Inspiring Consistancy

I watched this video a few weeks ago of Seth Godin & Marie Forleo and it really inspired me in fact it got me all fired up and passionate.

I realised there was a chance that I'd missed out of ten years of creating. Then I realised I recon I've got ten more in front of me so I better get started. I don't wan to be sitting at 48 with the same logic swimming round my head. Hmmm so just in case you are wondering it is not easy for me to share my thoughts publicly. Anybody who knows me might laugh at this because I am loud, fierce and opinionated. Saying that, the idea of being criticised is excruciating for me. I'll call it what it is when I put myself out there, I feel a lot of shame. I don't feel like I have achieved what I would have liked in my life. Then on the other hand I'm so impressed with the life that I have and my non-conformist, authentic take on the reality around me, it's actually hard not to love myself (You can go grab a bucket now).  I have done mostly everything that people have told me not to, because it was the right thing to do, not because I personally was going to gain much from it. At 37 I can safely say the primary school predictions were correct. I'm a slow learner. The upside I'm a slow learner with and incredible brain. It's my internal filing system that is slowing me down and no wonder when I'm constantly literally trying to right the wrongs. It's a fault in my stars, after all I am a Libra. If you wonder why I blog and actually how this all started I was and always have been an avid writer. A writer with no specific direction I hasten to add. I had so many thoughts and so many journals to keep track of it drove me crazy trying to keep track of them all. Or even literally keep hold of them all having moved somewhere in the region of 34 times. Yup that many. So back at the almost dawn of blogging I started keeping a blog as a way to contain and access my own writings. The only problem was that I became terrified that people would read it or argue with me, knit pick. If this was the case my self-esteem would crumble I'd fall apart and doubt everything that I thought I knew. It was worse than that, nobody read it and that was a secret kind of shame too. It was in a way soul destroying. I became hyper critical of my writing and my thoughts and instead produced nothing other than a number of ideas swimming endlessly round my head and the mental health discovery that writing reduced my anxiety and clarified my thoughts fell by the way side. So here I am ten years on still with very few people reading this blog. As a result of randomly contributing.

How does that all relate back to this film? Well it's a combination of two things: 

One is Brene Brown and the second is Facebook. 

Brene Brown says that "Perfectionism is a 20 tonne shield" I'm still getting to grips with all the ways that that is true for me. This tinny nugget only 5 words long has change my life considerably in the last few months. (I still lost me shit on my wedding day though. Yup that was me) It's funny though, cause a few year ago, I started integrated fuck ups into my arts practice to deliberately create dialogues. Like - "Yes I'm a dyslexic curator. Yes the write up is misspelt. Yes I proof read it and the grammar is wrong. Yes I'm a dyslexic writer who doesn't have access to an editor or a proofreader, those are separate roles by the way. Oh I didn't really know that was a mistake anyways because I'm Scottish and your grammar doesn't apply to me. I understand it perfectly. Yes I am a professional asking you to consider ideas of access, ability and discrimination. Yes that is also the work of a curator. We  can we put together colours, create connections, and explore themes and  crucially, examine very closely the stance that we take in our jobs. As as a curator I have a responsibility to accurately represent culture. Yup can your brain handle that? So yes the role that I chose as an adult as someone who was pretty insecure deals with critical thinking on a scale of millennia. For fuck sake. Imagine you shitty little scribblings actually going into a volt as a clue to the future about the past forever. Everyday you create an official time machine. Head fuck. I was creating work about the work I was creating. Yes I'm confused now too. Thus creating loooong pauses between work projects.

The second thing:

Within the opening minutes of the linked video. Seth Godin points out; this is the most exciting and incredible time to be alive. Through Facebook we can now connect with almost anybody, anywhere at anytime over 2 billion people are active Facebook users. It's a sinister and scary fact given everything that we have learned in the last few months about Trump and Russia. Most of my adult life I have railed against the system and more importantly the establishment. Even though I am terrified of criticism even from the establishment (for valid reasons that I might explain in another post) going around and seeking "their" endorsement disturbs me not least in Southern Africa. Where the ideas and true meaning of de-colonisation history is totally lost on almost everybody. Zeitz MOCCA really? Saying that I totally get that Mark Zuckerberg did go to Harvard. Regardless we now have access to most of the worlds population. That we literally have a tool that has already proven it's ability to undermine governments. We can only begin to imagine the power of Facebook as a power for good and creating a global revolution.  I know that it is a high ideal. However it doesn't change the fact that it is true or that it can be done. The world is changing at a much more rapid pace than we have even begun to anticipate. Old systems are beginning to crumble and we have barely even scratched the surface. Finding our tribe, now more than ever is a political act. 

We now have a platform to democratise culture. We don't need the approval of the establishment. We can build our own following and at a much later date decide who we want collaborate with. The last few years have been a steep learning kerb for me. It's been particularly humbling to watch people that I have been working with in in very ad hoc ways be able to super charge there careers, through social media. It feels like a new thing, that many of us haven't quite got to grips with yet.  I can find the platforms on the internet as hard to follow as the bricks and mortar ones. Who do I want to collaborate with? If anybody? It's and interesting process for sure. 

Further to this Seth Godin points out to things that I have never thought of. You will never run out of something to say? and that through consistency you build trust. What and incredible thing. The proof of the pudding is beginning to pay off now. As my post become more regular. My father has said many time about me that I am "Consistently Inconsistent" Which has often been something that I have embraced in my life despite it not being entirely true. Where my challenge has lain is that I have been running round trying to find out where do I fit in like one of those kid shape toys you give to babies. The truth is I don't. There is no company or organisation that is every going to help me find or fully become who I am. There are few jobs where you get to be a human (firstly), philosopher, a writer, photographer, poet, dancer, comedian, performer, connoisseur, history geek, seeker, seer, healer, guide, coach, doula, community worker, carer, counsellor, artist, curator, events manager, hug therapist, adventurer, swimmer, sailor, seeker, festival goer, music enthusiast, swimmer, disruptor, reality-hacker, anarchist, socialist, punk, social commentator and activist. No one has that opportunity sitting on their desk waiting to give to me. I want something else. So it's time to be me.