Creative Rebellion Essays: Community and connection in the Zoom age

Humans are social beings. We need to be in the presence of others. We need community and we need to connect. Being together, physically, allows us to communicate in ways beyond the confines of the computer screen. There have been studies that indicate that somewhere between 70 to 93% of all communication is nonverbal. We notice everything: how physically close someone is to you while they speak; microexpressions (your words may be saying one thing but your face could be saying something else); posture; vocal tone. I’m speculating but I would assume how someone smells affects us as well – the unconscious mind may pick up the scent of stress. We are visual and tactile creatures and ultimately animals so we notice what is unsaid as much as what is stated.

Creative Rebellion, Contemplation, ConnectionJohn CouchSeptember 5, 2021Zoom, community, connection

Creative Rebellion Essays: Shakespeare, Standup Paddleboarding and a Learning Mindset

It’s been my habit to do things that are challenging. I believe it’s especially important as we progress through life. That’s why I not only took up learning about Shakespeare but stand-up paddleboarding as well.

Creative Rebellion Essays: ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

My last day as VP, Product Design at Hulu was Monday, February 8th. I worked at that remarkable company for five years and one month. It’s a strange, exciting and liberating feeling to move on to new things. It’s scary and filled with unseen potential.

Creative Rebellion Essays: What’s the point of it all?

This is my last essay of 2020. A tumultuous and trying year, to say the least. We all know the issues. But the upside is that this year has allowed me to consider and reflect on what is truly important to me.

Yesterday, December 21st, was the winter solstice: the day with the longest night. Since prehistory, it has also been considered the symbolic death and rebirth of the sun. In addition, yesterday was the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.

Contemplation, Creative Rebellion, Creativity, Zen, StoicismJohn CouchDecember 22, 20202020, meaning, purpose, existentialism, beauty, life

Creative Rebellion Essays: Change

Enter change. Things happen and we classify them as good or bad. But the things often don’t have much of a conscience to them. An earthquake. A flood. A fire. These things happen and we don’t have control. I can prepare for an unforeseen potential issue by doing what I can, for example, to thin the brush around my house, as I live in a fire-prone part of the country, but once I’ve done what I can, I don’t worry about it much more.

Contemplation, Creative Rebellion, CreativityJohn CouchOctober 31, 2020change, heraclitus, happy accidents

Creative Rebellion Essays: Belonging and being the Other

Humans need community and it is often expressed through a form of tribalism which can be, and often is, expressed by conformity. We behave and dress to fit in. And the clear downside of this uniformity is that it can inadvertently diminish your true self.

Communication, Contemplation, Creativity, Creative RebellionJohn CouchSeptember 30, 2020belonging, tribalism, Alain Sylvain

Creative Rebellion Essays: relaxing into focus

Our lives are fragmented by distractions, ranging from social media to the news (often stressful) and just the day-to-day demands of life. It’s even harder if you happen to have ADD or ADHD. Focusing on the task at hand or even on the conversation we are having with another person can be challenging. I believe this distraction is because we are not fully present in the moment.

Creativity, Creative Rebellion, FocusJohn CouchAugust 28, 2020focus, play, relaxing

Creative Rebellion Essays: designing a new story

Last Sunday morning I participated in a webinar that Tea Leaves presented, a conversation between Albert Shum (CVP, Design at Microsoft) and myself, entitled “Creative Rituals.” The wonderful Lana Sutherland, CEO of Tea Leaves moderated.

The premise was:

“As we collectively experience a global pandemic, our systems, structures, and social mores are being put to the test. In this time of shelter and reflection, it has become imperative that we cannot simply go back to the way things were. What, then, are the new norms?”

We covered a lot of ground ranging from how to maintain creative health during these times to working virtually during a pandemic as well as personal stories of cultural perspective and diversity.

Art, Creative Rebellion, Creativity, DesignJohn CouchAugust 21, 2020new story, inspiration

Creative Rebellion Essays: I can’t go on. I’ll go on.

These are not normal times, we know this. Global pandemic. The country divided. Civil unrest. Working from home. However, humanity has endured plagues and social upheaval in the past. Our sense of scale, and what we consider “normal,” is often limited to what we’ve gone through in the duration of our lives. But this planet has dealt with worse than us.

Contemplation, Creativity, Creative RebellionJohn CouchJuly 31, 2020persevere, stoicism, zen

Creative Rebellion Essays: Courage and kindness

This seemingly never-ending pandemic and the political state of the nation, along with dealing with the balance of work and life has me, like pretty much everyone else I know, thinking about how to conduct oneself in these turbulent times.

For me, it seems to come down to two simple issues: courage and kindness.

Creativity, Creative Rebellion, ContemplationJohn CouchJuly 17, 2020kindness, courage, art

Creative Rebellion Essays: When things are going south

After a long day of Zoom and work, I spend my evenings painting large canvases as a practice that centers me while also being able to throw me completely into moments of uncertainty and anxiety. There’s no “command-Z” for analog work –– if you screw up, you either have to incorporate it into the work or you start over.

