Colin Wright's Blog, page 44
January 14, 2013
Most Things
For your entire life — from birth to death — you will not know most things.
This will never change, because there is simply so much to know. So much to discover. The act of discovery alone — finding out about everything there is to find out about — would take multiple lifetimes, and as you searched you’d discover even more knowable knowledge. Anyone who tried the same task after you would have an even larger body of information to wade through.
If you’re anything like me, this knowledge — that...
January 7, 2013
Where Wonder Begins
Laying alone under the stars in a field of grass, it’s easy to be in the moment. To wonder over the beauty of it all. The smell of the air, and the taste of it. The sound of distant animals and human activity. The feel of the grass poking up through your socks.
If you understand the culture in which you live, you can also appreciate how amazing it is that you can lay outside — unprotected — without fear of being mauled by a mountain lion or attacked by a fellow human. The massive effort it too...
January 1, 2013
Every Day is New Year’s
It’s 2013, and approximately everyone in the world will be taking their first step toward establishing new habits, new career moves, or new lifestyle choices at some point today. Moving toward a new life.
By tomorrow, most people will have already failed to keep up with their new ambitions.
We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to imbue meaning into milestones. Birthdays are important. Your wedding should be the best day of your life. College needs to be a time of rampant experimentation before...
December 25, 2012
Things Remembered
I remember exactly how I felt when my first business went under.
It was over 7 years ago, but the disbelief followed by sadness and angst and more than a little anger at myself and my own ineptitude is still a very clear memory. It’s sharp like the tangy taste of metal or the lingering scent of a pungent spice. To have such failure follow such success was almost more than I could bear at the time, and to this day I cringe a little any time I think about it.
I remember what it was like the first...
December 12, 2012
Success & Society
It’s often posited that affluent people owe their success to the myriad other less-wealthy people they encounter throughout their lives.
While I think this is true in some respects — no person creates value in a vacuum — I also think repeating such mantras is an ineffective way of approaching cross-class communication. And we need to keep our chatter friendly if we’re going to survive and thrive as a society in the new, worldwide economic environment.
Having experienced both lifestyles — succes...
December 7, 2012
Negative Drawing
If you want to draw something, generally you’ll find a piece of paper, pick up a pencil, charcoal, or other marking implement, and go at it. The white space becomes darker as you cover it with your carbon, and those lines, crosshatches, dots, and gradients become an image. A representation of something imaginary or real.
When I was in art school, I grew quite fond of a style called ‘negative drawing.’ It was a method that flipped the traditional drawing process on its head: you would cover a s...
December 3, 2012
Normalcy
The word ‘normal’ means something different to everyone. One person’s standard is another’s atypical.
This can be a somewhat uncomfortable realization considering how often we strive to be normal, only accidentally — and seldom as possible — crossing over into the realm of ‘different’ or ‘extreme’ or ‘weird.’
My normal might be your weird, but the same is true of your normal to me. From my perspective, you’re working really hard to maintain steadfast strangeness.
That’s not necessarily a bad thi...
November 28, 2012
Extreme Support
Picture an overweight kid. He’s just slightly over-plump for his age, but because of his eating habits, he’s on the fast-track to middle-aged heart disease.
Popular culture would have us believe there are only two ways to approach this topic with the child in question. The first is to take a page from the book of schoolyard bullies and ridicule them into feeling embarrassed, hoping a little tough love sets them on the right track. The second is to hug them close and tell them it’s all right, a...
November 20, 2012
Know Why You Buy
Why do you go to a bar?
This isn’t a rhetorical question. The answer most people would give — to drink — is only correct some of the time.
Drinking at a bar is an excuse to have a shared experience. It’s an activity that a person can do in public among other people. People go to bars to be in public. To be social. To be with people.
There are exceptions, certainly, but think about it this way: if you want to drink, there are far superior ways to do so. It’s cheaper to drink at home. Home is also...
November 15, 2012
Worthless Philosophies
There are as many valid philosophies in the world as there are people to have them.
But for a philosophy to be truly useful — to be more than just another element on your Facebook profile or team logo to wear on your sweater — it has to be practiced.
You have to live your philosophy, or it’s not your philosophy. You can’t just admire it from a safe distance, unwilling to put in the effort required to change your actions to fit your theories, or unable to muster the courage to face the potential...
