Your sense of presence
View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “There is no good singing, there is only present and absent.” ― Jeff Buckley For a couple of hours once a week, I’ve been teaching a portfolio course at the local college here in Ottawa. In class, I provide feedback and direction to third-year students as they each construct and refine a portfolio of their best work in the fields of advertising, design and marketing.
There, I’m often asked: “what do you want me to put in this portfolio?”
This is the wrong question to the wrong person, I explain.
Instead, examine within yourself: “why do I do what I do, and how might I best show what I am capable of offering to others?”
That advice isn’t just for the students: I ask myself the same questions on a regular basis.
As a creative-minded person yourself, |NAME|, I invite you to do the same.
Do what you do with a sense of presence.
Understand why you are building a body of work—one that doesn’t necessarily have to take the form of a portfolio.
Make a deliberate statement about how you apply what you know, and what you give a damn about (http://thinkitcreative.com/blog/six-ways-to-remain-creative-and-passionate-about-getting-things-done/) as you solve problems. That’s what presence is.
It’s not about gaining praise or approval of others.
It’s about having an adult-level understanding about yourself, what you are capable of and what you might want to explore as you live deeper into your life.
Understand: self-examination does not reveal answers that are static. We change. So too does our depth of knowledge and our methods. Be ready to update on an ongoing basis whatever form it is that you choose to showcase your body of knowledge.
I like to think that this is what Marcus Aurelius was getting at when he reminded himself in his journal some 2,000 years ago: “Existence flows past us like a river: the ‘what’ is in constant flux, the ‘why’ has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what’s right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us–a chasm whose depths we cannot see.”
Very best, Patrick
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