Monday, November 29, 2004 :::
Nothing is so Dangerous as a Mind with a Little Knowledge
listening to: Rachmaninov - Adagio sostenuto
feeling like: A warm cuppa would be nice
whining about: My right ankle.
The bastard I played tonight in footsal tackled me from behind and twisted my ankle around 90 degrees.
Have you ever noticed that when making "polite" conversation with your co-workers in an office environment, you tend to bury a lot of your opinions in the name of political correctness and harmony. This is doubly true of the two taboo subjects which are not to be discussed, Politics and Religion. This of course is common sense.
That said, I do love a good "debate". Especially when the person which you are talking to is widely read and can explain themselves in a logical manner. You may even learn a think or two about yourself when they challenge you to defend your own position. They may expose a prejudice or two within you which you didn't even know was there.
My father once told me,
"There are many types of people in this world. Some people find a book and like what they read. It applies to everything in their life and it makes them content. Other people read that one book and go 'that was interesting, but it doesn't have all the answers for me. I think I should read another'. You can be a one book person or you can be a multible book person and both are OK. There is no right and wrong, different people just need different answers."
My family members are all very much multiple book people. Our aim is to find the common thread running through all philosophies and theories. To extract the essense of the message rather than getting caught up on the petty details.
This all leads up to my story today.
At work a colleague of mine was halfway through reading a book called "The Da Vinci Code". For those who don't know, basically it is a book which "theorises" that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that there was a conspiracy to cover up this fact. It makes some quite powerful assertions and is quite compelling reading.
My colleague starts telling our receptionist, who is a devout Roman Catholic. Halfway through the conversation things start getting ugly with the receptionist covering her ears and going "no, no, no!!! I won't believe this rubbish." The whole thing degenerates into a rather nasty argument with my colleague declaring that "It is so true! Why can't you see this".
A few things struck me at that momment. Firstly, you haven't even finished reading the book. Secondly, it is merely a theory based on reseach of historical texts. The notion that it is some misogynistic conspiracy may have some truth, but to attack somebodies beliefs in such an insensitive way when you hardly know anything about the topic is frankly appauling.
Unfortunately you very often stumble across people who have read one or two books and claim they have the answer to everything. They tell you the virtues of what they have learnt and why you are wrong. You tell them they need to read these other books and come back once they have done their research, but they are not interested. They have the answer.
This behaviour almost sounds like that of the Jehovah's Witness' and Born again Christians. But it works both ways. So one eyed are they in their vision that they can't see past their own satisfaction in being correct.
I remember being approached my mormons and when I asked for a copy of their "Book of Morm" they wouldn't give it to me. They said I didn't need to read it, just trust them. Another time, a JW came door knocking. My cousin challenged them about how there were more JWs than the 144,000 limit of people who would enter heaven, rather than giving an explaination or pointing out that the stance has been changed in recent years, they got offended. We had to look up the internet later on to find out the answer.
Hey! It's my house and my time you are taking up. You're trying to tell me how I should think. At least be able to defend your position. If you want me to believe you then convince me.
This brings me to my point. I don't care if you are ultra-religious or non-practicing or atheist or agnostic. You don't trample on other peoples beliefs. You may discuss and exchange ideas but ramming ones opinion down somebody's throat just smacks of intellectual intolerance.
People like that really rub me the wrong way.
As my dad says "On the day of judgement, I believe that whatever merciful power looking over us will judge us by our actions and not our beliefs. If I have led a good life, I have been honest and generous to others I have "faith" that I will be judged accordingly"
Adolf Hitler was a godfearing christian who believed he was doing gods work.
Intentions are meaningless. It's action that counts.
2 posts in a months. Phoar!!
Like Grease Lightning!
Peach Owt Mon.
::: posted by nath at 10:32 PM
Thursday, November 11, 2004 :::
Annual Report Card
listening to: Radiohead - I Will
feeling like: I need some time off...
whining about: The usual stuff
It's been even longer this time eh?
As a graphic designer, one tends to run purely on enthusiasm and freedom of thought. Our drive is our freedom and our ideas are our product. I don't want to mystify the "Design Process" as something more ephemeral than it really is, but it is an unexplainable feeling when you're in the creative "zone" as it were and the ideas are just flowing.
Conversely, take away a designers freedom and you deny them the very fuel they need to be themselves. Each piece of work has a little piece of their soul pinned on there which is why we tend to get overly defensive of our work at times. "You’re tearing the guts out of it!" you will often hear my breed of people saying.
Why am I suddenly thinking of this? Probably because the commercial reality of work is not satisfying me. Style guides and branding are all necessary tools of marketing but very often stifle all the joy out of the design. There is no joy in the process anymore which to me is the most important thing.
I guess all this really makes me thinking about what I really want out if life in the first place. What values does one hold dear. I never really desired that much in the way of material possessions. I don't spend a lot; I've never really needed to. I never wanted to be a corporate lawyer, merchant banker or business man like many of my piers aspired to be. I'm no bolshie but I do despise the culture of greed and consumerism that has people tread milling their way though life, trying to measure up to some imaginary yardstick society places in front of them which measures your stature in dollars and cents.
On the other hand, I saw enough drop out people at art school to realise that living in the moment all the time can be just as detrimental. A person with no self control is just as bad and I have seen too many people wallowing in a pool of their own self-indulgence, claiming that it was the only true form of freedom. To me it sounded like horseshit hippie rubbish. Get a job.
