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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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There is the basic notion that if I do something over and over, with enough diligence that I will gain mastery in a particular discipline or practice. This concept was popularized by the famous “10,000-hour rule” that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in his excellent book Outliers. It has often been misinterpreted that one will become an expert in anything if they put in 10,000 hours of work. In reality, he was referring to “outliers” – people of such talent that they became phenomenal through putting in the hours. In other words, even if I put in 10,000 hours of effort as a child, I’d never become Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant because I lack the intrinsic talent as well as physical capabilities. I would perhaps become really good but not an outlier.
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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.
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Constructive risk is expansive, has energy, and allows you to consider, What can go right? The opposite of this, is the constrictive, risk-averse, survival-focused mantra of What can go wrong? Risk assessment balances the two but I would propose that most of us tend to focus on what can go wrong over what could go right.
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I had my monthly catch up with a new friend, who I’ve only ever connected with via Zoom. He’s a designer, he’s also half-Japanese like me, and we are both fascinated with the subject of creativity. The basic conundrum we both aligned on is that there is the seemingly at-odds state of needing to make a living and the need to create. Ideally, we would be making a living from what we love doing but that’s often the exception, not the rule.
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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.
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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.
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The weird thing about these times is that we feel that we simultaneously have too much time on our hands and yet have no time at all. Time is tricky. Because when we finally get through all of the things we have to do, working, taking care of the kids, buying groceries, doing the dishes, fixing the car, fixing whatever is wrong with the house, trying to work out, spending time with family and (socially-distanced) friends; we are exhausted. Oh yeah, and then there is the global pandemic. And the current political and social turmoil...
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The term Renaissance is derived from French renaissance, from re- ‘back, again’ and naissance ‘birth’ (from Latin nascentia, from nasci ‘be born’). The Renaissance is, of course, the period of transition in Europe from the Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) to Modernity. The Age of Reason and Enlightenment ran from about the 17th and 18th centuries. What these periods had in common was a movement away from a controlled information society in which one did not question authority or religious doctrine towards a period of inquiry and thinking.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I had an engrossing and philosophical discussion with the founders of Tea Leaves, a really beautiful tea company that abides from the principles of “Education, Enlightenment and Enchantment.” Their company has purpose beyond selling its high-quality teas that include thinking about the impact of design on the world, from biodiversity to climate change. I was introduced to them via Albert Shum, CVP of Design at Microsoft.
During our discussion, we talked about the role of ceremonies in design thinking. Let me explain what I mean by “ceremonies.” I’ll use Japanese examples but ceremonies appear in all cultures.
Simply put, in my definition:
Ceremonies are rituals that allow you to transition from the worldly to the profound.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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