Currently challenging myself to write about the push-and-pull of creativity and entrepreneurship; art vs capitalism; artistry vs product for 30 days.
If this is something you’re thinking about, then I want to hear from you!!
Most of the time, there’s a balance between my Batman and Bruce Wayne lives. It’s a kind of balance that allows for my brain to easily run separate thinktanks throughout the day.
For instance:
Entrepreneur Me thinks about sending off several notes to past clients to remind them I exist.
Consultant Me reconsiders how she would approach a client engagement with AI tools next time.
Writer Me decides it’s time to write a spell just like they do on the TV show Charmed because it might help with my grief over cancer. (P.S. It does)
But sometimes, I get a client engagement that takes over my entire life. I eat, drink, sleep, think, talk about it around the clock. All engines get clogged. All my life boundaries break. It kills my imagination. And as it goes on, the center cannot hold. I completely fall off the planet.
I hate it.
That’s when I most resent my Bruce Wayne life.
Cut to Montreal
At the McCord Stewart, there’s an exhibit about the indigenous experience. And as I wandered it, I wrote down two quotes:
“Why must the encounter between two worlds necessarily result in the disappearance of one of them?”
Writer Me immediately connected this to a fantasy epic I’ve been writing in my head and across countless documents for over a decade now. It’s about a protagonist stuck between two worlds and identities.
Personal Me immediately felt this down to the cells in all her bones.
I created the Batman vs Bruce Wayne lifestyle as a DMZ between my creative and professional self. But even in their parallel dimensions, they feed off and nourish each other. And truthfully, as I said here, I don’t really want to live with them so apart anymore. But a dilemma I’ve struggled with for many years is the belief that to truly be the artist/creative I want to be, then I have to give something up.
But why????
Here’s the other quote from the McCord
How can we heal? The world must once more become a place where we are welcome, where we can partake in creative action.
I think a lot of humans—regardless of race, culture, or creed—are in this dilemma right now. The world is so noisy. In the race to automate and optimize, we are being put into the position of having to make decisions with intention across every action. The overload shuts down imagination. The noisiest noise then insists that there is only one course of action, but imagination and creativity always reassures that there are many. That’s why language is so amazing—a finite set of tools for an infinite set of outcomes….
That brings us to this substack, newsletter, thingamajig :::waves vaguely:::
Bruce Wayne Brain thinks: Any product’s value must be measured against the need of your ideal audience. Do growth hacking experiments like a 30 day challenge to validate your idea’s potential.
Batman Brain Thinks: I’m going to do this just because I think it’s cool. And maybe tomorrow I’ll do something else BECAUSE I WANT TO.
Very ego and ID right? It’s in that middle place that I feel most human and agentic. My imagination gets supercharged as if from the energy of a bajillion suns. And I feel incandescent even if I’m only here typing away on this couch to you.
Some Technical Things
This substack’s going to metamorph again based on all this writing going on. I think I’m going to create three newsletters in it: this notebook, a newsletter just for product/ux stuff, and then for the cancer journey stuff.
Maybe this is becoming a magazine? 🤷🏾♂️
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Extra Fun Thing
A friend and I were talking about musical moments we rewatch in TV shows. So in honor of Canada, here’s a little bit of Alexis. The full version became one of the top listened to songs on Spotify. It’s amazing.
#Storytelling
#CreativeLeadership
#30DayWritingChallenge
#BatmanBruceWayneLife
#InnovationThroughStory
#ImaginationIsPower