Art, Contemplation, Creative Rebellion, Creativity, CommunicationJohn CouchJuly 9, 2020keep going, centering, art

Creative Rebellion Essays: Fear of commitment

We’ve all heard of FOMO (fear of missing out), which in part drives the obsessiveness we have with social media as well as push notifications from your news outlet of choice. However, I feel that another, more common variant of this is fear of commitment.

Creativity, Creative Rebellion, LeadershipJohn CouchJune 25, 2020commitment, FOMO, habit

Creative Rebellion Essays: Keep on keeping on

There is every reason in the world not to do something creative and for yourself: you have to do the day job, you have to make money, you have to take care of the kids, you have to spend time with your spouse. All good and worthwhile things. And there will be more reasons not to allow yourself time to create.

Art, Contemplation, Creative Rebellion, CreativityJohn CouchJune 19, 2020keep going

Creative Rebellion Essays: Take a breath

Let me tell you a secret: I’m terrible at taking my own advice. I’m usually in motion and rarely slow down. As time goes by, I feel an urgency to get things done. This has especially been aggravated by the times we are in. The way I’ve reacted to the on-going pandemic (and this week’s news that there’s already a second spike), the protests, the political divide in our country, and the early rise of fires in California, is to instinctively work harder on everything from my day job to my personal projects. Everything feels like a giant memento mori, reminding me that everything can, and often does, change in a moment.

Art, Contemplation, Creative Rebellion, CreativityJohn CouchJune 11, 2020breathe, centering, calmness

Creative Rebellion Essays: These days

These days…

I’ve been struggling with my own sense of outrage, sorrow and concern about the state of this country. We are living in a time of a pandemic and civil unrest while the political divide worsens under a divisive leadership that continues to believe that “might makes right.”

Great leaders have always brought people together. Martin Luther King. Mahatma Gandhi. John F. Kennedy. And the reaction to them was the same – they were all murdered. But their impact and philosophy live on to this day.

Leadership, Stoicism, Zen, Creativity, Creative RebellionJohn CouchJune 3, 2020George Floyd, Civil Unrest, Leadership

Creative Rebellion Essays: COVID 19 as a Catalyst for Creativity

I’ve been interviewed on several podcasts recently about creativity (based in part on principles I wrote about in The Art of Creative Rebellion) and a common theme has come up throughout most of the conversations – what can design do during and after this pandemic? If there ever was a design problem that needs to be addressed, this is the one. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

Creative Rebellion, Creativity, DesignJohn CouchMay 21, 2020COVID-19, creativity, essentialism

Creative Rebellion Essays: The Exquisite Utility of the Useless

We often spend our days, and our lives, focused on “adult” issues that have been deemed by society to be proper engagements. There’s an underlying calculus to what we do: we work because we need money (obviously); we spend quality time with our families (well, we should); we work out to keep our bodies in shape (again, we should); we attend to the spiritual ceremonies that help us deal with the big questions. All these efforts have some kind of outcome that is quantifiable and we feel good about them. Very utilitarian. And all this is fine and good and we should be providers for ourselves and our loved ones. We should be strong community-focused, citizens who provide value, monetarily as well as in civil society.

Creative Rebellion, Creativity, Books, ArtJohn CouchMay 14, 2020creative rebellion, uselessness, rock and roll

Creative Rebellion Essays: Feeling off but moving forward

I’m writing this essay while feeling off. I’m not sure what it is – I woke up bone tired. I slept seven hours but feel like I’ve been up all night. Along with so many others (“Why Am I Having Weird Dreams Lately?” – NY Times), I’ve been having intense, vivid dreams. Aside from not working out as I used to pre-COVID 19, I’m doing all the right things: meditating, creatively writing, drawing, painting, doing podcasts, eating healthy, and while focusing my worktime efforts on my day job, I take breaks to get outside and get some vitamin D.

Creative Rebellion Essays: Thinking by Doing

So here’s my advice: Whatever you choose to do, do it without concern for how it compares or will be received by the unseen masses. You know deep inside what is Quality for you. You know if something is any good or works. You have your own standards. And if the work isn’t up to your standards, don’t fret. Just keep going. Do another painting, another chapter, another song. No one has to read your first draft but you.

Think and plan. But then true learning comes from the doing. The messy process of lurching towards truth.

Creative Rebellion Essays: Who are you?

We can’t control how we are born: our gender, our race, the country of our birth. However, we are highly influenced by societal and family influences as we grow up. Our creation myths are provided to us – this is your religion, this is your nationality, this is your sexuality, this is how we think about things because, well, it’s “always been that way.” Any supposed aberration from the established rules is considered a threat, which is why homophobia, xenophobia, racism, misogyny tend to flourish in closed environments. Different = bad. It’s probably a biological survival leftover from our ancestors, wherein conformity to the tribe and its needs superseded the needs of the individual. A nonconformist could, in fact, be a threat to the health of the group. Any kind of questioning of the status quo was dangerous. Rebels were dangerous.

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