Pearls of Wisdom....

I did a hand stand on my world today, a sunny side up on my current affairs!
My inspiration sandwich said something to me that made such perfect sense... something less cheesy but pretty much along the lines of " Hey kiddo, turn that frown upside down... ;) "
He said to me:

" Have you ever felt that every time you sleep and you wake...it's like a blank canvas of possibility as yesterday is forgotten between the lines of history but today anything can happen, with the dreams of a fellow traveler, let the power of today guide you in colour and paint. So paint that canvas, for today will only come once and tomorrow, today will be history. but at least tomorrow you can hang today on your wall and see the present for what it is! A gift of life!"

Life is a bowl of cherries, and even when its not... I'll read things like this from the people closest to my heart and I'll remember just how fortunate I am every single day.
"Priceless pearls of wisdom", old Ma'am Sparks would say to us in English class, "Quickly catch them as they are falling from my lips..."

I must have a big beautiful crystal jar full of them by now... I keep them on my windowsill to capture the light and reflect it back into my room...

xXx

Carpe Diem

I woke this morning in someone elses body... These were my hands and my legs and my feet... but this was not my life. I woke this morning, 23 - with no certainty of when, or where, or how I will realise my dream and my purpose here in this place and time.

I am a shrinking violet on a cold September morning surround by a vapid air of frustration and stagnation. How did I choose this path? How did I come to be here?... When am I going to awaken to a new day, and finally know where I am going. Striding forth with conviction. When am I going to stop running away from everything and stand my ground. Carpe Diem. Salute.

This time, this transient time... people are phantoms in my life, here today gone tomorrow. We are young and nothing binds us. We are free to go and search and be whomever we choose. This is our privilege. This is our curse. No roots, no base, no home. Freedom.

"Into the wilderness the gait of one, who knows no path where the path should be..."

Post Script:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond imagination. It is our light more than our darkness which scares us. We ask ourselves – who are we to be brilliant, beautiful, talented, and fabulous. But honestly, who are you to not be so?"
~Marianne Williamson.

There is no such thing as a grey area!

Last minute decisions are always a culmination of great ideas, rash decisions, visions of grandeur and an upwelling of self indulgent passions! So whenever I make one of these decisions its always bumper to bumper with another one... the last is always the one I actually go for!
Last week was a bag full of these crammed into hurried lunches, leisurely walks, frantic runs and a lot of writing! A lot is actually an understatement!

I think I pulled in every resource and in the know person I could think of and sifted through all of there heads to try and derive the right answer. This was actually 2/3rds of the fun I think. I felt like I was writing and existential article about myself and researching myself through there opinions and view points on me, my decision and my ideas. I have really great influences in my life was just a sideline thought whilst doing this.

So all said and done, what I have settled on is what I am actually most passionate about: photography! Lets see how far I can take it!

Post script: You know - you know - you know! Just listen. ;)

The world... unto me?!!! Cheers!

I went to fetch my prospectus today! I have one week left to hand it in! OMG!
I find that rather appropriate to the pending situation though... here I am at yet another cross road with a gun held to my head... but fittingly, as usual, its me holding it and playing this rather ridiculous game of psuedo Russian Roulette with myself!

I may as well walk around everyday with a tape recorder strapped to myself with my own voice on repeat saying: "Dance monkey, dance!" in some sort of conspicuously neon circus suit!
It felt really good walking around those crayony smelling design studios! I'm craving that sort of stimulation! I know I should be going into the working environment to get my fix... but something is luring me there so intensely I cant actually deny myself the experience!

What I find so great is that everything we will work on is actaully real, all of the prjects are from actual brands, companies, clients etc. So in effect you are in the real industry... I want my brain to wrap itself around that way of thinking I want to develop and hone my own edge... and all this because of one focus group! Yes! The seed was planted and just like India one day with noo I will embark on this creative journey too.

I see nothing but bright green lights ahead of me, and a bigger more beautiful bow on my lapel as I add one more colourful string to it... I decided a long time ago that I never wanted to stop learning... I guess I just never really saw myself here again so soon!

Post script: To the future of dynamo Jack! Cheers!

Oh the fantastical possibilities a walk by the sea brings...

I had the most satisfying stroll this morning, I left the house tired and jaded with the hopes of trying to clear my head and revitalise my soul, and returned: inspired, invigorated and re directed! Hows that for a successful little Sunday outing?

I like to give this time of year the term: "Silly Season" - as my brother says. It has actually gotten to the point where I have to literally leave the city bowl for fear of having to go out AGAIN! There has honestly been 2 to 3 social engagements every single night for the last three weeks and I, being the relentless social butterfly that I tend to be sometimes have fallen prey to almost all of them! Well it doesn't help that my whole group has to - and they all know where I live!

