^{“I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock I am an island}

^{And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries” (Paul Simon)}

It’s often said that no man is an island. I tend to agree, but to also note that it’s never, ever been easier to be one.

Look, i’m an extroverted introvert, which means the following:

Stand on a stage to present something? Yes.

Share thoughts with a board? Absolutely.

Run a team, spending all days listening to their plans, hopes and dreams? You bet.

Want to shut the world out and retreat into a world packed with videogames, books and copious mugs of tea? Sign me up.

—

So part of me loves the fact I can work from home. I drop my children off; I can pick them up. I can do emergency admin if I need to. I can work into the night if there’s a big push on at work.

However, the longer i’m doing this, the more I feel myself falling into patterns. Not bad patterns, but samey patterns. My mind feels a world away from living in Greenwich and going to work everyday, where you met lots of different people, got exposed to many different stimuli (by dint of living in a gloal city) and generally had more things thrown at you.

Contrast that with now; I work from home 4ish days a week. I live in a small town in the Surrey Hills, am firmly into the young child routine, and balance the work, life, house juggle much more than I did when my oldest was young, or even before children.

—-

So how do I plan to sharpen my mind, and avoid becoming too much of an island?

One of them actually begins here. To start something where I get to write a bit more. I’ve talked about it before, but have held out for years. I don’t know, call it a weird ego thing. Writing was always ‘my thing’. As a child, I wanted to write fiction, but I have such a tiny creative ego that writing blog posts or writing a few thousand words on LinkedIn / in the trade press was about where I stop. So this is an attempt to move up the ladder, so to speak.

Secondly, talking to more people. Having a chinwag away from the day to day is hugely helpful. The way social networks (and, indeed, workplace networks) are coded means you get an awful lot of group-think if you just swim in those seas. It’s also good for you, let’s be honest. Endless reflections on ‘what creative director X thought about Y’, or ‘what c-suite client thought about…’ just isn’t healthy. I like to talk, so this isn’t going to be a hard one for me. If I have time, i’ll try to open my diary up a bit for more chats- family, work and life dependent!

Thirdly, championing good things a bit more. Whether advertising, music or literature, it’s never been more important to laud the good in a sea of slop. I don’t accept that taste will save all of the creative industry, but exhibiting it more regularly is certainly a good marker that those people doing good things will do more of them.

Finally, reading weird shit. Moving away from the standard ‘multi-tab, read the Guardian, read BlueSky’ approach which can easily define a day. Writers like Sarah Kendzior, or the Aeon newsletter - they get me to see the world differently.

Most of all, I suppose, is that I want a bit of friction. It is too easy to dissolve into mush from the position i’m in. Increasingly middle aged, in a comfortable family unit and lifestyle - with far fewer people calling me on my bullshit (barring my wife and children). I don’t want to argue all the time, but I do want to feel energised by people and things again. A husk-based existence is not the way.

Phew. Right. First post/email done. I hope you enjoyed. I might start a few content themes over the upcoming weeks, if only to keep me honest.

Thanks for reading. x