Geography is No Longer Our Master ~ Austin Kleon

Chapter 7 of Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon, is all about how the internet has allowed us to go places that we would never have been able to previously. It is aptly called Geography is No Longer Our Master. I find this true in so many different ways. With just a few key strokes you can visit far off lands that before you would have just dreamt about. You are able to see an almost endless supply of pictures from exotic lands that you would have had to search out in multiple books in the library before. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE libraries and books (I have a huge library myself) but when the internet is in your house and at your fingertips, the world is now that open book.

Steal Like An Artist

 While reading I came across something the author said about "Your brain gets too comfortable in your everyday surroundings." At first thought I was thinking "Isn't that what I want? A nice comfortable place to live and work in." But then, on further thinking I realized that the author is talking about when you can get in a rut or your work can become stagnant. That's when you need to mix it up a bit. Go somewhere different. Meet new people and try new foods. Step out of your comfort zone for a while. Austin also thinks that everyone should move to a different place. He says "You can always come back, but you have to leave at least once." I guess I could say that I've done that. I went from living in a small farm town to moving to a bigger college town where multiple cultures abound. The only people I knew here were my husband and son. I felt out-of-place and a bit lonely. But, to be honest, it was the best thing I could have done! I made new friends, I love the area, and I started a new career - Graphic Design.

The author mentions that he grew up "in the middle of a cornfield in southern Ohio" but now lives in Texas. He thinks that most of the people who grew up where he did, Texas would be as different as Mars. I feel kind of like this when I go back to where I grew up. Everything is so much different than where I live now, and it seems like an entire different lifetime when I lived there. Your life will be so much richer if you add more experiences like these to it. So, I travel and then I go back to where it all began and see the differences. The following quote from the book kind of sums it up nicely.

Steal Like An Artist

I read that it helps to live around interesting people. I also agree with this statement. I love having friends in all different walks of life. I have a lot of friends that are students, but I also have friends that are lawyers, engineers, artists, physical therapists, psychologists, doctors, homemakers, dentists, you get the idea. I can't even list all of the professions! I also have the privilege to have friends of varying nationalities. All of these things help to enrich my life. I learn so much from all of them and hope that they, in turn, learn something from me, too. I volunteer for different things at my church, school, and with Boy Scouts, and get to meet even more people this way. Every new person brings new experiences and these can spark new ideas and creativity. I even find myself bouncing project ideas of different people to get their perspective to see if they might spark an idea that I might not have thought about previously. So, keep meeting new people and making new friends. You never know who might give you that next great idea!

In closing this week, I would like to backtrack to a previous blog entry. This would have been about 6 weeks ago, and the blog entry was "Read, Read, and Read Some More." I posted some books that were on my "to read" list. I'm happy to say that I was able to get one of them last weekend and read it in 2 days. No, it's not a little 30 page thing, it had 322 pages. I just love reading. I devour books, and when I get a book that I am really enjoying, it's hard for me to put it down. This book is part of a series by Karen White - The Tradd Street Series. So far, there are 4 books in the series: 

The one I just finished reading is Return to Tradd Street. I own all of them and have read the first one multiple times and will re-read the others, too. It is a series set in Charleston, SC present day. It does mention some true historic things in it, but is almost completely fiction. It is about a woman, Melanie Middleton who is a real estate agent who happens to also be able to see and hear ghosts. This makes life in a town as old as Charleston quite interesting and sometimes scary. She has some great friends, some antagonists, a romantic lead (or two) and a mother who also has "the gift". Her mother is also able to get complete "stories" from items when she touches them, thus leading her to wear gloves most of the time. In this book, Melanie is pregnant and dealing with her everyday life and some troubles that pop up along the way. There are some people causing trouble along with some dearly departed doing the same. I don't want to ruin it for anyone, so I won't go into any more detail. I had been waiting to get my hands on this one and can't wait for the next book in this series. It was a really good read!