Viewing entries tagged
hope

Voyage and Return

It is 5am, and I’m downstairs on the couch, sitting right up against the front window. I reach my fingertips out, and feel the remains of the night chill on the glass. It’s beginning to get light outside, but there isn’t any colour yet - just a vague pastel blue grey. There’s a tree by the street, every leaf still and monochrome like a pencil sketch. I know that each minute that passes now will lift those leaves into more vibrance, along with the sky, the streaky clouds, and the limestone wall along our garden bed. And sometime between now and then, the sun will have risen, and the day will become distinct.

January to me feels like this time between first light and sunrise. A no-mans-land of vagary and indistinct shapes, each new day bringing a little bit more colour and clarity to the year, but, who really knows when the sun will actually crest the horizon. After the mad hustle of December, January is a reprieve for some, a recovery for others, a reward for yet other others.

I don’t know if it’s because I have kids, or because I'd shot weddings for so long, or both, but January was never any of those things for me. It was just, messy. School holidays meant a kind of responsibility-overload, paired with the hourly deadlines of editing the outstanding weddings of the last 8 weeks, and then topped off with all the existential questions one asks of oneself each new year:

“where am I going?”
“what really matters in life?”
“did I live a life worthy of living last year?”

In those past years, the only way to survive was to compartmentalise. In this moment, I am fully present with the kids. In this next moment, I am fully present with my editing. The next moment, going for a walk, spending time with loved ones, laughing at a thing.. It went moment by present moment, each of them disconnected from the other.

It’s not like that anymore, thank goodness. For something unsustainable, I sustained it for too long. But, January is still messy.

This year, I’m finding it useful to assign a plot archetype to the month of January. For me, it’s a VOYAGE AND RETURN plot. A protagonist heads out into the big world, experiences some things, and returns changed somehow. There’s a transformation, or an elixir brought back, or whatever else. So I’m looking back over the month as if I have just returned from a great voyage, and I’m sifting through my pockets of experiences, searching for elixirs.

With the sun already warming up the sky, and the leaves across the street bright and dancing in a new breeze, I find that my pockets are full of elixirs. I have a hope here, that I feel so deep. It will support us the whole year I reckon. Rach and I have communities that we can work with and play with, who love us and believe in great things. I find so many vials of encouragement, gifts from distant lands reminding us that we are all connected, and all valuable.

January hasn’t been a mess. It has just been a journey, and we have returned with dusty clothes and happy kids, a renewed focus and a burning drive to create things in the world.

We’re tired, but we are together, and we are as excited about the year as those dancing leaves seem to be about the new day.

Haben Girma

This week, Rach was speaking at a two-day online conference run by the incredible Mary Freer, called Compassion Revolution. Seth Godin was speaking too, but the really intriguing human that was sharing the stage with Rach was a woman named Haben Girma.

Haben is a deafblind woman of colour, the first deafblind person in history to graduate from Harvard Law School. She chats with presidents, advocates for greater human and disability rights, and is beautiful and funny and gracious. She delivered a keynote over zoom that got us all thinking deeply about our biases and identities and potential.

Incidentally, for those who, like Haben, are reading this post (yep, it’s possible) I am a tallish white male in my forties, currently folded into the back corner of a coffeeshop with a notebook and a laptop. I’m wearing a dark blue t-shirt that is splashed with white flowers that have pink edges. There are so many humans around me, but I can’t hear them, because I have headphones on, listening to “Games” by Bakermat. The music is joyful and melancholic, and feels like someone is shaking both your hands, but in time to your heartbeat, so that your whole body bounces in rhythm to your pulse.

Anyway, the morning after the conference, Rach and I are sitting in bed drinking coffee and she says simply, “my Instagram is ableist.”

I ask her what that even means, and she explains that without choosing to, without even thinking about it, she has built a collection of imagery and art that only those with sight can enjoy. There are videos whose auto-captions would barely make sense to someone without hearing who rely completely on captions.

“That’s hardly ableist, though.” I say, trying to defend her honour or something, “It’s not like you’re deliberately marginalising anyone.”

She stares into her cup, the steam backlit by the early sunlight. “But that’s the thing. It’s not deliberate, but it is ignorant. I’m being lazy, Nath, because I’m comfortable doing things the way I’ve always done them.”

“So it’s ignorant ableism, then?”

“Yeah, I think it is. By not even thinking about inclusion, we are by default EX-cluding people."

This is how we talk sometimes. Big concepts (at least big to me), just casually introduced at 5am before the caffeine has even kicked in. I try to keep up. “How can your Instagram be more inclusive then?”

And she comes alive. Descriptions for each of her artworks, captions that are accurate, commentary on the visuals of our white papers, multi-sensory experiences. And then I get excited too, and together we come up with all these ideas around experiential art exhibitions, better websites and identity descriptors, and other stuff that just feels powerful to talk about.

