You can't have it all
Recently, I've been day dreaming about buying a retail shop and having a bookstore for Tall Poppy Press, a little studio and then a space for food/drink. Maybe a friend would join me in the endeavour, maybe a family member, maybe my girlfriend.
Like a lot of my daydreams, there's a lot of romance involved. I love the idea of small, easily understood, autonomous things. I don't want, say, a chain of bookstores, or the biggest publishing company, I want something that's big enough to be what I want, and just maintains at that level.
For some reason that sense of scale and ownership is very motivating to me. I find the concept of just knowing everything that's happening really humbling and calming. Why have a 100 seat restaurant when there could be a 10 seat? Why have a publishing company that publishes 50,000 books a year when I could do 5000?
The obvious answer is that with scale comes larger profits, which I think is true when things go well, but the flip side is that there's more risk. There are, for example, employees that need to be paid -even if it's a slow day, week or month. There are, for examples, schedules, leave, suppliers, etc.
Right now, I can bake 30 cookies and sell them for a profit very easily. Not in terms of the demand, but just in terms of: I can buy the ingredients and make them with the equipment I have, I can sell them with my eftpos machine, that scale is easy already. But I couldn't do 200. With scale comes new challenges - consistency and replication become key elements of success. But I don't really value those things, at all. I find consistency one of the least inspiring qualities or values - I like inconsistency, rawness, vulnerability, things that are unique rather than things that are repeated. In my house, the furniture doesn't match, the art doesn't match, it's a mismatch, I love that.
Back to my day dreams, an old one I've talked about before was having 2-4 acres and growing a bunch of fruit and food, then having a seasonal feast and inviting a few friends. I don't want to feed the world, I just want to grow and cook one good meal four times a year, all under my own belt. From building the fire to making the dough to picking the apples to chopping the herbs. All there, all me. I can't easily express how motivating that idea is to me. I love making things and the sense of pride and achievement I get from actually building something completely under my own steam is some of the deepest satisfaction I experience. That's at the root of why these day dreams appeal to me.
A lot of people, when I share these things, talk about how hard these endeavours are, and fair enough, they are hard. But I find that the context behind the objection is really crucial, but ignored. Publishing, for example, is often cited as a terrible way to make money and, therefore, a bad business. Certainly, if one's aim is to make a middle-class income in a first world country from day one then, yeah, that's going to be really tricky, if not impossible. However, if the aims are more modest, if the view is to replace a part time income for one person, for example, over a few years, things start to look more achievable, and more realistic. That's a good thing.
In my day dreams I don't want to rule the world, I just want to create my own world. Have friends, family and regulars stop in and find a form of home somewhere other than their house, be a place where old friends stop in and say hello, where there's always a little bustle, but never busyness. No lines out the front, no reservations needed, just a modest business, a gentle and kind atmosphere, a sense of community, connection and relaxation. Where I can make those things I want to.
Will this particular dream ever be acted on? Well, probably not. After all, one can't have financial security, complete autonomy, the perfect space, little money put into the business and a friend or family or partner ready to do it with me - that's a LOT to go right. Too much. Unrealistically so. I think that's ok though - what's life without some dreaming? What's life without something unachievable to think about, draw and talk about? Without that imagination and yearning I think I'd be a less deep person.
But even if this specific dream may not happen, those values (of homeliness, hospitality and come-as-you-are-ness) and dreams are a facet of most of what I do. So whether you come for a meeting at Tall Poppy HQ, attend a book fair I'm showing at, or are around when I cook a meal, the aim is to build a space where everyone can unwind, leave the mask at the door, and quietly and calmly just be.