Luckily for me I have a little retreat to escape to, far far away in the land of fynbos and hippies and fresh sea air! This morning, however, was particularly successful. Whilst meandering through the blushing nursery and snaking through the brightly coloured bathing boxes along the seashore I decided that I'm not finished being a pupil. There is so much more that I need to learn. I looked around me at all of the contented basking bellies on the beach front and it steadily dawned on me that I am, as usual, not entirely satisfied and therefor need to delve deeper in this eternal conquest of self actualization and enlightenment!

I think it was a combination of the raw sea breeze and the incredibly large wave that drenched me by surprise in front of a catwalk of onlookers... but there I was completely soaking and laughing my heart out to the point of tears when it dawned on me... I'm going back to college!
I think?! Well I know... I just have to turn this into a feasible option first... but yes... I am... I think, therefor I am?! hmmm... bygones!

Post script: I am not crazy... only wildly inspired... all the time... well most of the time.. I think ;)

Take that mr. President!!!!

Nothing like a good old spot of bad energy to throw your mercury into retrograde!

Now at the risk of sounding trite let me cut straight to the chase!
A little while ago I was blabbing on about how I actually thrive off of people telling me I "cant" do something! But at the same token, today something really gratifying happened to me but it took a rather unpleasant realisation for it to kick start the engine...

I've been bumping into my friend frequently over the past few weeks, and every time we see one another we get into this seriously in depth discussion over how we are going to renovate and re decorate his apartment. This, however, is usually over a few glasses of wine, by which time we begin deliberating over multi levelled floor planes and and fantastically positioned light detailing! All of which you seldom actually ever expect to see come to fruition!

So I had a really crap wake up call on Monday, one that makes your stomach flip over. And you're knees go weak! Cause I suddenly found myself 2yrs out of studying, 6months out of permanent job matching studying description. And none the wiser about were I am actually heading. And better yet I'm having this all so conveniently pointed out to me by my ever increasingly successful sibling!

I spent the day feeling really sorry for myself and cursing the fact that I'm 22 and so utterly useless... how could this possibly happen to me of all people! And then on cue... just as I'm about to sink into the depths of my own unproductive self pity... the phone rings... its my friend, calling to confirm our long overdue design meeting!

So there I go pottering off to his house expecting some kind of curtain alteration, perhaps a few scatter cushions and a rug?? Well you can imagine my surprise, and delight when he practically hands me the keys to his apartment and says: "OK Missy lets make this happen!". We sat there for 2 hours going over every square inch of that place and coming up with the most incredible ideas to bring his dream house alive!

That's all it took: One person to believe in me and open the door for me! And I'll make the earth move for them! What a great feeling! I'm addicted! I cant wait to see it all coming to life!
As much as I loved being challenged by the whole "you cant do that thing", I think this is even more challenging because somebody is putting their trust and their confidence in my ability to do this! So I get a double prize at the end, my success and their happiness!

Post script: I can't stop smiling ;)

Tick tick... chk chk chk!!!

My friend Matthew invited me to his Marketing focus group for Red&yellow school! Its a post grad course and they have just chosen their final electorate project and group and they are now strategising this whole amazing marketing scheme for the product they have chosen!

Anyway so the way it works is there are 9 groups of 6 in the class and then you choose your product and you conduct all of these external focus groups to conceptualise and zone in on the final scheme for the marketing of it and brand escalation into your chosen target market.

So everyone in the group invites 2 people along to come and do some brainstorming. There are a number of questions etc that have been prepared and the group then launches into these debates on each topic: like packaging, tag line, materials, main consumer, outlets, advertising, leaks into the public etc.

They had chosen this shoe brand called G-mo "Grant Morrison Designs.. and he basically does these incredible one offs and just structurally amazing and functional shoes. All made from animal friendly environmentally friendly products. And they honestly are so cool!

So there we sat this incredibly eclectic group of people: The fashion editor of cosmo, the lawyer, the conservationist, the hippy, the interior designer, the trustfund baby etc thrashing out every possible angle to launch these shoes! It was so intense and people were getting so heated it was amazing!

But wow what incredible energy was emanating from this whole scenario - I felt wired! I just got home and I'm on such a buzz I don't actually know what to do with myself! I wanna do something like that!

Its so powerful to be in the hub of something so creative! Especially when its a group dynamic!
grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!
Gad I'm excited!!! It just makes you think about things in a completely different way when you get into situations like that you know, You learn what makes people tick and how they think... anything can become something special with the right Angle and the right brain and the right marketing campaign............ oooooooooh whoop whoop!!