If you’re an artist, your work is.
Artwork – Ego = Change
Ashton.Gustafson
Pause by the orchid. Listen to the bluebird sing. Be love.
Tag Archives: work
Episode 22: Fr. Ed Leahy of St. Benedict’s Prep School
A few weeks ago I watched a story on 60 Minutes that I found to be profoundly inspiring. It involved a prep school in Newark, New Jersey, a Benedictine monk, and a body of young men being nurtured and educated in a way that I had never seen before.
It’s an honor to introduce you to Fr. Ed Leahy, the young men of St. Bendedict’s Prep School, and the good and necessary work they’re collectively participating in.
You can stream or download the episode in iTunes by clicking here.
As you approach this week, may you push against the resistance and bring your best self as a gift to the world.
Can’t Quite Put Our Thumbs On It
There are no jobs left.
The only thing that is left standing, or currently asking to be given legs, is the work of art that connects, leads, and changes us.
If one can’t quite put their thumb on that thing you are supposed to do in your field, industry, or line of work – that is good news. In that sense you’re not jobless. And therein lies the role of today’s working artist: take a client, customer, or the recipient of one’s art on a journey and move their thumbs on ‘it’…on enlightenment…on the answer…and even sometimes on the question(s) they didn’t know they should be asking.
It’s time for the proverbial car salesman to forget they don’t sell cars. This goes for all of us.
Or as Paul Valéry once said, “To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.”
Commas > Periods
Something worked yesterday, something different works today, and something else will work tomorrow.
Today, we rejoice in commas.
In the end the worthy goal isn’t to one day blow out your candle in some form of case closed, definite conclusion.
Rather, our hope lies in these little lights that we all have to let shine and in their capability to light the way for another or reignite one’s wick that has gone dim.
Collectively, we can all help each other to see a little bit better and get us on the other side of another comma.
Flames are contagious.
Work
There’s something about work that is central to what we do.
Only recently, has it become – right or wrong – a reflection of who we are. Careful with that. I’m afraid, no I’m happy, that was never the intention.
When you think work, think story. And when you think story, think plot.
There’s a couple of ways to define plot:
1) A small piece of ground, generally used for a specific purpose: a garden plot.
2) To conceive and arrange the action and incidents of something.
Create a holy harmony of these two definitions and there you will have the definition of work. Also known as the intersection of where passion meets purpose and the formula for a good night’s sleep. Work is a purposeful garden.
Lastly, there’s a another way to approach the concept of work and that’s through the lens of the protagonist. Who is he? He’s the character in a story that knows what he wants and overcomes conflict to get it. He is the guy plotting his way towards a series of finish lines and victories that his muse has whispered.
It’s work being the protagonist isn’t it?
Ashton.Gustafson 