Roger Zelzany wrote a book called A Night in the Lonesome October, having to do with events leading up to a Halloween on which the second full moon of the month rises. A group of iconic characters come together for a specific purpose. You see, that's when the time is right.
And now is the time that is right for me.
In 2005, I started back to school. Got my Associate's Degree and moved on to Washington State Vancouver for my Bachelor's (still in progress). On the first day of this year, I walked away from my job of 8.5 years.
Since then, I have gotten my first paying client as a web designer (Oregon Organization Development Network). That led me to get my own domain (http://www.hexagonaldesigns.com/), and start the process of getting business licenses. I am learning graphic design, my first foray into visual art. I have designed logos both for myself and for classes.
I even have a decent resume for the first time in my life, thanks to Christine Lundeen, career counselor at WSUV.
I just wish that my time was quite as dramatically perfect as a Lonesome October.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Friday, April 16, 2010
Back to the Fire
We took words from the fire. Wrestled them free, breathing deep of smoke and cinder. Burned, we took them, and made them tools. Put them back in the flames, beat them with hammers, bent them with tongs, turned them from simple names to complex, powerful instruments that cut, that heal, that separate us and bind us.
The fire is still in the words, hiding, biding, waiting for the moment when the universe unfolds just so to remind us of their power.
Burning is pain, and release, and cleansing. Purification of the earliest kind, our oldest trial. We have refined all of this, into simple combinations of symbol and sound, roll them off our tongues and tumble us together. Currents of words, words become water and wine, pulling us into worlds we cannot know any other way. The burning is still there, still moves us, but no longer do we dwindle within them.
This is my altar, built of the fire, dedicated to the flame. Every moment of every day is seeking the next word, the next sacrifice, the next offering to place on the altar. Forever it feeds, forever it takes and returns a thousand-fold what I leave.
The fire is still in the words, hiding, biding, waiting for the moment when the universe unfolds just so to remind us of their power.
Burning is pain, and release, and cleansing. Purification of the earliest kind, our oldest trial. We have refined all of this, into simple combinations of symbol and sound, roll them off our tongues and tumble us together. Currents of words, words become water and wine, pulling us into worlds we cannot know any other way. The burning is still there, still moves us, but no longer do we dwindle within them.
This is my altar, built of the fire, dedicated to the flame. Every moment of every day is seeking the next word, the next sacrifice, the next offering to place on the altar. Forever it feeds, forever it takes and returns a thousand-fold what I leave.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Cluttersphere
The Persuaders episode on Frontline missed a crucial question. Advertising is filling the mindspace available, and crowding out everything else. It has taken over movies, TV, the internet, the mail, newspapers, every medium with which we interact. We are swimming in the stuff, allowed to pay attention to little else.
So, what does that mean for people and organizations that have messages that are not commercial in nature? Messages that need to be heard, information that the average person really does need to have.
They don't get heard, that's what happens.
There is so much competition for our attention that those who have rational, reasonable things to say get drowned out. In order to get heard, they have to resort to marketing, in one form or another. And thus is credibility lost. The message gets lost in its attempt to work within the medium.
Take a scientific discussion of global warming. A few studies are done, and published in scientific journals. The scientific community responds by calling for more study, and trying to make some people outside the community of the potential dangers. A fine start. But people don't pay a whole lot of attention to the scientific community. Have you ever read a physics journal?
And so, in an attempt to make people aware, more sensationalist message go out. And more. It gets picked up by people whose job it is to alarm people (aka The Media and The Government). They don't take time to develop a rational understanding of the issue, they just grab hold of dire predictions and magnify them. Real data, real information, valid warnings and predictions get set aside because the predictions are made to sound as bad as possible in order to sell airtime or get votes.
Imagine the frustration that scientists must feel. They are responding to the situation in what they feel are appropriate ways. But the message gets away from them. Things are said by media and political figures as if they were fact, and then the debate centers on those inaccurate statements as though they were the original message.
And all because there is so much clutter that the scientists had to yell more loudly than they should have to get any attention at all.
That is the ultimate loss we face from The Persuaders, the ability to communicate clearly and appropriately.
So, what does that mean for people and organizations that have messages that are not commercial in nature? Messages that need to be heard, information that the average person really does need to have.
They don't get heard, that's what happens.
There is so much competition for our attention that those who have rational, reasonable things to say get drowned out. In order to get heard, they have to resort to marketing, in one form or another. And thus is credibility lost. The message gets lost in its attempt to work within the medium.
Take a scientific discussion of global warming. A few studies are done, and published in scientific journals. The scientific community responds by calling for more study, and trying to make some people outside the community of the potential dangers. A fine start. But people don't pay a whole lot of attention to the scientific community. Have you ever read a physics journal?
And so, in an attempt to make people aware, more sensationalist message go out. And more. It gets picked up by people whose job it is to alarm people (aka The Media and The Government). They don't take time to develop a rational understanding of the issue, they just grab hold of dire predictions and magnify them. Real data, real information, valid warnings and predictions get set aside because the predictions are made to sound as bad as possible in order to sell airtime or get votes.
Imagine the frustration that scientists must feel. They are responding to the situation in what they feel are appropriate ways. But the message gets away from them. Things are said by media and political figures as if they were fact, and then the debate centers on those inaccurate statements as though they were the original message.
And all because there is so much clutter that the scientists had to yell more loudly than they should have to get any attention at all.
That is the ultimate loss we face from The Persuaders, the ability to communicate clearly and appropriately.
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