07: The Things We Take Away
What do we take away from the actual experience of being together?—Reina Imagawa
At the end of 2019, I took my creative sabbatical in Mexico City. I hadn’t been there since I was a young college student on a study abroad. But the 48 hours I spent in the city had made an indelible impression on me, and that is the vision that kept enticing me back.
My return was lovely. I spent six weeks in the city, and my favorite find was a little cafe called Gato Gordo located near my Airbnb. Having lived in Japan, I am attuned to “true” Japanese things. So when I espied a cafe looking particularly Japanesish, I couldn’t help but wander in. What I found was a lovely social experiment run by the artist Reina Imagawa. She was a recent transplant herself; her space was barely a year old. And her whole goal was to use the space to create community, to incite interaction, and inspire ripples throughout the neighborhood.
Jump to today, March 14, 2022. I am currently laboriously archiving my Instagram account. For the one and only time in my life, I took an age gate facetiously and entered that I was 200 years old. If I had known it was the one and only time it mattered, I would’ve been less feckless. But Instagram has locked me out, and I have lots of personal and professional skepticism around appealing the decision.
But in that redocumenting, I have come across the quote above from Reina. Here it is expanded:
“We are dreaming together and making shit happen!!!
How can we come together because we really want to? It is a design and personal question. The motive for coming together can be whatever, something important, something cool, but what do we take away from the actual experience of being together?
I feel like the thing about public programming that I never quite understood is precisely this and now we need each other more than ever, I choose to break hierarchies even further and reimagine the ways in which we treat each other daily :) #MoreBlueprintsLessBullshit”
And this made me think about several things:
In a recent lettering group, we all discussed how we struggle with creating because of passion and balancing that with marketing and making money. Later that day, I realized that I reject the capitalistic construct that has dogged so much of my artist motivations. It’s the one that makes you think before you create: How will I make money with this? As if the value of the action or piece was the monetary outcome more than the action or piece itself. As if the whole purpose of the piece was to get money from people as opposed to any other type of interaction!
For the last year or so, I am experimenting more with business ideas outside of consulting. But I have always struggled with making money off these ideas. It’s not that they are bad. It’s more that I don’t want to really do them. And that’s a problem. It’s why whenever someone is “helpful,” and says: “Why don’t you start a blog?” “Why don’t you sell this on Etsy?” “Why don’t you [fill in the blank]?” That I roll my eyes. Yeah, I could do that. But what does it really do for me? What am I really getting out of this action? Sure, people are getting to know me, and I’m sharing my stuff with people. There’s also potentially money, and I really do love having money; it’s nice and convenient for sure! But obviously that’s not enough to make me want to do it at all or for a long and sustained period of time.
In my consulting and professional life, I often have to remind clients that their content is meant to do something. It’s not just supposed to be on a website and frame the visual or interactive elements. It’s meant to impel an action of some kind. Your audience is meant to take something away from the experience of reading/being in your content. But I had never thought about that for myself….. in sharing this with you, what experience do I want you to take away? What is my intention for your experience of reading this at all?
So often, we think more about just getting eyeballs on our work that we forget there’s the takeaway from it. We want to say more than listen. We want to share more than gift. We want to be heard and seen more than we want to impress, communicate, educate and learn. I guess I’m wondering if this has been the mental block I’ve been facing without realizing it. Rather than tossing out a business idea and seeing if someone will pay for it, what would happen if I just thought about what the experience would mean for the both of us instead?
Hmmmmm… honestly … it’s something I’ll have to think about.
Reading, Listening, Watching
Last newsletter, I talked about editing. So when I watched Love Is Blind S2, I was very very much paying attention to it. My favorite censorship of the crew’s influence, however, was during the reunion episode. The cast rightly questioned why two contestants were put into such an awkward situation, and the episode cuts over the answer. Because of them, I thought, Them right there.
I signed up for an “existential playground” this past week. I honestly had no idea to expect, which pretty much guaranteed I’d be delighted. We played with conversation and subtext. It was delightful! Check it out here. https://www.deepplayinstitute.com/existentialplayground.html
I just got an Oculus headset. I haven’t been in the VR world since the mid-2010s …. Maybe? Wow! It’s changed a lot since then. I think I’ll have to put a timer on to make sure I take the headset off. It’s easy to get lost in the world even if your actual play area is small. Also, the weird motion sickness afterward is not fun. It’s not terrible …. It’s just not fun. Kudos to all the designers that figured out how to make hands work in VR. There was one moment where I was playing with rockets. I launched one but didn’t realize it was going to boomerang back. It freaked me out. The second time, I made sure to hit it away with my “hand.”
I’ve been reading more in Spanish because I remembered I knew a lot of Spanish back in Mexico. I just finished Macario by B. Traven. It’s about a poor woodcutter who just wants to eat a turkey by himself. I laughed a lot while reading; it's also a bit dark.
Creative Corner
I published a YouTube video! I'm sharing how I hone my UX skills by always paying attention to the UX around me and wondering about the eternal question: Was it a user or business goal? What do you think?
I've started publishing my own poetry via a substack I forgot I created. I am delighted; it's the most consistent I've ever published in year. So if that's your jam, you should take a peek. Here's my last poem:
"Not Writing"
When I
fail to write in the
mornings, I mustn’t
scold. Because this
week I still rose with
joy to meet the
daylight. Just this
dawn, I spent time with my
orchid. I mused on my
pink curtains at the
dining table and
sipped coffee.Hmmm, I thought into
the lightening space,
Never have I looked at
you like this before.And really, that’s me
writing—not with any
pen but with my whole
soul.
Oh yeah! I'm also updating my little online comic: Daisy and Gatz where I like to practice my visual storytelling.
And I finished this piece of calligraphy—my most refined! Thoughts?
Thanks all!
Sarah