When I look around me, this is what others seem to mostly be doing...
I strongly believe in this...
and I make a point of always doing it wherever I might be...
The world is far more fascinating when you actually take the trouble to look.
My friend, and sometimes collaborator, Michael Wolff and I have been on this planet for 150 years. During that time, we have clocked up five marriages and thirteen children between us.
So the topic of love, soul mates and lifelong relationships has taken up a lot of conversation over the years. And we have both come to the same conclusion. Michael has beautifully summed it up here in this heartfelt piece of prose.
FALLING
I’ve never cared for the expression “Falling in love” It’s always sounded to me like some sort of careless accident. Falling’s never a good idea anyway, it nearly always results in pain.
Choosing is an entirely another matter. And even choice can hurt because choosing in matters of love can be flawed and disappointing.
The problem is often a misconception of attraction. I’ve been thinking about attraction and of course I only really understand it from my own point of view. This, I think is how attraction works. It’s an internalised system of matching. From a very early age, probably around 3 or 4, many individuals start cataloguing what they find attractive in others and what repels them. I certainly did.
For example if a little boy of four is smacked around the chops by a curly headed blonde, then that may be it for curly headed blondes forever.
Little by little a catalogue of stereotypical images of attractive people are stored in the brain, they come from pre-erotic and erotic glimpses of people or from films, dreams, books, magazines and a variety of images.
Then as relative maturity arrives we start searching for ‘the one’. We look hopefully and tirelessly at almost everyone we see until we settle for a look-a-like, someone who appears to resemble a stereotype already in our cerebral catalogue.
Instantly we click and fuse the image of the one we’ve just noticed into the one we already have in mind and our hormones and a whole variety of chemicals and electrical impulses start to get busy.
That way we control these images so that who we’ve picked matches what already attracts us and then, through some magical focussing and subconscious superimposition, we fall in love with the perfect image we’ve personified as the person we think we see.
Bingo!
We even impose the attributes we’ve already fantasised about and wished on the images in our catalogue of attractive people and imagine who we now see as the same person.
Then after a chemical flurry of wonderful good times together and happy sexual joy, gradually, and sometimes very gradually, whatever relationship we believe we’re in flexes to reveal the adaptations we’ve had to make until the real person we’ve chosen turns up, and we find their resemblance to what we had in mind is minimal.
How disappointing that can be.
Thank God really meeting people, finding oneself ‘becoming’ in love, and loving a person for who they are is an entirely different, wondrous and delightful cup of very rare tea.
I’ve found that love is really a job. It’s serious undertaking that can bring happiness beyond any dreams or wishes.
The job: to give your partner a greater and richer experience of themselves than they can achieve alone, and then, even harder, to be able to receive the same enriched sense of yourself from them.
I think this is the most beautiful and useful description of a relationship...
“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”
KAHIL GIBRAN
The weekly that enraged and fascinated me in equal measures is no more. Thank you, love and good luck to Lynda Relph-Knight the magazine's long standing editor and all those who went before her.
And counting.
I was giving a talk to a studio a couple of months ago. Someone asked me how I
managed to start my own company – we’re talking 1979 here and Carroll &
Dempsey – I won’t go into all the ins and outs of that time. Too long, I’ll
save it for another time. But it got me thinking about why people leave secure
jobs and launch themselves into the unknown. Conversely why some people never
do, preferring to stay put.
During my life I have had 14 jobs. And although half of them were appalling I
did learn something from each. For example here is a story from 1960 when at 16
I was already on to my third job.
I was working in the City of London at a stockbroker’s office as a lowly clerk.
My task was to keep everyone happy with copious cups of tea and coffee, run
messages, go to the post office and do menial tasks around the office including
the filing - which I hated! The firm was a very antiquated Dickensian operation
still using large handwritten ledgers that went back to the 19th century. At
the end of the each week there would be an enormous amount of filing to do. –
This is a time when file copies were printed via carbon paper onto extremely
flimsy sheets. The filing cabinet was one of those enormous vertical systems
and each file was bulging at the seams. Sliding those flimsy sheets in was
painful and arduous with many of the copies getting crumpled.
Anyway the Friday filing thing went on for months with me getting ever more
depressed until one day I had a brain wave. What if I found an alternative
place to file those fragile flimsy sheets, for example one of the many London
street waste bins? Eureka!
So from then on my visits to the fresh ground coffee and biscuit emporium was
accompanied with a healthy bundle of filing secreted inside my overcoat.
