Creating a Creative

***Here’s me (right) timidly making friends with creativity (left)***

I became interested in advertising for two reasons:

1. My background in philosophy and psychology

2. Which led me to have some issues with advertising

That’s probably not the best pitch...but it gets better.

Through my dislike of advertising, I became inspired to make it, somehow, less destructive. I felt then, as I do now, that we have an obligation not to send bits of trash out into the world. If we’re going to make an ad, why can’t it also be inspiring, beautiful, funny, or simply useful?

In my experience, when we create work that gives more than it takes, everyone wins.

Well, what does it mean to win? In this business, we want our work to be both intentional and effective. Hopefully, that’s why we’re making the thing to begin with.

And from my experience, the best way to effectively communicate with a person, is to speak from our whole self. Not just the shiny parts, or the attractive parts…but the true parts.

In this spirit, questions like, ‘Who am I?’, ‘What is this?’, and ‘Why does any of it matter?’ have driven me on a far-flung journey spanning years, continents, and all types of teachers.

Today, I’m eager to integrate my experiences as a creative with my time learning from monks, my mistakes, rock stars, cats, clients, and more teachers than I can count. The result, I believe, is a ‘creative’. Whatever you call it, my goals haven’t changed. If anything, they’ve become more resolute. After all, we still need work that brings a little light into the world.

Expanding my work to include design feels like I’m back in my investigative element. Fortunately, along the way I’d like to think I’ve developed a relatively unique and holistic perspective for solving culturally complex creative problems. While I don’t like to ignore anything in this infinite world of ours, here are a few examples of things that have been particularly helpful so far:

Thinking Things

This is how it all started. During college, I wrote this thesis on myth, technology, and advertising while applying to doctorate programs. I ended up working in advertising instead. It’s my hope that the staggering power of advertising can be used to create things that are beautiful, inspiring, or beneficial. It may be a losing battle, but I think it’s a necessary one.

Curious Things

For me, starting from a perspective of fundamental connectivity and completeness has been essential. By leaving nothing out, I have been free to begin the process of bringing my unnaturally fragmented life back into its ordinary state of harmony. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but here and now. However, a question remained. If we internally already have everything we need, why don’t we feel like it? It was with this spirit that I started working with people as a somewhat reluctant counselor. Here’s the instagram account where I explore tricky questions. It’s a great exercise in remembering that sometimes a good challenge is more useful than a clever answer. It’s also a good exercise in remembering that I don’t always know a whole lot about either.

For me, emotional boundaries are not about keeping people away. The word “boundary” implies an absolute wall through which nothing can pass. This is fine for some things, but it’s not how we work! Our relationships are more fluid an

For me, there is a sense of rebirth. Now, in the darkest time of the year, we come together to celebrate the light. And in doing so, I'm reminded to also look for the light within myself. After all, I can’t have one without the other. What&rsq

I can’t pick it up. And I can’t take it with me. I certainly can’t the pay rent with it, and yet, it's priceless. It's neither high, low, big, nor small. I can’t create it, and I can’t destroy it. It’s not pure, an

If I stop trusting my heart entirely, I run the risk of cutting off a tremendous source of intuitive strength, wisdom, and compassion. But how can I trust something that also seems to be a source of pain? In my experience, it can be helpful to rememb

A decade ago, the perfect life I had carefully constructed was falling apart amid strange specters I couldn’t see and didn’t understand. Blind to my own pain and suffering, I couldn’t differentiate between the life I thought I was l

I’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to avoid my own suffering. But no matter how far I ran, there it was, looming. Like most, my suffering was complex, righteous, and filled with broken expectations. But the moment I started to let go of

Even though each path to a mountain’s summit is unique, they all lead to the same place. Sure, the terrain may look different. The views might be different. Even the weather may vary. From our limited perspectives, it can be easy to insist, &ld

There is nothing we can’t handle. Regardless of what has come before, and where we are now, the future as not been set. I don’t know what tomorrow holds. That’s because reality is more vast than I could ever imagine. In times of fea

We all have an intuitive idea of what’s good and bad. But when our sincerity is only skin deep, we destroy the trust and empathy that connects us all. Living with a fragmented, conditional view of truth can be very confusing and it never really

The path is long. And if we hope to go far, it can help to pack light. It’s tempting to feel that we need lots of stuff to be successful. But that's only the voice of deficiency speaking. The voice that says we’re not good enough, smart e

I’ve made the mistake of thinking that a hard world required a hard heart. I thought I needed my anger, ego, and greed. But the harder my heart became, the harder the world became. Eventually, I saw how the external world works like a mirror of

It’s easy to get carried away by our emotions. When that happens, we lose our ground and fall into anger, sadness, fear, greed, and so on. The emotion is then in control, and we are left feeling powerless. But we’re not. We have the power

A step forward. Two steps back. The path can challenge our understanding of “progress.” Sometimes progress is marked by external reward. More often than not, it’s far less obvious. In my life, mistakes and failures have been some of

Strong thoughts plant seeds in us that grow into words. Words then lead us to action. Over time, an action becomes a habit. As habits become ingrained in our lives, they turn into strongly held beliefs. Before we know it, our beliefs are indistinguis

For a long time, I thought motivation proceeded action. I was always trying to pump myself up. It turns out, it’s the other way around. Motivation comes from our experiences and actions. So, if you’re not feeling motivated, just jump int

The cycle of desire has no end. For me it didn’t really matter what I desired, the constant reaching, and clinging took up a tremendous amount of time and energy. Before we know it, we've created habits that become woven into the fabric of our

It takes a lot of energy to stay clear of our demons. But despite my own best efforts, they never seemed to go away. But the harder we try, the stronger our demons seem to become. Eventually, we have stop fighting. So, how do we make friends with a d

Our previous experiences, beliefs, and self-centered perspective can color our reality. By turning our awareness to this present moment, we can rediscover a greater sense of truth and purpose. What does this moment hold for you?
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#questions
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It’s easy to become critical and discontent with ourselves and others. In my experience, when we’ve internalized the critical voice of deficiency and doubt, nothing will ever seem good enough. But whose voice are we actually hearing?
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When your car breaks down, you bring it to the mechanic. If you get sick, you see a doctor. Need bread? Go to the store. The whole world is at our fingertips. No problem, right?

We’ve gotten really good at providing short-term solutions to re

Teaching Things

The Creative Circus hosts a monthly Forum in which industry professionals are invited to speak, answer questions, look at books, and do a podcast with Dan Balser. Sometimes they have famous people. Other times they have un-famous people like me. Below is an updated version of the presentation from when I was as a Visiting Artist at Marist College.

Feeling Things

Old Plato once said that philosophers should go to school with the poets.

Personally, I had trouble with this because I never really cared for poetry. Despite my eye-rolling, I have found that ‘poetry’ can be a conveniently transcendent shortcut for documenting my experiences in a surprisingly accurate way.

That being said, if you don’t like poetry, then I wouldn’t necessarily recommend checking out these poems I wrote over three years of dedicated Zen training, which included two years in a monastery. And if you do like poetry, well, I apologize in advance.