I bumped into a friend of mine the other day a coffee shop downtown. It’s one of those laid back independent coffee shops that takes pride in their individuality. They have several nights of various forms of “community entertainment.” Usually some kind of musical performance by budding artists. It’s always interesting to go there, and see people who can really put themselves out there. Although there never really is a lot of people, I always admire the people who come and give their all for the few fans that do turn out.
My friend was telling me about her roommate. She had been working at a design company for the last several years. She’d started as an intern, and worked her way up to a junior designer position. She was kind of worried because her company, which was a small independent one, not unlike the coffee shop, was going to be bought out by a national chain. Now I’m not too aware of the goings on in the design business, so I didn’t want to appear foolish by asking my friend a bunch of naïve sounding questions.
I asked her why she got into the business in the first place, and she said that she had always liked to be creative. When asked if she’d still be able to express her creativity once the new company took over, she said that it was likely that she would. She described how important it was for her to express her creativity.
She went on to describe how creativity is one of the greatest achievements of humankind. When people lose their creativity, and begin to go through life doing the same thing day after day, they can become depressed. The secret is to find ways to express yourself in ways that honor your creative self. Find ways to think in new directions that can help you to stay energized as you move through an otherwise normal life. She told me how important it is to spend a few minutes each day doing something that can exercise your mind, even for only a few minutes. That is the secret to happiness. Exercising your mind in those ways that you know are right for you.
So we both decided that her roommate would likely keep her job, given her track record at the design company. And even then, we weren’t sure what was going to happen, as the impending buyout was nothing more than a rumor at that point. Another thing we decided was that living your life based on rumors and imaginations about the future never really got anybody anyplace.
And the particular band, actually it was two guys with acoustic guitars, was pretty good. They sang a few old covers and a couple of original songs. I think it’s great that there are still people that can create new things, and then go and belt them out in public for all to enjoy.