On the journey I would pass a lovely cast iron Corporation of London
waste bin emblazoned with their dragon crest. I’d look right and left, and then
quietly deposit the weeks filing into its welcoming mouth. Perfect.
This became a regular event for months. I was far happier and no one ever asked
for a single copy of a letter so I seemed to be on pretty safe ground. Or so I
thought.
One afternoon while adding the finishing touches to the afternoon tea tray for
the Partners – who occupied the wood paneled inner sanctum of our offices – I
noticed a uniformed bank clerk (as they were then) standing in the reception
area. He was talking in hushed tones to the office manager, while
surreptitiously pointing at me. I noticed him pull out a pile of crumpled
paper. My heart sank.
The messenger departed. The office manager disappeared into the partner’s
quarters clutching the incriminating evidence. Meantime I was having hot and
cold flushes. A few minutes later the door opened and I was ushered in.
There I was standing in this cavernous office in front of Mr. Turner, the
senior partner, like a naughty schoolboy. This is how it went. ‘ Sit down
Michael’. Pause, is finger gently tapping the crumpled pile of filing. ‘Michael
you were witnessed depositing this into a waste bin. What do you have to say?’
Me, quietly spoken and fearing the worst. ‘Yes I did. ‘ Why?’ he asked.
I then launched into the trials and tribulations of the bulging filing
cabinet, the flimsy paper and the frustration of it all, becoming more
emotional with every syllable. I then waited for the inevitable response –
‘You're fired!’ But what actually happened was a revelation. It turned out that
Mr. Turner had, at an earlier stage in his life, written a book about child psychology.
He asked me a number of questions; how did I feel, was I happy, stressed,
fulfilled etc? I answered as honestly as possible – I had nothing to lose.
There was a silence at the end of the interrogation. He lit up his pipe and
engulfed in smoke he opened a draw of his enormous desk and handed me a
five-pound note. ‘Michael I want you to take this to the record store and buy
this album. He had scribbled a title on a piece of paper, which to me looked
like a doctor’s prescription. I hadn’t a clue as to what the record was.
At the store I was handed the album – Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No 2. I
returned to the office and was once again in front of Mr. Turner. He looked
pleasingly at the purchase and said, ‘This is for you’. ‘Now whenever you get feelings
of stress or anxiety I want you to listen to this.’ ‘ And promise me Michael
that you will never do this again’ passing me back the pile of crumpled filing.
Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No 2 was used extensively in David Lean's classic film Brief Encounter 1945
I have never forgotten that event. It taught me to listen to people and look
beyond the surface. I think it helped me become a ‘people person’.
Two other significant events also happened in that year that helped shape my
future. Another office co-worker was a chap with the extraordinary name of
Jasmine Wade. – A rather effete, gangly, swotty ex public school type. He took
a shine to me (perhaps for other reasons? I was far too naive at the time)
Anyway he invited me to the National Film Theatre on the South Bank. I had no
idea what that was.
Aleksandr Nevskiy directed by Sergei Eisenstein, 1938
Ashes and Diamonds directed by Andrzej Wajda 1958
But there I was exposed to the films of Sergei Eisenstein, Andrzej Wajda, and many more of the doyens of alternative cinema. I having only been used to a diet of British and American films. It was a revelation and the beginning of a love of serious cinema. Thank you Jasmine wherever you may be.
In the same year Penguin Books published ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ after being
cleared of obscenity charges at the High Court. There was a W.H.Smith, a short
walk away from the stockbrokers office. On the morning of publication a queue
formed outside the shop.
At last Britain gets its thrills from D.H. Lawrence 32 years after Lady Chatterley's Lover was originally published in Italy
And I - the little sheep that I was at the time – I dutifully joined that queue and shelled out my 12/6p and avidly read the intimate machinations of Mellors and Lady C. A total of 200,000 copies were sold on the first day of publication. But that event got me into reading a far wider range of books and later in my life lead to ten fantastic years as art director at two of London’s leading publishing houses which for me became my university.
I tell you this story because no matter how hopeless you may feel in a job or
no matter how much you may hate it there is always something you can learn and
use in your life.
To leap or not to leap?
But many people tend to just stay put, gently festering in their jobs. To do
this in design is to my mind a bad idea. All of the designers I admire have
been ever curious and moved around like butterflies when younger in order to
gain knowledge and experience, always wanting to work with designers that could
teach them something new. Eventually this leads to the desire to take flight on
your own. An exciting and frightening thing in equal measures.
