I realized this morning on my short drive to the office that communication is actually a big part of how I feel alive.
Back in the day, even at the height of my singer/songwriter music performer career, I would have never called myself a prolific songwriter. And now, I write a LOT, and do a ton of graphic design, but I wouldn't call myself a prolific writer or designer.
But today, it suddenly became clear to me that I am a rather prolific communicator. In some fashion, I am always producing some form of communication.
The reason for that, at least in part, is probably because when I feel/hear/think/realize something, in a strange sense it doesn't become REAL for me until I've shared it. I may do that through a song, a piece of visual art or graphic design, a website, a book, or this blog, but until I've passed it along, I'm not actually sure it happened.
To a large degree, I seem to absorb reality by communicating it.
Strange, I know, but it probably has something to do with my StrengthsFinder Communication Theme... can anybody else relate?
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Today my friend and coworker Kevin said that he knows that we (the "staff" of Journey, where I work) all want to help "change lives."
But I'm not sure I do.
For me, to "change lives" means to develop, to bring about incremental growth, to help someone off drugs, or to stop drinking, or to be nicer to their wife, or to otherwise clean up their life. And while I recognize the obvious value and necessity of all of those things, his statement helped me realize that I am something else.
I am more about maximizing the potential of humanity. I instigate ideas, catalyze thought and action. I am a leadership firestarter, igniting flames of passion in others so they can go out and use their lives to change the world.
Maybe it's semantics, a small distinction. But for me, it was a light bulb.
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On my vacation, my beautiful family-in-law and I visited the Mackinac Island area of Michigan (which I highly recommend if you haven't been). While traipsing around the commercial tourist trap that is Main Street Mackinaw City, we found a small ice cream shop, and, as it was vacation forgoodnesssake, we knew it was time to partake.
While waiting for said processed dairy, I found a tattered TIME magazine from December 10, 2006 lying on the coffee table in the corner. The cover story was called "How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century."
As I get older (I know that sounds lame, and I'm not that old yet, but it's true), I find myself knowing more people with kids, and thinking about having some myself someday (gasp!), and the issue of education is becoming more and more frontburner. I know I'm going to have a boatload of issues that get ferried to the surface when my as-yet unconceived child enters schoolworld, but for now I can remain idealistically detatched, and mostly livid.
What's it going to take for us to get our schools out of their archaic modern mindset?
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