2014 has been a year of, let’s say, transition for me. Heard this quote from Hazrat Inayat Khan recently, “God breaks the heart again and again until it stays open.” I have so much to be grateful for and the end of the year is ending as sweetly as the beginning (and middle) was sour. The lesson I have learned is to find wisdom in the experience, sweet or sour. As much as I would like to believe otherwise, people reveal themselves to be as they are. And I have learned that inhumanity comes mostly when there is no interior voice, just a desire to see the world as we see it. If we can glimpse another’s pain, empathize with their experience, touch their joy, then we have the hope of community.
Creative business is the vehicle to community. You can believe that your picture, your event, your interior, your music, your clothing is ephemeral, nice but not seriously transforming. Not like heart surgery. You would be wrong. Not only wrong, but dismissive of the very patrons who believe otherwise. You and your creative business are paid to create feelings, to move people. The simplest moment can be done well. Opulence requires money, sure, but art requires genius, the willingness to make a statement. There is no budget for that.
2015 will be remarkable. My prayer for everyone is for 2015 to be much more sweet than sour. I wish for creative businesses to continue to honor the role they are meant to play: to allow everyone to share in the tapestry of the other; to see beauty from another’s eyes and be richer for it. Start there and I will be here to help you build the rest.
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We must have had the same year Sean….as I came to exactly the same conclusion just very recently. I had a moment just a few days ago where I realized how incredibly powerful and transformative my photography *could* be, if I just fully embraced (and executed) my vision, rather than just following the herd or cow-towing to my what my clients think they want. It’s a brave new world for creative businesses, and 2015 will be the start of living in it, for me. Love your work and thoughts Sean–thanks, as always for having the courage to say these things and push us in the creative industry to do and dream more.
‘Creative business is the vehicle to community.’ Amen to that. Sean, you’re so full of wisdom. Wishing you the best in 2015! And have a very happy birthday today too.