But many never have the courage or inclination to take this path preferring to stay for years with the same firm, in some cases since graduating. Sadly most end up being competent but lacking in that crucial passion that makes for a really great designer. The work tends to be unexceptional, verging on the bland. But I guess if you don’t have the drive or desire to battle in the creative jungle well, why not just sit back and let others do it.
The main thing in life is to be happy.
I wrote this post in May 20I0. Things have only got worse.
I come from the analogue generation. Television used to be broadcast in 405 lines. Recorded music pressed out on vinyl. Typing was done on a red Olivetti portable and my Olympus OM1 used 35mm role film and of course, the artwork for my design creations were produced in mechanical form using little more than some board a surgical scalpel and some rather smelly Cow Gum.
The digital age changed all that. But only for some. Many of my contemporaries positively bristle with pride at the fact that they don’t get within 3 meters of a Macintosh. In fact, many can hardly work out the functions on a mobile phone let alone the TV remote. Not me, I positively enjoy embracing the new, even though at times it can be a trial. But I have slowly come to realise that I am digitally addicted. We’ve had, shopping, alcohol, drugs, betting, food, and sex addiction. Now we have new temptations - Internet dating, email, Wikipedia, iTunes, Facebook, Google, Skype, eBay, Twitter, gaming, and blogging (Okay I know), etc to become addicted to.
Apparently, the average time a person spends at the computer each day is 6 to 8 hours. So the worst case scenario is almost 3000 hours or 121 days per year. Imagine sitting in front of your Mac for 3 months 24. 7. And designers, because of the nature of their work, spend even more time looking at that seductive screen. Isn’t it a bit crazy? A report published by the Mental Health Foundation highlighted concerns that technology is being used as a replacement for genuine human interaction. Nearly a third of young people questioned for the report said they spent too much time communicating with friends and families online when they should see them in person. This is very sad.
Do you think you might be addicted?
Here’s a simple test. Can you walk past your Mac without checking your email? Likewise can resist those little alerts from your iPhone or Blackberry? Do you text message when having lunch or supper with friends or even in bed? The number of times I have seen people
texting while crossing the road completely oblivious to the dangers. Do you get regular headaches or dry eyes? Do you have any time or space away from your digital gismos? To find out more I have added a link to an addiction test at the foot of this post.
When I got back to my house in Dorset last month I discovered that my Internet was down. It stayed that way for eleven days. For the first couple of days, I had major withdrawal symptoms. But on the third day, all was tranquil and I started to do all those things that I used to do pre Internet. I had more time on my hands to do stuff. One moment I was in the garage cutting up wood and being very macho. The next on my knees planting lavender and being aware that summer was revealing itself all around me - something you miss when glued to that screen. I sorted out old clothes and odds and ends to give to the local charity shop. I reorganised my cupboards. Spoke to friends on the telephone. Read. And also took quite a lot of pleasure from just looking at the sky. It was all good. And I realised what I had been missing, what the digital age had robbed me of. So now I am trying to digitally ration myself in favour of a more analogue way of the world. You should give it a try sometime if only to discover that you are digitally addicted. Oh yes, my internet finally got fixed, after a bevvy of engineers, trucks, and a lot of head scratching. It turned out to be squirrels; they’d gnawed their way through the wires on the telegraph pole. Now that’s what I call analogue.
Think you're addicted? Check HERE
And just as you thought it was safe to go back into the water, along comes this man (alas no longer) with yet another temptation...
I want one!
This is David Chaloner ...
1944 – 2010
But David was also a wonderful poet. He loved words – something we also shared. He brought warmth and happiness into many peoples lives. And even through the difficult struggle with the illness he had to endure over the past two years, he still maintained his sense of humour and optimism. David was a beautiful man who will be bitterly missed by all who knew him. But he leaves behind his work on the printed page, which will keep his sprit alive. Here is one of his evocative poems, set in a typeface that we both shared a great love for, Baskerville…
This is my mother whose birthday it is today...
My first tentative steps in the sea. With my mother at Broadstairs in 1945.
She would have been 93 had she not died seventeen years ago quite suddenly in the street. She went shopping and never reached home. To all of you who have lost a parent you will know what a shock it is to lose part of your history. Although they may have gone they stay in our hearts and minds every day. My mother was an ordinary working class woman who had a tough life and never fulfilled her innate creativity. But she was very inventive in her own way and continued to express herself until her death. In the last years of her life she took up needlepoint. She would spend hundreds of hours sewing small abstract pieces. This is one that she gave to me a few months before she died...
When I look at it I always think of her…
Happy Birthday Mum.
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