The Persistent Idealist

In days to come, countless Atlantans and Georgians will share their memories of Harry West (1941-2014). These are mine.

When you put an idealist in with a bunch of prosaic or formulaic thinkers, it's the idealist who inevitably takes a beating. Why? Because his vision is more imaginative, reaches for more, and involves a deeper investment of hope.

Harry West passed away yesterday morning (7/14/14). Back in the 90s, he'd worked so hard on an Atlanta metro region initiative called Vision 2020 that now, so near its threshold, my first reaction was to wish he could be around to see the year 2020 roll up.

"Don't let go of what you believe in"

He had a great deal of persistence — I'm talking superhuman levels. By his early 30s, he'd reached the top of his profession: his job as director of the Atlanta Regional Commission often looked to me about as much fun as cat-herding: a great many people were committed and enthused, eager to help the Region, but some of the cats were also lazy, complacent or ineffectual; and there were a few whom my daughter's generation would describe as outright "haters" — corrupt, self-serving people who'd rather put energy into smashing down someone else's efforts rather than lead, follow, or get out of the way. Harry seemed to bear it all with typical resilience, once telling me, "Do your thing while others do theirs, but don't let go of what you believe in."

In the years I served on a couple of his committees, I watched some of these regional movers and shakers pluck off low-hanging fruit, after which they'd spend a great deal of time slapping each other's backs. To sustain a vision of enormous scope and depth during such bouts of self-congratulation had to have felt absurd or crazymaking, but ... he must've fixed his gaze on that distant prize, those faraway shores. Once when I was burning at the edges over petty baloney from a detractor, he said, "I know you're fed up, but just remember, it takes everyone to make the world go 'round." I've never forgotten that one because it's been the hardest to learn.

Friends and solutions — and listening

More than anyone else I've ever met, Harry had thousands of friends, not just in Atlanta but all over the country — governors, city mayors, politicians, local celebs, journalists, nonprofit directors, foundation presidents, corporate leaders, and grassroots activists and volunteers. The latter group alone was incredibly diverse. Inevitably, no matter where he was, someone would walk up and introduce themselves, remind him of where and how they'd met, and each of them were from very different walks of life and world views.

He never stood on pomp or circumstance (I once left a meeting with him and as I was heading out, then-mayor Bill Campbell was strolling in)....If you had an idea, a vision for aiding the greater good, he would find ways to support your efforts. When I met him I was in my 30s, fresh out of a divorce with a small child, and all I knew was that if child care was a formidable concern for me in the English-speaking middle class, then refugee/immigrant parents in Atlanta's DeKalb county urgently needed safe, affordable child care solutions, just to survive. He saw a civic imperative in this, which meant a great deal to me.

He was also a very good listener. Deep in conversation, he'd lower his head, his chin would sink into his chest, and you might be wondering if he'd dozed off — until he responded with something that not only perfectly encapsulated everything I'd said but asked an astute question to help advance the ideas behind it. "As you get to know me," he said once, "you'll find I like to listen better than to talk." There's wisdom in that.

Plenty of people will step up to tell you why a thing can't be done, but he was one of those who looked for solutions in everything. As a younger man, he must've realized that durable civic improvements are not made in great glorious strides, but in inconspicuous, painstaking increments, each requiring tremendous patience. And perseverance.

Because I did not move in his world, he knew my humor tended to dry and irreverent when observing it, and we shared a few "inside" jokes. Many times someone would say or do something in a meeting that would set me off, and I'd wind up biting my lip to keep from laughing out loud. Then I'd glance over at Harry, sitting in one of the staff chairs of the conference room, and find that he was already anticipating my glance, a broad grin splitting across his face, and when I crossed my eyes or made a face in exasperation, his shoulders would begin shaking with silent laughter.

Thinking beyond

He enjoyed gardening and reading. Given the amount of work-related reading he had to do, he said the last 30 minutes of his day were devoted to something he wanted to read for personal pleasure. When I finished writing my first book, I told him, "The impossible thing has been done!" and he was very kind: "You have finished a book!" he repeated.

