... you have to keep walking around in the rain. Yes, it happened. I finally saw Ira Glass in person. And it was everything I hoped it would be.
The voice, the delivery, the subtlety, and the humanity of it all. He shared what he’s learned. How to tell a story. How to interview kids. How musicals molded him. How to speak Spanish on a road trip. And while I absolutely appreciated his final act where he boldly defended the fact-based media and laid out the current situation where America finds itself fighting for truth against a media ecosystem out to destroy reality whenever possible, my favorite part was about creativity.
Specifically, how it’s normal to be bad before you’re good. I can relate. When I started out in design I was fucking terrible. Sure, I could draw a page layout with a pencil, pica pole, and some grid paper in about 10 seconds, but design? Creating something new that’s moving and beautiful? Nope. No idea how to do that. Drop shadows, bevel & emboss, outer glow. Just fucking terrible.
Now I’m better. I’ve done some pretty solid stuff and I would consider my design work good. But still, it’s a process. And on my journey to getting good and looking out to what’s next, I took comfort in a thing Ira said about creative work as you get older. That if you’re lucky, it stays hard. I like that a lot. If the work just gets easier and easier that means it gets less and less interesting. And boredom, well that’s killed about every single endeavor I ultimately stopped doing.
Ah Ira, you’re a gem. America is a much, much better place for your presence in it. Carry on ...
