8 Clicks from Nowhere Productions ䷀

A
BLOG
FROM
NOWHERE

  • Excuse You

    Look around, pay attention and you’ll start to notice it everywhere.

    I happened to notice it the other night while we were having a family night catching up on a couple reality shows. I made a note that I should write something about it.

    Victimhood.

    You don’t fall into that trap, do you? You don’t trip over the wires of opting to blame everyone else for failure. You don’t catch on the snare of looking for external factors every time something goes wrong.

    We were watching that show—you know the one—where pairs of contestants race around the world and do challenges.  One of the teams was lagging, severely, and it was never about them. They played the perpetual victim. Other teams were picking on them. The challenges were so hard. The world was against them. Oh, I’m sure it felt good to dump their successive losses at the feet of everything and everyone else, but wow: it’s a game, it’s supposed to be competitive and challenging and stacked against you at every turn.

    Maybe, sure, it was played up by the editors of the show, but I also recognize that as a personality type. I also know that there are a lot of people with big ideas and ambitious dreams who hit a few little obstacles—and oh, will there be obstacles on the path to creative endeavours—and out come the excuses and blaming everything and everyone else.

    The list is endless, but you’d recognize it the second you heard it: someone or something is preventing those people from the win, so they give up trying.

    But the game is always stacked. The world is always working against most of us. That’s just the universe. 

  • Inside Outside

    What is creativity anyhow? I’ve been writing this blog for over eight months now and I don’t think I’ve actually sat down and written a proper definition—but is that even possible?

    Is it a good thing to be creative? Is it natural or purposeful—or maybe just an unserious pursuit?

    It’s curious though: my social media feed has picked up on the idea that I’m interested in the topic and so routinely it is peppered with bursts of commentary on creative lifestyles, both positive and negative. 

    And with many questions, I think maybe the negative jabs shine a brighter light on understanding the notion.

    Your results may vary, but my received negativity seems to shine through that little screen and mock the very idea of a middle aged guy trying to do art, learn an instrument, or write a novel. The universe, it often seems, finds the notion of artistic expression little more than a privileged extravagance for those less serious among us. 

    Why am I not feeding the gaping maw of capitalistic pursuit? Why am I not spending time earning or investing or consuming? Why am I telling stories and taking photos?

    None of this is a thing I can answer in one post, but I do know that creativity is not an idle excuse to avoid something “real” or “productive” but rather—and for most every self-defined creative person I know—foundational to who they are. It is who we are. It is the shape of our soul and the way we meet the world each day.

    All the rest of it is the mask we wear.

    Under the category of Inside & Outside I’ll be writing more on this topic as the months wear on.

  • Blog Lore, Part Two

    I’ve been online for a very long time.

    In the early 2000s I opened up a notepad on my desktop computer and started typing what would become my first blog post. It seemed like an interesting alternative to writing a bunch of individual emails back home to all the people I’d just left behind to start a new job in a new city.

    Blogging was novel. It was trendy. It had not yet become this big commercial shell game of trying to lure visitors to your site by any means necessary for the purpose of generating advertising revenue.  It was still a genuine and personal act of creativity.

    I’ve been stuck in that mindset for a quarter of a century, doing what the folks who need to label everything might call “life blogging”…

    And I guess that’s the real trick to having a real blog: one needs to first have a life to blog about.

    For most of mine—and if I’m being particularly honest—having the blog has become the reason for having an interesting life. I pursue hobbies, travel to interesting places, tackle local adventure, and take on personal challenges to give myself something to write about.  None of it is performance or faux influencer-type obnoxious behaviour, but rather waking up in the morning and becoming an interesting person by interacting with the world in a meaningful and positive way.

    After a while having a life becomes a habit.

    …and writing about that life becomes a lifestyle.

    So? My first piece of advice for an aspiring blogger looking to put together an interesting personal collection of writing full of curious topics: get a life. A real life. An interesting life. A life worth writing about. This is the first step.

  • Influence Less

    Look, it’s a blurry line between being someone who wants to make stuff and share their creativity with the world on one side and being someone who wants to be the main character of the internet on the other.

    Blurry, but not invisible.

    I personally struggle with my own identity on the modern internet. I make stuff for the joy of making it. I write stories because I feel the very human need to be a storyteller. I draw and make music and build games because I am compelled to use the half of my brain that is steeped in creative urges to do those things. 

    The tepid pool of what becomes popular for all the wrong reasons, though, is a little sad.

    I see reels that are staged or commercial or generated or simply rage bait.

    I see posts that reek of corporate pandering or identity grooming or culture shifting.

    I see profiles that are bots or resume acts or cons or worse.

    It’s all fake.

    What is to be done about those?  Nothing, maybe, but looking away and being better than that, not stooping to that grade of duplicity, treating people everywhere—your audience and the people around you in real life—with the respect they deserve. Maybe that will help a little.

    It’s old fashioned, but here’s the real:

    Be genuine. If you are out there making stuff that is fake or even whiffs of influencer-grade performance, just… don’t. Be better than that. 

  • Keyboard Less

    Creation is rarely ideal.

    It’s messy and short on time and squeezed into the cracks of life.

    Don’t believe me? I found a cup of hot tea and an unoccupied table at one of North America’s biggest shopping malls on a busy Friday evening while my family is off browsing through shoe stores and spending money on who knows what.

    I didn’t bring a keyboard. 

    I am resorting to typing this on my phone. 

    But it was either sit down and write something, or wander around tripping over ten thousand shoppers and their giant bags of momentary indulgences.

    I choose to write, ideal situation or not.

    Not everyone’s first choice, sure, but as frequently as I can I like to do something that viscerally reminds my creative self that writers bring their stories to the page, the page doesn’t come and wait for our stories.

    I’ve been haunting this particular shopping mall since I was a kid. West Edmonton Mall has an indoor theme park (which I just wandered thru), skating rink (which was occupied by a few dozen skaters this evening), a water park (which had closed for the evening shortly before I strolled by) and a life size pirate ship parked on an indoor lake (which was by the bookstore that briefly caught my attention before I decided to park here.) My Kid works here. We drive over every month or so and try to not be overwhelmed. 

    This place is full of stories, and I can reach into my own personal history dating back decades and sometimes even make sense of them.

    Why not spend a few minutes spilling out some creativity here, too, ideal conditions be darned. Keyboard less… or opportunity more.