Finally, this: as a kid growing up in Calhoun, GA, he said he liked listening to the town's leaders talking about "what was going on." The fire chief, police chief, mayor, and bank president, standing near the firehouse, talking things over: What had caused that pot-hole on a nearby street, and how should it be fixed? ... How would weather affect nearby farm crops? ... Who was mad at his neighbor, and why? ... I'm guessing he realized the dark and humorous fullness of life through listening in on those conversations.

I loved the generosity of his ideas, and feel sad there had not been an opportunity to say a proper farewell. Knowing him taught me the value of persistence — more than that, I tend to value idealists far more, especially among the young. Their visions should not be trampled. The world is filled with people who worship practicality, usually as an excuse to do nothing. They look no further than the easy, low-hanging fruit, but people like Harry think about the world beyond the orchard. If it takes everyone to make the world go 'round, more than ever we need idealists and visionaries who can tell us that our most fantastic dreams are entirely possible.

Good bye, Harry. I will miss you.

Toybox Crucible

Conventional wisdom: "Don't politicize your blog" — but you know what? Our workplaces do not exist in a vacuum. And I am sick of personality-disordered pundits and self-ordained "moral compasses" enriching themselves by preaching hate, fear, and intolerance. So this post is not about design or marketing, soft skills or leadership, not about print sales or optimizing customer service. This is about being American. This is about being human.

We take empathic selfies holding up little signs that say #bringbackourgirls but there are xenophobic "patriots" at the border with bigger signs declaring "return to sender" — and threatening to shoot children — as if we Americans have had nothing to do with the turmoil of Central America. Boy, have they got it wrong.

The murderous Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13 or MXIII) is to Central America what the Boko Haram is to Nigeria, and where did MS-13 get its start but in the streets of Los Angeles, a product of failed U. S. drug enforcement policies and practices in the 1980s. In deporting those LA gang members back to El Salvador, we merely transplanted the problem. In the 1950s the CIA-assisted overthrow of Guatemala's legally elected Jacob Arbenz opened up decades of dictatorships that led to the genocide of over 100,000 Guatemalans. In our self-certainties, puffed up on American exceptionalism, we have contributed to the violent forces in these nations, and we are now paying that price. For example, earlier this year Atlanta Safe Streets enforcement caught up four rampaging MS-13 thugs and sentenced them to life for terrorizing Atlanta neighborhoods — so yes, our "borders" have long been compromised by more than hungry frightened children. MS-13 alone has over 10,000 "foot soldiers," a stockpile of serious weaponry, and operate within at least three dozen U.S. states. They're now international.

Thousands of Central American children will no doubt be sent back, much to the elation of our self-ordained "border guards," but they'll be returning to lives of chaos and constant danger, either as collateral damage of organized crime activity, or recruited into one of the local gangs.

The homicide of children is a good indicator of violence levels in any country. Honduras has an extremely high murder rate: the city of San Pedro Sula may be "murder capital" of the world, averaging three murders per day. From 1998-2010, over 6,000 children/youth under the age of 23 have been murdered in Honduras as the result of organized crime activity, 61% of those under the age of 18. MS-13 starts recruiting at age 10, graduating members from lookouts and mules to drug dealers and hit men. Loyalty has to be continuously proven and disobeying orders or "turning rat" is punishable by death. In 2012 El Salvador, nearly 1,200 women and girls were the victims of sexual assault, a quarter of them having witnessed the assault of another woman in their home. In 2011 Guatemala, 437 kids were murdered, and 834,000 kids live and work in unsafe or inadequate conditions. (World Vision reporting)

These stats don't include the unquantifiable cost of millions of children living too precariously to benefit from a complete education. If we don't address it within our time, in a transnational collaboration with the "sending countries," we'll be facing generations more of this. We can make a strong start by confronting and prosecuting the "coyote" organizations that exploit and profit from these kids.

