My Burning

As I’ve gotten older through many professional roles, I’ve always been told I’m a perfectionist. The detriment to being a perfectionist is time. It takes more time to make something ‘perfect’ (it does exist; in the eye of the beholder). The key to unlocking my capabilities at full potential then lay in finding things, skills or people who can help me save time without loss of quality. An expert who could get inside my head and understand the process and execute. That is key to any vision; process & time for the result.

So why is it so rare? The ability to get inside someone else’s head, without needing hours of structure/teaching & to just simply ‘get it’.

It’s usually so much simpler than that when you’re only at work for a living:

‘I need this done’. ‘Here are your goals’. ‘KPI’s and budgets, hit these targets’.

Most people work as helpers for big organisations, striving a mix of their own strengths into a ladder of common goal. Maybe striving to climb the ladder over time. It’s letting someone or a group dictate your entire life schedule and career. Don’t you think it’s a little crazy that as grown humans we have to ask permission for leave? How is that normal?

So if I was a perfectionist, why put in the extra effort when it costs me time on production? Why watch tutorials and read about problems when it doesn’t need to be fixed? Why are you reaching out to people for help, knowing that it will take so much time to explain the process when it could all be so plain? Warning signs, usually it means you’re channeling what you want to do into the risk-free availabilities you have inside your job. The reward still goes to the common goal, not you. You still need to ask for permission, and like art, not everyone will understand why you’re doing something what could be seen as unnecessary.

It’s why we place such value on people’s work with superior talent. It’s very rarely duplicated in high volumes, as time restricts the effectiveness through age and ticking clocks. If their were 50 James Dean’s all at the same time, he wouldn’t be remembered. Basquiat died at 27, so his body of work died then too. It all comes down to time. What you do in the time you have is what you want to be remembered for, if remembered at all.

I know things need money. But what’s after that?

I would kill to have the money I have now, with the ambitions and romance I had at 21. I felt like I was going to change the world, all while using my old soul to write poetry to the girls I yearned for, or make music, or a skateboard brand, or play basketball somewhere, maybe make music and tour. Heartbreak was coldblooded, and felt like it would never go away.

Over time, all of these things changed.

It happened again and again, that things got simpler as I had the variable of more experience. I made more money. I had goals and took smarter decisions to reach the steps to get them in time. But what does that lead to? To be a cog in life? How can I influence anything if I’m 1 of 100’s of moving pieces inside something. The burning was to move at will, 1 of 1.  I’m 27 and 21 seems so distant in mindset. It’s easy to speak a creative dream but to actually do something is another story. At 21 the world seemed infinite with time. You’ll always have more. Structure places us in cogs of High School, Uni, marriage and homes. But how about we just simplify this instead of what the school system/life steps has taught us:

We learned to talk through failure, and learned to walk by falling down. That is the variable. Yet we get to an institution where failure is now bad. Grades are given for creativity by one person who marks it. I got a HD and a P2 in essentially the same course with 2 different teachers. One stressed fundamentals, the other stressed freedom. It was photography.

We’re dumbed down to fall into a system and it works on the majority of people. Einsteins famous quote about judging a fish by it’s ability to climb a tree – is essentially half the TV programs that numb our minds. MasterChef should be subjective because I fucking hate tuna, but my girlfriend loves it. We would have two different opinions. It’s like reading the newspaper and seeing an article on something you have expertise in. You see the writer has made many errors and you disagree, thinking this person is an idiot. You turn the page, and read an article about something you have no previous experience about, and believe everything it says.

I don’t really care for money. I like the superficial things, but I don’t want to be superficial to get them. Would I rather the safe route, which daily gets more appealing, or the romantic madness that comes with trying something that steals my time in a positive way? Investing in something that will buy me the freedom from regret later in life. The drunk hangover story I tell when I’m feeling fresh. The pain that leads to the story. Where is that anymore? Where is the burn?

I grew up with strong people, with kind hearts and was never handed anything easily. If you knew my mum, there is no such thing as an easy question. My current status inside employment makes my parents beam with pride. It’s satisfying, and easy to forget that I don’t feel challenged or completely passionate about the work. I don’t burn for it.

Now I need to find what will give me that sense of pride, even in small pockets of time I choose to dedicate to it. I don’t want a complacent life, I want to burn for ideas. To use my young blood whilst time classifies me as so. Before I have the responsibility of children to blissfully consume parts of my time. Mark my fucking words, the burn of competition that fuels me to do things better than par for no reason will work in anything I choose to invest in to, and only in the past 2 months have I become so very aware of how much time exists in each day, by moving to a new city. We are consumed with conventional nothingness for hours everyday. So turn your damn phone off and do something, those games are day-eating-beings. Buy whatever gadget or pay whatever person who will help you save time to achieve something you like because the feeling will in fact fade and go away if you don’t act, and complacency will get you. Words are pretty but action isn’t. I’ll leave you with this.

Remember in school, when the teacher would ask the class a question, and immediately you thought the answer and said nothing, only to see another student eventually say the same thing and get the kudos for being right. That is happening right now, except the other student is your time, and fear of failure is slowly turning you complacent.

Watch out for the coffins with scratched ceilings.

C.f