We talk about community, how it has always shined the brightest through service. Helping, lifting, sharing, encouraging, contributing, they’re all elemental traits that build humanity. Though all of us prefer comfort, as soon as we react to someone else’s need, we feel a sense of forward motion for humanity. Like we actually contributed to a meaningful story.

I know right now this is talk not action, but the talking helps remove the ignorance. It shines a torchlight in a corner that I forget to look at. Ignorant ableism is absolutely a thing I do. Along with ignorant racism, climatism, sexism, and every other big conversation. I just don’t know what I don’t know, and that’s a whole lot.

And, I don’t know what to do, all the time. What the right things are, the best way to act, etc. But I do know that I’m built for this: for learning, growing, serving, assisting. We’re all built for it. My challenge is to stay aware, and to not be fearful of the discomfort as I learn and grow. Because finding ways to lift each other up and value everyone equally is soul-edifying, it is life-giving, and it is absolutely human.

Learn more about Haben, and buy her memoir, at www.habengirma.com

More about Compassion Revolution: www.compassionrevolution.care

On uniqueness and identity

I discovered this in a notebook from a few years ago, and after all the conversations Rach and I have had this week I think it must relevant somehow… If you’re not feeling very unique this week, then read on..

--

Yesterday evening I found my ten-year-old, Jeremy, flopped on his bed, tears rolling down his face, eyebrows all furrowed and eyes kind of furious.

Two minutes before that, he was happily working through his Harry Potter Lego castle, generally joyful and chatty.

This huge crash in emotions was triggered by one little experience: Shasta, his younger brother, asked him for help with a new drawing app on his iPad. It was an app that Jeremy himself found just a few days earlier. He loves to draw, and wanted to create some new styles and comics, so researched the right tools, and eventually found this one.

Jeremy was so excited about this new tool, and had been studiously learning how to draw things. He had just started his first comic panel.

And then, disaster hit.

His brother got excited and inspired by what he was doing, and asked if he, too, could have the app. I saw no problem in it, and said yes, and all of a sudden Jeremy’s energy dropped a little.

Twenty minutes later, Shasta is asking for help, holding up a screen already filled with drawings and colour and comics that look as good, if not better, that Jeremy’s own work.

I can imagine what happened next in Jem’s mind, because we still do this as adults:

First, a sharp feeling of injustice, that someone just stole the “thing” that makes us, us. Then, jealousy - this other human is producing really good work. And they seem to be doing it with more ease than we ever did. And lastly, resignation - that compounding sense of “what’s the point, now?”

And, what is the point? Someone else can do what I’m trying to do, and it seems better, and they make it look easier. So, why bother anymore?

It’s pretty disappointing. All of a sudden, the desire to create dries up, the feeling of uniqueness and individuality crumbles to dust, and we are left with frustration, jealousy and often anger at that other “better” person.

So, I'm sitting on the edge of the bed, watching this little face leak angry tears down hot cheeks, and I ask “is this because of Shasta and that app?”

Jeremy’s gaze is locked on a spot on the wall, but fresh tears appear on his lashes. He nods, and says, “Shasta didn’t even care about drawing until I got the app. He just did it because I’m doing it!”

“Does it matter?” I reply. “That he has the same app as you? You guys produce very different work, so no one would compare and say one is better than the other?”

“But it was MY thing. And now he’s doing it too!”

And there it was: “It’s my thing.”

—

Comparison breaks us, and I hate it. I’m sure it wasn’t meant to, but over thousands of years of us humans relating to each other, we have managed to turn comparison into something dark. Now when we see a difference in another, instead of applauding the diversity, we make a judgement of better and worse.

And ownership diminishes us. It tells us that we are what we own. It makes us believe that our uniqueness comes from the tools or titles or toys we hold, instead of the vast galaxy of resource that exists in our physical, emotional and spiritual being.

Who you are is found in the totality of your being. Everywhere you’ve been, everything you love. Everything you believe. All that you allow to waterfall through your heart and onwards into others. As far as unique and beautiful humans go, you’re freaking untouchable.

And you know what the great irony is? I KNOW this about Jeremy, but he’s going to spend the next decade slowly believing it for himself. So every time he turns to me with defeat in his eyes, I’ll tell him again, “you are beautiful and unique, little one. Do your thing, stay open, relax, it’s ok. Keep the channel open."

__

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”

- Martha Graham

On the road: Basel, Switzerland

A few years ago Rach and I did some work for Roche Pharmaceuticals. With all the pharma-politics in play right now, I thought this memory from March 2019 was worth sharing.

—

We saw the tower before we even entered the country. And we watched it until our wheels hit the runway.

It's not that it's particularly big, but more, that it's alone. Every other structure is regular-sized: Houses and apartments and commercial buildings, all obeying the usual sizing rules of ancient European cities. But the Roche tower is a completely different creation. It stands tall and singular, like the first kid in school to hit her growth spurt. But without the awkward.

It's stands there, an alien beacon awaiting re-enforcements, breathing in 5% of the entire population of the city, like a scheduled apocalypse. 7:00am and they're all gone. And those left behind go about their day until the sunset return of all those who were taken, blinking in the afterglow of sunlight they never saw, wondering what's for dinner, and where the time went.

