Today is one of those days where I feel I have to be creative. I’ve been falling behind on all of my projects because I’m battling doing things I love versus doing things that I feel obligated to do. I’m constantly juggling the pressure of feeling as though I don’t want to let my friends (clients, friends, the terms are interchangeable, at least for me) down.
They entrust me with their design and image work, and I suppose I should be grateful for the opportunity. And don’t get me wrong — I am absolutely grateful that they believe in me, put up with my shit, and still choose to work with me.
I don’t know if they just like me or if they really like my work that much. Maybe it’s a little of both.
Either way, I appreciate everything my friends (clients?) do for me, and that’s a big reason why I feel all this pressure. I want to make sure they’re happy, but at the same time, I know that working on my own stuff makes me happier than working on their stuff does.
And I think for the past year or so, I’ve shifted my life, my work, and just about everything else towards making myself happy.
There’s nothing wrong with that pursuit, I suppose. It’s not nearly as much of a hedonistic thing as one might imagine; on the contrary, it’s something I’ve done to ensure that my sanity and self respect remain intact.
They’ve been threatened in the past — frighteningly so — and I simply cannot allow it to happen again.
the redesign
You know, I just capped off a majority of the tweaks and finishing touches on the new pearsonified.com (although there is still stuff that needs to be done, and believe me, it all sticks out like a sore thumb from where I’m sitting). I’m happy with the results. To me, the site looks truly unique, and I hope that it has a visual impact on readers that will go largely unparalleled, at least as far as Flash-less site designs are concerned.
Seeing how everything was live on Tuesday afternoon at about 2 pm, there really hasn’t been a whole lot of feedback on the design. Everything that has been said, though, has been positive, so I suppose there’s nothing there to really bitch about. And I really tried, too.
To date, pearsonified has never been featured on a CSS or style repository, which I consider to be a slap in the face. This is stream of consciousness writing here, so I can’t really be true to myself and censor my real feelings at the same time.
Make no mistake, the new verison of pearsonified (version 3.0), should be front and center of one of those style showcase sites.
At least we all know how I feel.
Thought void. Music is playing and kind of distracting me, making it hard to think. Then again, this type of writing isn’t supposed to be about cogent thoughts at all, so perhaps my right brain is hard at work. I certainly hope so, because I need to be acutely creative throughout the remainder of the afternoon and into the evening.
back to pressure
Pressure to succeed and fulfill expectations is something that has been a primary motivator in my life, and the realization thereof makes me feel disgusting.
I don’t think that those reasons are very healthy psychologically, and sometimes I wonder what kind of damage I’ve caused by not controlling my emotions and motives through the years.
Other times, when I take charge of my own ventures, I feel totally liberated; yet I cannot seem to escape the realm of “pressurized motivation” because I always seems to find a way to carve myself back into that niche.
Why is it that I am constantly distracted by new creative ideas? Frankly, my mind doesn’t have time for business! There are simply too many white rabbits to chase, too many new avenues to walk down, and too many things to learn and discover.
Sometimes I don’t know that my desires and my sanity really have a true intersection in the future. Perhaps they’re both existing on different planes, defining the dichotomy of my existence. It’s like my mind wants these two paths to intersect, and yet by definition, they cannot.
Pondering this idea is hardly worth the time, though, because I won’t be able to answer it definitively until I’m 80 years old. Then, and only then, will I be able to tell you unequivocally that yes, they do intersect, or worse yet, no, I spent my entire life trying to force a square peg into round hole.
To be honest, though, I don’t sit around and worry about the probable outcomes of my future. There’s work to be done now, and I usually focus on that. Like now, for instance, I have things on the docket that must be completed…but I was just reading this magazine this afternoon, and I was inspired by this great new creative idea.
It’s not one of these ideas that is a zillion dollar shoo-in, but that’s not really the appeal. I think that maybe there is a bit of artistic redeemability in the idea, and I could probably make good money from it if I pursued it wholeheartedly…
And who knows. Maybe one day I’ll be able to act on this idea, or maybe it will sit in the creative incubator and only resurface when triggered into action by some unknown, unanticipated, unplanned mnemonic device.
I do love the idea, though. Without much thought, I think 4 pics, or 4pix, or a better name that is still so concise and to-the-point would be the perfect branding for the idea.
I am consciously avoiding spitting the idea out here, and I’m actually in a state of mental ambivalence right now over the thought of divulging it to the public. Not that this site is public, as nobody reads it. But still. It’s just the idea that my idea may be sitting there, currently unactionable from where I’m sitting, waiting for someone else to capitalize.
I can’t tell you what it is. You shouldn’t care, anyway, because 9,999 out of every 10,000 ideas are nothing more than mentally-incongruous pieces of crap, and perhaps this idea falls into that same category.
I really don’t think it does. I think it’s creative.
That’s what I love about it. It could be my obsession for a month, maybe longer!
It’s beginning to look like the vicious cycle of my life — jumping from one obsession to the next, like train jumpers of the 19th century. This is precisely why I feel as though my desires and my business interests may not have an intersection.
I still hold out faith in the idea that one day these paths will cross, unintentionally, in a perfect, personalized, cosmic explosion that will serve to delineate and to define a major portion of my life. I believe it will happen. Maybe this text will still exist when it does…wouldn’t that be cool?
Ah, but now I almost feel as though I’m on vacation writing this thing. I need to work. I need to be creative.
At least I have a healthy right brain to start with — maybe today I’ll actually begin walking the path back to a place where I really feel comfortable on all fronts.
At least I hope so.
stuff i just added for the hell of it
You know, like trackbacks and other things to test out a great WordPress theme.