Emergencies Call For Fast Creative Thinking

If you have not understood the warnings about global warming and the climate crisis, we are in an emergency situation according to the science. Our leaders, past and present, like Tony Abbott and Donald Trump, wilfully ignored the clarion calls for action on this front. Emergencies call for fast creative thinking and where has that been for the last two decades? I hope that they put up statues of shame to these human beings who have led us astray for their own political self-aggrandisement. Images set in coal for us to pillory.  The smug, sneering faces of these very selfish politicians deserve all the merde that can be heaped upon them.  

A Nation Starved of Action on the Climate Front

In our own homes, when we face a crisis, we know that an emergency electrician is usually prepared for anything. He or she will act fast to rescue and remedy a dire situation. Emergencies call for fast creative thinking and only then will a solution be found. It is not a lack of power but of political will that has seen this nation starved of action on the climate front. Self-satisfied politicians more concerned with their own re-election than in taking affirmative action to save the planet. Small people with small hearts following rather than leading a nation.

No Vaccine for Global Warming

I think about health workers on the front line during the global pandemic and ruminate on their courage in contrast to these self-serving MPs. Australia and the United States lack real leadership on the big issues facing humanity in the 21C. People have been focused on their own back pockets for too long at the expense of any sense of community and social responsibility. Half a million people have died from coronavirus in America. The UK is a mess just like Boris Johnson’s hair. Western democracies have failed to show leadership during this global crisis.

Global warming is not going away. There is no vaccine to inoculate the planet. We face a rapidly growing emergency never before seen in the lifetimes of our parents and grandparents. Lazy thinking and actions will not merely affect us but also our children and their children. Making money is not the main arbiter of the game of life anymore if it ever truly was. There are far more important considerations to immediately factor into every decision that we make. Climate change isn’t coming it is already here!

Vision, Planning and Creativity

Three elements are, usually, necessary for transformation and lifestyle changes. They are vision, planning and creativity. People, often, hope that their lives will spontaneously alter by themselves, but this rarely happens, in my experience. They say that the definition of madness is doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result. If you want to achieve something special, want to reach for the stars or for something outside of the ordinary, then, you better start envisioning it. You better make plans and get creative, before the fire goes out inside you. Inspiration, motivation, and discontentment do not hang around forever, you know.

The Biggest Danger is Your Comfort Zone

The biggest danger to transformation and growth is your comfort zone. Here’s hoping that you do not have a size 14 or XXL comfort zone. Staying safely inside the known territory is not conducive to going beyond and discovering your greatest moments. To bravely go where no man or woman has gone before. To reach the outer edges of the known galaxy. To dive deep beneath the surface of things. To face your fears, because what you fear, often, points you in the right direction. Whether it be in love, in work, in sport, in adventure, or some other realm, you must overcome your fears and the comfort of the known universe.

We Experience the Newbie Dilemma

Lifestyle improvements may come via work and career opportunities. Many of us know the initial discomfort and uneasiness one feels when beginning a new vocational pathway. We do not know, immediately, what the right things to do are. We experience the newbie dilemma. Eventually, however, acceptance comes, and we forge a new identity based on our experiences via this pathway.  Transforming possibilities are always close at hand, even, if we do not recognise them straight off.

It Takes Courage to Imagine Your New Life

Remember to invoke vision, planning and creativity, as these are your strongest suits when it comes to making real changes within your life.  Going along with the crowd and maintaining the status quo will not shift your feet from the same old road. It takes great courage to imagine the life you may desire. It takes even more fortitude to begin planning for that new lifestyle. Finally, it takes some magic to bring forth the necessary creativity to make it happen in this dimension. Do not be dispirited, however, if you encounter resistance and delays on the journey, as they will only make the outcome more worthwhile.

Creative Businesses and the Ethical vs the Unethical

Business ethics, what a can of worms, and only to be opened when well prepared for disappointment. Now, that sounds fairly disheartening and not all days are like this, but creatives do get the short end of the stick at times. Many people do not want to pay for creative work if they can get away with it and stories change in the telling over time. Contracts are the only real way to protect your integrity from unethical business people. As hired guns, creatives are briefed by businesses and their representatives, and if you do not get it in writing, you can be amazed at the lies some people will tell to further their own cause.

Creative Businesses Are Lighting an Ethical Path Forward

Negotiations are grist for our mill in the world of graphic designers, illustrators, photographers and the like. We must come to terms with our paymasters in the commercial sense of that word. We may be working on a cruelty free makeup project or some other ethically driven job, but the challenge can be to get treated ethically well ourselves. Lighting an ethical path forward is a mission for the creative sector, because we have neglected that aspect in our training as designers in the past. Too much emphasis is put on the design work and not enough on the realities of doing business in the real world.

Get Everything in Writing

Only bitter experience has taught many creatives what is required to do business in an, often, dog eat dog world. Contracts and getting everything in writing is a must, if you want to avoid being ripped off regularly. Digital artists and copywriters all need to be prepared to stand their ground when it comes to getting properly paid for their work. Businesses are always on the lookout for short cuts and savings to their bottom line.

Australian Ethical Practices

Australian made products are popular in some circles right now. Australian designers are at the forefront of ethical practices in many of their young industries. Getting it right at the beginning, can go a long way to creating sustainable practices for the long term. Industry associations are important for the establishment of standards and guidelines, so that individual creatives can adhere to them. The artist is sometimes seen as a solitary creature, but commercial applications call for team work and consensus.

Can Creative Wooden Furniture Inspire the Soul?

I have just seen some amazing creative wood designed furniture for kids. These pieces are so incredible they are awesome. Whimsical chests of drawers that are split down the middle or have a star burst hole carved through the middle of them. Drawers that are tired of standing up and so are sitting down instead with legs akimbo. Kids can really relate to the expressive shapes and kooky poses that these finely crafted pieces of furniture are embodying. They definitely speak to the soul, as they are anthropomorphising furniture into friends.

Shaker furniture beautifully captured soulful energy in their simple but extremely well crafted designs. Pieces spoke of silence and contemplation in the presence of an almighty. Communal tables communicated their role in carrying the shared meals of believers. Benches and chairs, sewing tables and cupboards, all sang of simplicity and modesty. Clean lines and natural wood grain employed in well made items of utilitarian furniture.

Zen furniture design suggests space and symmetry. Things built low down to the ground and offering clean lines. Natural elements like wood and fabrics employed in simple but exquisitely beautiful pieces of furniture. Uncluttered and present in form and function these are the spiritual qualities of Zen design. Traditional Japanese forms speak of meditation and purity of purpose.

Habitat furniture can define your living space by its aesthetic nature; it can bring out positive qualities from within you. Wooden furniture has a vibrational signature attuned to its source as a previously living tree. Humans and trees have been living together for tens of thousands of years; we are interlinked at a very deep level. Furniture designed in accord with ancient cultural traditions speaks to our soul in ways that mass produced stuff cannot. We are awakened to a peace and tranquillity that is missing from our modern technologically advanced world.

Some furniture stores in Sydney, I noticed during my last visit to that wonderful city, are Meccas of soulful design. When you walk into their showrooms you are transported to another time and place. The tinkling of bells and the sound of a Shakuhachi flute whisper messages of calm to my consciousness. I sink down onto a futon and exhale, feeling my being, my isness in this very moment. Life is a communion with nature and the kind of furniture we fill our homes with affect us on so many different levels.