At least, that was the conclusion I drew, standing on the Wettsteinbrücke bridge overlooking the Rhine, with the softly spectacular homes of Basel Switzerland lining the shores. And that peerless tower, quietly breaking the horizon.

I watched the kaleidoscope sky reflect off the tower's shiny faces and sharp edges, and concluded that a corporate pharmaceutical juggernaut had landed in this quaint town, and is now feeding on the townsfolk, and honestly, how would you even say no to such a beast? We have bills to pay, loved ones to create experiences with, families to care for. We all need money. We all need to live.

I stood on that bridge, and compared the reflections: The crystal windows of the tower, and the slow running river below me. Clinical perfection, versus organic flow. Solidity and Fluidity.
Future and Nature.
The windows were winning, as far as clarity went.

Rach stood beside me, and I'm sure we were thinking the same thing:

What have we subscribed to here?
What possible part can we play in this world of billion-dollar pharma players?

Our message is one of empowerment and empathy, love over fear, celebrating difference and diversity. Who, in that tower, will listen, or even care?

--

The next morning, we were taken to the top floor. I could see France to the left, and Germany to the right. And below me, our enormous shadow, stretching across houses and spaces for blocks and blocks in the early morning light.

I wondered what it would be like to live in that shadow. Sunrise, but no sun. Just the monolith. The whole street would feel colder.

And then we were into it. Our workshop room had the most enormous table I'd ever seen. Someone flipped a switch, and the floor to ceiling curtains glided open, revealing a sunlit green courtyard, scattered with employees drinking their coffees and sharing their perspectives on, I don't know, world domination.

And then our people arrived. Scientists, researchers, health professionals, patient liaison experts. All serving in the Rare Disease Space. And all completely exceptional humans.

All my preempted judgements, all our fears of distant corporate robots, were just blown away by the absolute humanity of these attendees. They were passionate about their work. They want to save lives. They are searching for solutions that don't yet exist.

There were tears, and honesty, and vulnerability, and an overwhelming sense of love.

Yep. These aliens love us.

Turns out, this tower is filled with people who care about people. They've moved cities and countries to be a part of the team. To find cures, and solutions, for others in pain. They work long hours, they give up their own comforts, in the hope of finding needles in haystacks. We spoke to one researcher who has a child of her own with a rare condition that doesn't yet have a cure. But her job is finding a cure for a different condition, one that will save other children's lives but not her own. She works extra hard because she knows the pain the other parents are feeling, and she has to trust that somewhere else, there is a researcher close to a cure for her own child.

It's like this whole industry rests on faith. A daily belief that there is more to learn, more to find. Solutions still to be uncovered. Techniques still to be unearthed. There's this tenacity for justice, that declares "This is not right, and someone needs to fight for it".

I know Roche is a pharma giant. But inside those walls, we met the people doing the work, and in the rare disease space at least, they are doing the work of justice, and miracles. Inside those walls, there are thousands of people dedicating their lives to other people.

I know nothing is perfect, and I know corruption is everywhere. I grew up in a church, that I loved, so I'm well aware of the negative power of the institution. But what I saw in church is what I see in Roche:

Despite the corporation, despite the external shell of power and profits and popularity, there are thousands of people with hearts of gold, giving their lives for something meaningful and needed in this world.

Behind all the sharp corporate edges, beat soft warm hearts, and they are well worth appreciating, and applauding.

We are artists

We are artists. In ancient times, it was the artists who society looked to for hope and perspective. The artist saw the world differently to the worker or the politician, and so, could offer valuable insight into a situation. And perhaps more importantly, the artist could also offer an archetype of a solution.

Artists naturally reveal truths, often universal truths. And in doing so, their audience feel two things:

  • They feel known.

  • They feel hope.


It’s not up to the artist to implement cultural change, manage new systems, oversee task forces. The artist simply creates pieces of truth, that move an audience towards something they believe in.

Work that matters

I wrote this three years ago, but it feels right to post it here, now. It’s a slow process, doing the work you think matters, but it absolutely matters.

Jan 2018

It’s midnight, and I can’t sleep. I wish there was a great inspired reason, but to be honest, I probably had a bit too much caffeine too late in the day. So, instead of sleeping, I’m out here on the balcony of our 6th floor apartment, watching conversations on the street, and drinking whisky, and writing. A truck just drove by, loaded up with Christmas decorations. Like a giant tinsel-spider, folded up and put to rest for another year.

The world is getting back to work.

And so are we. Rach and I. We took some time out, drove 400 kilometres to the southernmost tip of Western Australia, and made our plans.

We said, “Life is not long. We have to do meaningful work”.
We said, “No matter what, we need to do work that matters.”
We took stock of what we have, and what we need to get our message out. We pooled all of our stuff, everything of value.
We climbed a mountain, and talked about Love.
Rach said the clouds felt closer up here.

Tonight Rach sold her piano.