Ephemera Jan.2

(Creativity and Motivation)

Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter, babaturan! (Swahili for “friends”).

“You have to really believe not only in yourself; you have to believe that the world is actually worth your sacrifice.”
—Zaha Hadid, Architect

Ephemera

The weather is always imminent, hanging over us that changeling sword of Damocles, yet we must enjoy and carry on with our work, all the more urgently in fact despite the nothingness, or so it’s said, weighing, bearing down. We strive because of the odds. We must write and be purposeful. We must regain (for those of us who’ve lost it) that urge, that daily hour or two, heck, a ten minute window will suffice to jot ideas, a few sentences or lines, napkin or journal or ink-tattoo. We’ve taken our breaks and January is for perseverance and powering through—line by line if need be—swords, distractions, inclemency, bosses and breaches be cursed—word by word, heave-ho! That’s what it is to be a creative, particularly a writer. Find a way to enjoy the dread, the process; write and craft to ignore the cleaving presence of whatever your source of dread. That’s the elixir of motivation. Write or not to be.

Join us, oh free subscriber, for a full practice and check our sponsor. We’re persisting with you in mind: 3 zines, 3 opportunities, 3 jobs. Art and music to ward off the fabled blades: This week, we look at architect Zaha Hadid’s curving sense of design gathered from a curling set of global influences—toroidal, chic, and distinct. We also explore electronic producer Pavel Dovgal with more worldly eclecticism that nestles nicely into tight, boppy, pop tracks. Also, an article from Harvard Business Review on the elevator pitch (we’re professionals too). Don’t pale. Don’t turn away. Lean into the dread. Learn and love the process (it’s all we have). Creating is its own up-and-down, a singular surface that appears to be dimensional.

Shaping...imagine our core structures as being necessity, but those glorious weight-wielding columns afford more room when buttressed (Cathedrals!). Imagine disguising the load-bearing. Imagine making all kinds of room in the interior of our creations such that art and veneer as well as the applied thought-veneer of our readers becomes preeminent, prominent. Our artist and musician, if we do say so, perform maneuvers akin. Which is to say, plainly, they hide the elements of their work that bear the weight, whether that’s rigid steel columns or chorus and hook. Adornment! They supplant the sense with newness, with ideas that change how we perceive their creations and therefore how we behave in reaction, opening new spaces for thought, for interaction. Rely on our core craft architectures, but, too, attempt to disguise what we’ve done with pleasurable chance-taking; adorn with your style, your theory on artifice. Open the interior spaces of your work for co-authoring and maybe even disguise the hierarchies of meaning-making. Use silk, use verve. Borrow from nature and culture. To sample is to live to enjoy despite the sharp edges of so many sabers.

“Architecture is like writing. You have to edit it over and over so it looks effortless.”
—Zaha Hadid

Keep us curving by a tea!

Rasa syukur!
(Gratitude)

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Dear Readers,

Some Housekeeping Notes: