, she is no longer Fortune."


We are all subject to deception of living well.  We think that if we have this, we have that, we will feel 'safe' in life, only to lose those things and be brought down again.  I have acquired the bad habit of counting the good things in my, the bad things in my life, comparing and contrasting.  This is modern psychology's view of how to get by in life.  It's a stop-gap for all of us, when, for a reason or another, we cannot engage in a higher level of moral thinking.  It's not necessarily a bad thing.

For example, almost all Hollywood movies are the concept of Rota Fortunae.  The hero begins with nothing, rises to prominence, and the credits close with him or her at the very top of that wheel, riding into the sunset.  No one hears about how the soldier that won the hand of his lady/man got cancer a year later and died, and his/her fiancee committed suicide.  That wouldn't be a good movie.  (Well, maybe in Russian cinema, but not here.)

We love to see people succeed.  There's something very nice about that.  Human nature wants to focus on the good, it really does, even when it can only see evil, lack, want.  We still want to count all the good things we have seen.  Morality becomes a counting game of moral banking.

Those things we can count without cost, without measure, those things are the most valuable like love and inner peace.  But even these, during our dark times, Fortune will take from us.  The true measure of a man lies in those moments, in what he can perceive, in what he can push himself to be.

I have picked up the Bible lately again, and I have been doing a lot of thinking about who do I trust to represent a fair vision of myself, of who I am, who I can trust with my mirror's image.  It used to be my family.  As I grow older, I realize I have to be able to hold that reflection up to myself, and do my best to really wonder if I'm satisfied, if I'm a happy man, if I'm a good man.

The best lives, I think are those who have been to the lowest point in their moral scheme, those who can say that everything that made them feel they were a good person was taken away from them, and they can still continue.  In other words, a foolish person who can hope beyond hope when bad things happen.  This picture has been in my mind as I go to sleep over the last few weeks.

The image is of three Belgian men, standing atop the rubble of what used to be their homes.  They are covered in soot, the war is over, and there's nothing to do but rebuild.  And they did.  And eventually Flanders became a beautiful, modern, human place again.  But not without sacrifice and unnecessary death and loss.  They lost everything, absolutely everything, and they rebuilt.

So, when you lose both your fortune and your happiness, there is nothing left but to rebuild.  And no matter what point of life that comes to for us, we can only rebuild, and remember.  And instead of counting blessings, we can only marvel at our own strength, and ability to succeed again, in the face of failure.

VOW: Domino

Love the backgrounds in this video.

TOW: Relationships

It's funny how relationships change over time.

We always think people will be in our lives forever.

But the truth is, relationships change, people do things differently than in the past...they're often trying to figure out what makes them happiest. 

In my life, as long as I'm not have a cynical moment...I think everything changes.  Life goes on...children are born, friends and family members die...life goes in a cycle. 

In my brighter moments, I sometimes think about the phases of life, and what sort of phase I'm currently in.

I know that the relationships in my life can't all stay the same forever.  They have to evolve, or die.  Behavior that repeats itself over and over is probably negative behavior.  Positive relationships don't stay the same...they evolve with the people who are constantly changing, aging, healthy or sick, smart or not-so-smart, wise or unwise in their lives.  Negative relationships ask us to always remain the same, and never change.

But we can't stay the same...for our relationships, and our inner selves deserve better.  We all need to be able to evolve and find ways to be happy.

Life isn't worth living without great relationships.  But great relationships really only exist when we evolve with those relationships.

VOW: Father's Day

TOW: The Creative Process

I have been thinking a lot about what makes me a creative individual and what I need to do to be creative.  I have decided I need a couple things:

1. Inspiration:  I need to feel inspired.  Usually I look at pictures for ideas, or I surf the web, letting my mind wander before I choose an idea.  Some of the best ideas I have had have come after discarding several ideas.

2. Process:  I need to fiddle in a workspace for a while on a backdrop that makes sense.  Whether it's a t-shirt mock-up, a sketch, or some kind of website item, I need to have some kind of paper or some area I can just let loose for a while. For work, I prefer to use Illustrator when doing digital graphics.  When writing, I (now) like to make charts and diagrams to refer my writing with.  I find it helps to keep a consistent narrative in view.

3. Designing:  Once I have an idea firmly in place, I try and provide several variations of the same idea.  So, this could mean I do a graffiti art piece (like today) and I do versions with different colour combinations and different item placements, but generally with the same 5-6 items.  This way I can decide where things belong, and think about what makes the most sense visually, or on page.  This applies to my writing process as well.  I find I'm constantly moving sections of words for placement value.

4. Editing: I mock-up several designs into a one sheet item (writing includes this, give or take) which I then print off to look at.  Sometimes the print really helps me decide on whether I like an item or not.  It helps to do this in varying sizes if I'm only considering slight variations to one design item. 

5.  Revamping:  I then take the one item I'm pleased with and I work on it until I feel it's a finished piece.  This includes writing.  For illustration, I find this is about 3 edits.  For writing, I find it takes me 5-7. Not sure if this has to do with my skill as a writer, or if it's because writing is more subjective than graphic design.

6.  Finalizing:  I then choose the item to present for approval or to use in day-to-day use.

This process can take me anywhere from 1 hour to 1 year.  On an average, however, this process usually takes me a week.

VOW: The Just City

The Just City from The Lifelong Friendship Society on Vimeo.

Snow White

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