These Central American kids have not come here to freeload off our wealth and good will. They just want to survive. This problem has been gaining critical mass for years, we have been part of its genesis, and we are now faced with a moral crucible. This transcends party politics re illegal immigration. As exhausted as our entitlement systems are purported to be, we Americans still do not live in a country where calling for help entails yet more threat of danger from corrupt and violent first responders.

We cannot be a nation that embraces both #bringbackourgirls and "return to sender"; it's a hypocrisy, given that for over 200 years we've hung out a shingle that says we're a safe harbor for those fleeing violence and persecution. No more Voyage of the Damned stories conveniently tucked away as footnotes in our history books: we need to land on the right side of history with this one.

The black-and-white photo shows two German-Jewish children on the ill-fated S. S. St. Louis, whose journey to Miami and Cuba was dubbed "Voyage of the Damned." Although close enough to see the lights of Miami, the St. Louis was denied — gripped as they were by anti-Semitism and xenophobia, both Cuba and the U. S. refused to help the refugees of Nazi Germany. The ship was returned across the Atlantic. Although a handful of European nations took in some of the passengers, hundreds more perished in the Holocaust.

The Life of a Creative, Part 4 (Why persistence counts)

Author and former literary agent John Hodgman is talking purely about the life of a writer, but I like what he says about brilliance and persistence.

The unconscious life is not worth living. A creative has to understand what he knows in a truth-seeking way, and be willing to maintain a daily practice — to pitch ideas and samples, to be present enough to perform, to simply persevere.

Amateurs built the ark; professionals, the Titanic. Speaking only for myself, assuming I've got a couple good decades left, I don't want to be dying and thinking, "Thirty years ago...I could've tried that." Everyone starts out as a novice, a rookie. The world is filled with talented amateurs who give up too soon.

Persistence, not talent, will carry you further. I had a professor who said, "Talent is just indication of potential. What do you have after that?"

Most people love the perceivable assumptions of "the creative life" — the supposed irresponsibility and outspokenness — but I'm here to tell you, being a creative is one of the most responsible, rigorous things you can be. Most people don't want to do the work, because it doesn't fall into conventional work hours, it's not always "billable," and it's subject to criticism from everyone and his brother. Life is filled with a thousand necessary tasks and distractions, and nobody is blamed for submitting to them (especially where child-rearing is concerned). Harder to understand why anyone would acquiesce to a life of constant effort and repeated rejections. (I'm thinking of my friends who are painters and poets and jazz musicians.)

So...write your book or magnum opus. Go back to school for a poetry class and fill notebooks with your own sonnets. Take up sculpture or quilting or photography, and see the world in new dimensions. Relearn something you once loved and let slip away.... It may take years to master, but the time will pass anyway. Seek out constructive criticism, and make a friend of rejection. Rejection is a form of discomfort, and discomfort is temporary. Any pain you feel lasts 90 seconds, and then it dissolves into a new insight, a new lesson. There are more reasons to persist than to quit, and it will be an adventure. Good luck to you.

#noregrets #dietrying

The Life of a Creative, Part 3 (Ultimate Freedom)

In 1964, when Rita Schwerner and Andy Goodman's parents went to see LBJ after their loved ones went missing in Mississippi, the President knew he was in a for a tough time, and he was right. Rita was confrontational: "This is not a social call, Mr. President. You need to help find my husband." But despite having few answers, LBJ at least acknowledged their pain and met them where they were....

Dozens of parents lost their first-graders in one of the worst acts of violence this country has seen since the 1927 school bombing in Bath, MI, and most of our elected politicos treat them as if they're kooks and loose cannons, unworthy of a meeting. (Bereaved Isla Vista dad Richard Martinez has been called a "media whore"). Today on talk radio an old geezer angrily referred to the Sandy Hook parents as "snakes" for trying to "weaken gun rights." 

