Use your humanity to create change

I’m in the middle of reading Seth Godin’s latest book called Linchpin. I highly recommend it. This post is not simply a book recommendation though, I wanted to share a quote from the book that I hope will be both inspiring and through-provoking. Here’s what he says:

Everyone, every single person, has been a genius at least once. Everyone as winged it, invented, and created their way out of a jam at least once.

If you can do it once, you can do it again.

Art, at least art as I define it, is the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person. How and where you that are is a cultural choice in the moment. No one wrote novels a thousand years ago. No one made videos thirty years ago. No one Twittered poetry three years ago.

There’s no doubt that certain sorts of are are easier to create. A warm smile to a stranger on an airplane at the right moment is an artistic endeavour that’s fairly easy for most of us to muster. Directing an Academy Award-winning film, on the other hand, is reserved for a select few. I’ll accept the fact that great novelists are born and made. But I don’t believe that you need to be an outlier to be an artist.

I’m not so interested in pushing you to become a brilliant filmmaker. I’m very passionate about exploring why you are so afraid about creating art that is actually within your grasp.

It is so easy to see ‘art’ as something that others do. How often do we all hear people – ourselves – say, ‘I’m not an artist’? Who says so?

Why not take some time this week to think about the ways in which you are an artist? What are the ways in which you could use your humanity – your passions, skills, abilities, and strengths – to create positive change in the people around you?

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Tagged as: Change, Life, Passion