YOU. Yes. you. You have a voice.
A voice to change things.
A voice that matters.
Find your voice – Howard Lake – flickr – (CC BY-SA 2.0)
It’s a simple belief that can affect every part of life.
I would like to go on journey. A journey to explore, create, and discover what it means to be heard. For some, that may mean gaining the courage to show a friend their painting. For others, it may mean volunteering to be heard from distant seats while their voice thunders through a sound system. For me personally, it means gaining the courage to start things like ‘writing habits’ and actually sitting down to write something.
My name is Avery White, and I’m leaving on this learning journey. Feel free to come aboard.
What do you think of when you hear the word bold?
Make a list.
- Radishes
- Fonts
- Black ink
- Red lipstick
- Anything that ends in the word bear
- …
Was your name on it?
This…
…is one way to think about your level of boldness. It’s an old school mercury thermometer. It could describe you at dinner parties, on a dance floor, or how you plan on expressing yourself through your favorite creative medium (for example).
This…
…is my thermostat. It’s another way of thinking about your boldness. What do you see that it has in common with the thermometer? As old Rafiki said “Look…harder” (specifically…at the little blobs in the glass vials with blue and orange tips). So what does this have in common with it’s fever-checking counterpart?
Right.
They both use mercury. However, the thermometer uses what’s inside of it passively: only speaking when asked, and entirely reactive to its surroundings.
The thermostat causes change.
It’s active, and it utilizes the natural flow of what it’s made of to bring about a change in its environment. What can we learn from this?
To value what’s within us.
That the difference between creativity that expressed, and creativity that is suppressed is largely up to a question of value. We could think of a thermostat as someone who recognizes what they have within them, and does everything they can with it.
But we can go deeper.
The thermometer is much simpler. One could say that it’s not restrained by the trappings of wire and circuitry. It has complete freedom to bounce from mouth to mouth forever doing what it has always done. Not so with the thermostat. It had to relinquish some of that freedom to gain feedback. It’s mounted to a wall. It even had to split what was in itself (notice that the mercury is in two vials) to be useful for more than just shouting the current temperature. We could think of this as costing something. In other words…
It became accountable.
Now it has switches and springs attached to it (among other things), but these empower it. Everything surrounding the mercury is for the mercury. It’s to maximize the impact that it can have on its environment. Granted, you may not have that many wires attached to you (despite where technology seems to be heading), but it says something to reaching out and getting help to support your craft.
Speaking plainly…
Don’t be arrogant into thinking that you don’t need people to help you critique your work. Surround yourself with others that share your vision and be a learner. See the yellow wire in the thermostat image? That could be you for someone else. The point is that the vast network of friends, bloggers, and collaborators come together to exist as something greater.
Value feedback.
Give feedback; and don’t be afraid to be a thermostat.