But what do you expect these parents to do? Losing a child is brutal enough. Losing a child to a preventable act of violence is bound to turn a parent into an activist. You don't take it lying down; you make it your life's mission to prevent other similar losses. And where is the compassion that Americans are so famous for? Sandy Hook parents will feel a sharp, fresh grief every day of their lives. In defending gun rights, we've taken to denigrating these bereaved parents. So is it all about The Gun now?

A gun is not this country's ultimate symbol of freedom — if it is, then we're in a very sorry condition. Even the most deprived concentration camp inmates knew, the one thing that can't ever be taken from you is your ability to think, to choose your thoughts and reactions. The one thing that can't be taken from us is freedom of thought, the ability to attain an education, shape opinion and policy, participate in public discourse, to form ideas apart from the herd. Or to disagree — and still enact compassion. 

(Photo above: On April 11, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson signed a bill that made it a crime to interfere with civil rights workers and to cross state lines to incite a riot.)

The Life of a Creative, Part 2 (What do creatives need?)

Most people make a common mistake: they assume creativity is a well belonging to a chosen few. (Plagiarists and copycats shrug it off — what's the harm in borrowing a bucket of water from your well? Will it be missed? You still have plenty left).

Creativity is not a well but a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it gets. (By that thinking, people who constantly "borrow" wind up with flaccid creative muscles).

To keep those muscles going strong, creatives need an environment filled with the following:

Good listeners. Because creativity is the world of ideas, creatives need alert, open-minded listeners who understand conceptual thinking and will suspend judgment even if they don't fully understand creative processes. These are folks who don't just get off on the special effects; they also appreciate a great backstory. Creatives like to brainstorm, play with words and imagery, follow through on "what if?" imaginings... It's fun to bounce ideas off one another. There's nothing more flattening than to discuss the curiosities that drive you to create, only to have that other person tune out, or interject, "You know what? You should do portraits of CEOs. Bet each one would fetch you a good price," or "Why do you always deal in such dark subjects? Why not bright, peppy, colorful things? Those make me happy!"

Opportunities for transformative, not just transactional work. Of writing, Lawrence Kasdan said, "Being a writer is like having homework for the rest of your life." Writers try to maintain a daily writing practice, often keeping more than a couple book ideas going, and if they're not hammering out the first draft to one, they're making research notes on another, or scouring newspapers for fresh story ideas. That said, creatives maintain a daily practice of thinking beyond.

Sure, there are creative jobs where you can turn off the computer and never think about it until 9AM the next day, but most creative challenges entail continuous thinking and planning. That stream of experimental thought optimizes the birth of good ideas. What appears to be down time (brooding, puttering, doodling, daydreaming to music) is in fact a mind feverishly at work, weighing options, testing theories, scanning an idea from a variety of angles, asking, "What if...?" The transformation begins in the process that yields the idea. Remember, creativity is first and foremost a problem-solving skill.

A conscious life, based on authenticity of risk and effort. To be creative is to analyze, (re) interpret, depict, magnify, and exalt reality — whatever reality means to the individual — to comfort the distressed, and to startle the complacent. Creativity yields not only a new way of looking at things, but also a call to action. Individuals who are more committed to convention, to garnering widespread acceptance, will have a harder time getting past formulaic, derivative, "first shelf" ideas. Literally, they have nothing new to say.

Creatives don't just inhabit the visual and performing arts: they work in finance, STEM industries, blue collar sectors — all the places where one might assume a deficit of  creativity. Fact is, creativity belongs to everyone, resides in everyone, so is there anything on this list that wouldn't be important to each and every one of us?

Next post: The only thing you need can't be taught.

The Life of a Creative, Part I

A few years ago a grocery checkout lady saw that I was buying crayons and remarked, "My son is only three but he is so creative. He's already learned to outline the things he'll color before coloring them in." And I thought this was rather sad, for both the child and the mother, because what she described is the antithesis of creativity.

