Knowledge, ideas & inspiration

Worldwide communication styles by country as examined in Richard Lewis’ When Cultures Collide.

A Manifesto for Understanding the Essential Creative Approach

This book, and later the film and its soundtrack, shaped my worldview in my teenage years and through my twenties. Now in my thirties, I can still feel it in my bones, and it resonates as well as it ever did.

Many people give Chris McCandless, who Emile Hirsch masterfully captured in the 2007 film (in what’s likely his best performance), a hard go about his decisions, which they see as selfish. I think he was a relatively well-meaning young man trying to figure out an overly complicated world while experiencing all the harsh realities and emotions that go along with that transformative time in our lives.

Well before I could legally drink alcohol in Canada, I decided I wanted to go on my own hitchhiking trip around North America. I was already a trained soldier (I’d just completed Basic Military Qualification and Soldier Qualification with the Canadian Forces), so I shifted my training to focus on the outdoor adventure of a lifetime. I bought books on survival, camping, hunting, cooking – you name it – and I started talking to smart people about my plans. Most of them, including my parents, basically suggested my plan was dumb and fraught with the potential for dangerous mishaps; I would probably die from my own dumbass errors or at the hands of some lunatic, they said.

Of course, I disregarded their concerns, but as time went on, I slowly realized I was indeed out of my element. I ended up going on a much abridged trip across Ontario (it’s still a fairly big province), but it’s something I still regret today.

And is death really worse than a lifetime of regret?

The creating-without-thinking approach also applies in the same way to music: you want to be a conduit for the unseen force of nature moving through you with the sounds of the universe. You are merely a player tuning in and capturing what already exists.

And still the fog of war hides enemies and friends alike.

A most compelling comment on the state of modern art from a self-described artist whose upbringing – “in a room, in front of a computer, fantasizing about the combination of art and technology” – laid the groundwork for his current stylistic and aesthetic approaches to his work.

I somehow just discovered acclaimed storyteller Matthew Dicks, and I’m in a luscious, narrative-based paradise. This image is a clip from his website, matthewdicks.com, which similarly rules. I cannot wait to dig into his books.

This concept applies to virtually all aspects of knowledge and belief.