Today at her blog write to done, Mary Jaksch has a conversation with Seth Godin… As you may know, I follow Seth and have for years. I think I discovered him through the early years of Fast Company…However I came across him though, I am glad I did. He has always made me think outside the carton…Purple Cows anyone?
You are capable of making a difference, of being bold, and of changing more than you are willing to admit. You are capable of making art.- Seth Godin, The Icarus Deception
It turns out that industrialists and the systems that we live with want us to fly low. They push us to settle for less, and I think the time has come to stop buying that propaganda. My book is a manifesto, almost a creed, about how we must overthrow the mindset of being a cog in the industrial system and instead, stand up and make what I call art.
via Why We Are All Artists: Seth Godin in Conversation – Part 1 | Write to Done.
That was always the conundrum faced by the middle level cog in the industrial motor. If you push to stand out, you put yourself out to be pounded back in the square hole your round personality has been fitted to. If you keep your head down and fit in…Well life just doesn’t seem much fun. But at least it’s safe… Our is it? What happens when the world changes and the economy dumps all over everyone’s heads…Not so safe being safe is it?
No one ever died writing a blog post. What we’re saying here is that for a while anyway, the safest thing you can do is to be as uncomfortable as you can stand to be.
Be true to you. It will all work out in the long run.
Well, doggone. I read the whole thing. 😉
A lot of wisdom here – a lot of places where I found myself agreeing, and even a few places where I thought, “Yep. That’s what I do, too.” Lilfe being what it is, I probably never would have gone and found this myself, since I don’t do much reading about writing. Time’s short, and what I have, I usually prefer to spend writing. Ironically, I think Godin might go with that, too!
Yea, I know what you mean…I got sucked into a number of articles by and about Seth while I was working my way through these thoughts. ‘Tis always a problem when I start a post… I never know where the exploration will lead. Even the shortest little link post will lead me off on a convoluted path I would not have thought possible a few years back.
I have a number of blogs on writing that I have followed over the years trying to help me with the habit of actually… you know…write. Most of them have fallen by the wayside. Even the ones that still show up in my feed reader just get skimmed most days. But, occasionally one will jump out and make me go back and actually read it through. This on did that. I am glad you found it interesting.