I had a number of talks this weekend with friends about that rarified thing, "the creative process." Much of my energy was spent debunking commonly held misconceptions about that process and how it affects the life of a person who's expected — and paid to be — as creative as possible. Here are a couple points:

• Photo-realism is not the pinnacle of creativity. Sorry, it's not. It's just photo-realism. To have a child who can draw something that looks "just like it does in real life!" indicates some pretty good hand-eye coordination, but that's about it. To have a child who's scrupulously coloring within the lines means you might have a meticulous kid, or someone who'll develop rigid, anal-retentive tendencies later. This is because...

• Creativity is about the world of ideas. We're not talking about just visual or performing arts now, but about a mental muscle that needs to work out each day in order to excel. This means being able to imagine things, to envision, and to field questions that start with phrases like "What if...?" My clients don't need me to come back with the most avant-garde, outlandish ideas, but brainstorming encourages over-reach, so keeping my personal "visual vocabulary" stimulated and replenished means I can come up appropriate ideas faster. This is because...

• Creativity is a problem-solving process, not a lifestyle. If you're thinking of creatives as people in black turtlenecks or boho clothing, living a freewheeling approach to life and deadlines, you're only considering a fraction of the overall. Nobody ever gets paid to miss deadlines or not solve problems. Someone like me may not yearn to read balance sheets for fun, but my so-called "artist's life" is very much determined by project deadlines, client priorities, and budget constraints. In fact, some of my best work came from accommodating all such things — finding "simple but significant" solutions (thanks, Mr. Draper!) without lots of time and budget. This is because...

After 35 years in the streams and tributaries of design, marketing, course development, and fiction writing, I have a fairly good idea of how my personal "creative process" scopes out, and how to manage it, which includes understanding what I need in order to stay creative.

Next post: What do creatives need?

My Dad (Father's Day 2014)

My dad speaks fluent, precise English but never felt totally sure of it, so from the age of 10 I've been editing his business memos ("Lucy, when you have time, will you have a look at this?") This got easier after email! 

He began his career in radio broadcast and got to interview all sorts of people (the most famous were I.M. Pei and Bobby Kennedy); but I was in my teens before I realized he had a lot of fans in Asia-Pac who listened to his programs out of Voice of America and (if they lived in Communist countries) had their fan letters smuggled out to reach him at the VOA. Some said his programs made their lives bearable. Can you imagine?

In the 1980s he and Mom went to China to help VOA establish their Beijing bureau. Mom got a job within the American embassy. One day some Iranian students protested the embassy and when all the employees were gathered at the windows, nervously watching Marines contain the trouble at the gates, one of her colleagues said, "Hey, Jean, isn't that your husband down there?!" Mom looked and — yup, yup — there was Dad, on the other side of the barbed wire, interviewing the students, asking why they were demonstrating.

He later took a producer's job with the State department, leading international documentary film crews across America to cover topics from "public education" and "public health" to "the transcontinental rail" and "TV heroes." Along with helping them interview celebs (Bob Hope, Shirley Temple Black, Stephen Cannell), he also took these crews to public parks and grocery stores and shopping malls, to tell them, "Americans aren't like the people you see on TV shows like 'Dallas' or 'Dynasty.' They worry about the same things as other people on the planet." When he retired at age 69 ("65 means nothing!"), then-vice president Al Gore sent him a letter of thanks, but we had a feeling he wasn't yet done.

And he wasn't. He's spent the past 14 years working freelance for the State department, still leading film crews on "co-op" assignments with our government. Now he's in his early 80s and last week he asked me to edit his "real" letter of resignation. I know my mom's relieved because she's worried for his health each time he traveled with these crews, but I felt a big lump in my throat checking that "swan song" letter. 

On the other hand, his way is how I'd like to live/work — "65 means nothing!" — just keep going until I know it's time to stop. Everything I learned about the value of work came from my dad.

(Photo: When Dad started with the VOA, John F. Kennedy was president of the United States. The Kennedy campaign had worried about their candidate's Catholicism. Back then it would've been unheard of for a black man to become president; in the span of his career, that's come about, and my father's had that headline clipping in his office since 2007).