So where does one draw the line in-between these two polar extremes. This is the problem I have been grappling with for the last 2 years. Work hard, get a mortgage, save more money....or travel the world, your only young once, your too young to get tied down. My mother always use to say "all things in moderation" but where is the moderate line. In a world where altruism is nearly dead is the ME society considered the norm? Altruism now comes in the form of nicely packaged hollywood-style TV charity benefits concerts and corporate awareness weeks. We’ll take everything you have but don’t worry, we’ll throw you a few crumbs. This is compassionate-conservatism at its best. Is that to be the defining trait of generation Y. A whole generation of greedy adultlesence? Is that he supposed middle line society has drawn for us?
It was all meant to be layed out before us when we were younger. Your path was set and you knew what the rules were...but life isn't that simple of course and as you struggle to find yourself you have to be careful not to be swallowed up by the morass which is social expectation. Id versus Ego, Nature versus Nurture. Is what you are, what you will become? In the rose tinted memory of what was the 60s & 70s there was a sense that one could change the world for the better. 30 years on those children grew up and it turned out that they did not reshape the world to their vision, but indeed the world reshaped them. Maybe ourselves as a society have grown past that point of naiveté.
I always hoped that I was in someway different from the rest. I wanted to have something to offer that nobody else could. Whether that be wacky insanity, calm reason or just a bad joke it didn't matter. I guess I'm just not a team player and I never will be but maybe one day I will be forced to become one against my will and that is a sobering thought.
All this brings me back to my original point. What happens to a designer when you take away their freedom. You get a hollow shell.
I need to get a new job.
-Peace Owt
::: posted by nath at 11:35 PM
Saturday, August 23, 2003 :::
Long Time No See
listening to: Silence
feeling like: A Holiday would be nice...
whining about: How unphotogenic I have become over the last few years :P
Its been a while hasn't it?
To Denise and other other few oddballs who still check up this section I have to apologise for being flightfully busy at work. The 9-5....or 9-8 grind in my case, really takes its toll on you after a while.
It occurred to me than my 6 month review is coming up soon which will be the longest that I have ever spent in a proper fulltime job (Franklins Supermarkets not counting). I think this is a perfect cue for me to do my own 6 month assessment to see if I have indeed changed since finishing uni and entering the rat race.
The answer of course is both Yes...and No.
Some things change and change fast.
I suddenly find myself talking to people about finances, mortgages, paying off cars, looking for units and hustling for payrises. I was having a quiet drink with a few friends a few weeks back and it suddenly occurred to me that all we were talking about was what we were doing at work, the funny or boring people we had to deal with and the shit jobs that we had to do. Everybody is overworked and underpayed and their bosses are all idiots who set you unreasonable deadlines and don't appreciate you. How odd... 6 months ago we would have been talking about film scripts we wanted to shoot, projects we wanted to do, nasty pranks we wanted to play, places we would love to go to and whether we should just drop everything and take a 2 week roadtrip up the coast.
I guess I find myself for the first time actually seriously considering the next phase of my life. Uni was always a mini version of what we would have to face in the real world but I guess now it has really hit home that I have to move on and make something out of this life of mine. Just living it is no longer enough, I need a plan and I need to be going somewhere. Frankly its quite scary.
What I worry about is that I may lose the drive and enthusiasm that has always sustained me for years, that it may become buried under a pile of mediocrity and conformity that the world forces on each and every one of us. While talking to my work friend today, I told her how I use to be really into political actvism in uni and even in highschool to some point. She asked me why and whether I had grown out of it? That made me think.
Have I changed so much that I no longer care? The answer I gave was no, I haven't grown out of it. I have merely come to a uneasy compromise with my morals. This answer worried me. Had I succumbed to the futility that so many of my peers had accepted as the norm? Unable to believe that they could make a difference to the world anymore, they merely accepted their lot and "got on with their lives"?
Maybe I have. Maybe this happens to all of us.
I'm still just as idiosyncratic as before, as are my mates. We're just as weird as we always were and I hope that will never change....just ask my co-workers. They think I'm slightly imbalanced...strange artschool people... I guess that I haven't totally changed yet but slowly I am being sucked into the system that I resisted for so long. So with this 6 month review comes a promise of a payrise, a new set of business cards and a whole lot of paranoia and heartache on my part. Sound like a pretty sweet deal :P
Peace Owt.
::: posted by nath at 1:34 AM
Saturday, April 05, 2003 :::
Hell Week
listening to: The International Noise Conspiracy - Up for Sale
feeling like: Sleeeeepppp
whining about: work related stress injuries
Thank god its fridays is all I can say.
Really, I am glad.
My boss is leaving for China for 3 weeks and everything needed to be finalised by today because he won't be around to approve anything for the next 3 weeks. This of course meant that all my deadlines have been cut in half. NOT HAPPY JAN.
Ive been working back till 7 on a few days to get a advertsing insert done for the newspaper by wednesday and when we finally got the brochure designs ready for sign off there was a massive fight over the cost of the copyrights. This dragged on for 3 days and since I work with a bunch of corporates they dont seem to realise that I cannot produce designs in half an hour. I need time, it is a slow and painful process and all the waiting on approval for the copyrights really got on my nerves. I sit here and twiddle my thumbs while they argue over the cost and when they finally approve it on the friday there's a mad rush to the end because the red tape took so long to approve.
Oh well, on a happier note I am quite pleased with the work and it will be going into production in the next week, 300000 copies! Ive never worked on anything that big before! Its quite exciting.
For the first time in 5 weeks I dont have a birthday party or drinks to go to this saturday night. I'm really looking forward to having some bumming around time and just slob around a bit on sat night. I think a much needed quiet night in is order...Its gunna feel so good!
must be getting old.
Peace Owt.
::: posted by nath at 2:22 AM
