create

The Space Between (Part 6)

Are we at least willing to leave it all? The Hebrew tale of an invisible God calling a young Abram out of his home to a new land is such a perfect story of faith ventures. Even non-religious people can relate at least to the risk factor the unknown. “Go from your country, your people, and your father’s house” (Gen. 12.1). Gets right into it. Go. It’s the heart of all risk. Go. Leave what you know. And for what? In this case, “the land I will show you.” A future unknown goal is at hand.

That is the very heart of entrepreneurial risk: leaving what you know for some possible better future. That is really at the heart of the Scriptures throughout. Ironic that now religious people are seen as sterile, lethargic, and even lifeless.

Far from it in the beginning. The “father of faith” indeed shows a very different kind of religious model. It’s all about one’s willingness to leave it all for a promise of something better (a place with less space between). Are you willing to do that?

Some will argue the job of a great leader is to describe and inspire toward a vision of a preferred future. Their job, at least partly, is to understand and articulate where all this is leading. They are to help us know why it is worth our sacrifice.

That is precisely where we get the term visionary. Of course in today’s world that term is used almost exclusively for people working toward scientific and technological breakthroughs. Their “vision” is quite palatable and “usable” by the public.

Somehow all those breakthroughs make our lives “better,” or at least more comfortable. They are not visions of a preferred future exactly, they are visions of a preferred present. What can we do to make life better for humans now.

It is an interesting change. And most of the breakthroughs don’t necessarily lead us to be “better” humans doing “better” things, they lead us in most cases to greater comfort. That’s of course where “progress” and traditional vision fork in the road.

The goal of a true visionary is not to make life more comfortable for people, especially as we talk about artists. Their job in many ways is to make people less comfortable, or more irritable in their given comforts, to even “afflict their consciences.”

Sounds almost gloomy and downright mean, certainly a buzzkill. It also sounds like the “true” nature of real art is serious and confounding. While not the only purpose of the creative arts it may be one of most important.

“Better” generally involves growing, which generally does not come easy. Creative people have to keep pushing at the market to adjust expectations to include things that are good for them. That’s the heart of today’s creative entrepreneurs.

How do we sustain-ably bring good things to people? How do we take visions of a truly preferred future and get them into the conscious of the people? How do we reduce the space between people, natural resources, and the hope to carry on?

The Space Between (Part 5)

The Space Between (Part 5)

Ultimately the space between us can directly be related to death. Think of it. What would change if time were no longer a hinderance? What do we avoid because our time (and ensuing energy) is limited? Why is it limited?

All limitations ultimately hover around our impending death. Knowing that we are mere mortals and have a finish line sets everything else back. We are forced to prioritize our precious little time very carefully, often saying no to many good things.

We simply don’t have the time and energy to keep up certain relationships, even ones we really want to keep up. The demands of survival are fierce. Our time again is limited. Thus we are coerced into saying no to many things we enjoy.

Many times we say no to important things. Of course they are not urgent. They are relegated to the back-burner as nature’s demands increase. Time becomes are enemy, a stark reminder of our impending mortality and limited ability.

The Space Between (Part 4)

The Space Between (Part 4)

There is always the fear that inspiration will run out. Like our human fears of needing fresh water for survival, we fear our internal wells may one day dry out. If in some way we are responsible to “create” the water and its flow from within.

That’s the beautiful thing about springs. No one can take responsibility for them. They are made by the earth for the earth. They just are. Our attempts to manipulate or capture them don’t create more or even sustain them in the slightest.

They are gifts. Similarly life itself is a gift. Inspiration is a gift. Certainly there are conditions we cultivate to harvest the gift. But the gift fundamentally is a gift. Fortunately, though, the Spring is not restricted to one location.

We can find the spring and its life-giving water in an endless variety of locations. It is in the hearts of people everywhere. While we feel at times undernourished and almost forgotten, dry and parched, the water begins to flow from an unexpected place.

To Love What You Do (Part 6)

To Love What You Do (Part 6)

Location, community, or a job you love. There are 3 things to choose from after college. Live in a cool location? Be surrounded by people you know and love? Or go for a job that is something you are passionate about? That is the choice.

To Love What You Do (Part 5)

To Love What You Do (Part 5)

We have discovered that what you believe infinitely changes your reality. If you believe something is possible, it is. Our accuser lives, as we have also said, to convince us not to believe - to shut us in on ourselves. To render us powerless.

To Love What You Do (Part 3)

To Love What You Do (Part 3)

...recognizing the vast web of brokenness, greed, manipulation, and so on in the world can easily lead to cynicism (or the right to withdraw from our own battle). We can almost absorb the disenchantment into our own life.

With it comes a convenient sort of justification for not trying. “Why bother, everything is determinedly against the good guys making it.” Behind every success story we find some economic advantage that keeps us further out from the pie.

This is scarcity thinking at its best. There is one pie, and we are kept far at bay. The world’s wealthiest guard the pie with only their closest family and connections getting to it. No matter what we do, how hard we work, how talented we are, we can’t get in.

That thinking of course leads to absolute powerlessness.

To Be or Not to Be (Part 7)

To Be or Not to Be (Part 7)

Well, this is it. This is the end of all things. We are staring into the casket with our name on it. We have been given a sure and certain diagnosis. Two months to go. What matters in those two months that has never mattered before?

Really think about it. What rises to the top of the to-do list? Would you keep working, just to have something to do? Would you need to work to eat? Would you be extravagant? Would you savor moments more? Could you?

Or would it inevitably be a series of factors outside of our control? Would it be a series of things that we try but can not necessarily pull off? After all, just because we know we are going to die doesn’t mean we are given some super power.

Or does it? Are we given a keen awareness of life? Do we cut through tape that most people stop for? Do we disregard unnecessary pauses? Do we get to sort of a holy urgency, not of the unimportant but of making the important happen?

Inevitably we will have options. We will have some opportunity to make an easier living. Doing something easy is always in our grasps. But we all have this nagging sense, this aggravating luring toward something important.