We were all equals on the Internet, if for only a moment.

The online world has become a vast universe to navigate, but it wasn’t always this way. With AI content and bots farms trolling on social media sites, the better parts of humanity exists obscured by the worst parts of humanity. But back in the OG-days of blogging, we saw and were seen in a way we cannot even imagine today. It was powerful to dialog with a big-cat CEO on Twitter, experiencing interactions with people who previously lived behind hardened gates. We were, but for a few moments, all equal. Now, we fight algorithms to even see our family on our social media platforms.

My point is this. It used to be super amazing to be online. Now, what once was an equalizing community has turned into an addiction to scalable attention-grabbing power. Al things are binary. You are red or blue. There is no gray, no blur, no nuance. Gore dwarfs any friendly friction faced online. One friend of mine who became very popular online, perfectly set himself up to live on this newer platform. He once said to me, “Rich, I want my blog to be a train wreck so people can’t look away.” So, while some of us debated our personal and professional thoughts, he added videos of his cut thumb. Reality TV was bound to reach the blogosphere rather rapidly. Our media consumption has always matched human nature in this regard. Sensational content turns our necks! But at what cost?

I experienced real-life friendship, exciting places and surprising hope.

What and whom do I celebrate? There was a time when fellow blogger friends prayed for me while I waited for a possible cancer diagnosis. I didn’t overtly post about it, but friends showed up for me. Can an online community be real? Relationships among bloggers grew from online chats to in-person friendships. Over the years we found each other at conferences and coffeehouse meetups. When major life events were in play, people whom I had never met reached out to offer thoughts and prayers. One of these was the mother of my blog friend, Ben. From her computer in volatile Gaza, while working serving Palestinians, she offered an encouraging letter with prayers for my health. Good news arrived in two parts. First, I didn’t have cancer. Second, I had many people praying for me.

I also celebrate places. My first trip across the world came through blogging, or because of it. My friend Dan, a non-profit leader, invited me to come to Africa and learn about what they were doing in Ethiopia. I brought a microphone and my iPhone 5 to document videos and interviews of their humanitarian work. Did you know you could post online from the jungle back in 2010? Ethiopia has amazing cell phone coverage. As I entered hospitable huts and warmed beside campfires full of songs, I realized the online world carried me somewhere magical, compelling me to share what I saw with others. The world can grow smaller. And even with the dark sight of babies struggling with AIDS, hope was in view, too.

Real people are on the other side of our screens!

Thank you for being a part of the journey. On Substack, I feel like this post is a return to my Typepad, LiveJournal, or Blogspot days. Why? I still believe that there is a real person on the other side of my laptop screen. Because I have discovered the positive from the past, I hope we go beyond more volume in the echo chamber and discover dialog that forms connections, even friendships. Those benefits have fueled twenty years of blogging, social media, and two books. Together, let’s see what happens next.

Keep growing, and keep creating!

PS. Just for old-school charm, why not add a comment!?

FIND ME ON SUBSTACK!

I used to write and mail old-fashioned letters. In fact, those letters bonded my relationship with the young woman I eventually married. Our correspondence helped us feel seen. She sent mixtape cassettes with songs curated for me, arriving in pastel and perfumed envelopes. My dreary boarding house bedroom brightened as I opened each one. And there were many. But here is what made those letters real. All the correspondence back and forth only came to life when the 1800 miles disappeared. There is nothing like being physically present with people. No amount of snail mail or online social networking bonds us like a meal, a walk, or chat over a fire pit. Being seen requires proximity.

But do we still know what it’s like to be seen? I don’t mean social media likes or comments or people noticing you at work when you arrive with new shoes or a haircut. The kind of seen I am talking about is who we are inside our own skin, unfiltered by fear of what people may say or think. Each of us edits our embarrassing parts from public view. We are uncomfortable when those parts crop up too much, so we prefer the distraction of media, or anything that keeps us from contemplating the wounds our lives acquire from daily living. 

Should we self-reflect more? Maybe the traumas of childhood frighten us. They lay underneath, peeking through the facades and fables we construct to hide. These hurts often drive achievement, so we learn early in life how to channel pain rather than feel it. Dehumanizing as it may be, we keep plugging along. Every so often, the feeling arises that it would be much better to be seen. Fully seen. But then we get busy, pushing aside such thoughts. It is no wonder we feel alone amid the crowd.

Artists and creative people can teach us how to be seen because we learn much about who we are when we create. Such things as songs, stories, and paintings reveal much about us, regardless of why we make them. When we create, we simply use the surrounding material right in front of us. The failures, along with the wins, all fill the same reservoir. We can’t help this. And we shouldn’t, either. The messiness of artistic endeavors proves our humanity. The faults and cracks in humans make for great art. Honesty about our humanity impacts others more than manipulated craft. One is art. The other is propaganda. One is analog. The other is digital, AI, and cut and pasted.

I love this passage in the New Testament when the writer proves his authority with something better than cold artifacts. “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all…written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets that are human hearts.” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3). No ink, no stone tablets, and no social media posts with likes and shares. People are the proof of who we are. And to know this we must be present and seen.  

So, being seen means you carry with you the investment of those around you. If they are the real deal, your inner life will reflect it. When you see negativity and self-doubt, where does that come from? What our creativity does is read these letters. Our letters. We are living letters. And we tell heart-published stories when we make things. So, keep creating…

PS. Please check out my new book, MINDBLOWN, to help you find and grow your creativity.

Mark, a good friend and a UK expat living in the Middle East, came to visit me several years ago. After years of spending a week or so together at conferences, this was a rare treat to finally host him. The time we spent together on my backyard patio and at the local neighborhood pub was one of the joys of my life. After we enjoyed pizza and beer at the pub, I introduced my well-traveled friend to another American delicacy. Kentucky Bourbon. Mark schooled me on the differences between the simple taste of bourbon in comparison to the complexity of Scotch whiskey. But he made another comparison that I’ll never forget.

“Rich, I don’t understand why Americans don’t talk with each other. You have two political parties. In my local pub, I might have three or four parties represented and yet we sip pints and enjoy each other.”

Besides being speechless, I’m sure my face looked puzzled. Today, the UK is likely not the same as it was when we had that conversation. But I am positive about this. Our culture here in my beloved country has lost its mind! We’ve splintered into tribes, unable to listen to each other over our own loud loquacious rants. Mark, who lives as an expat, practices interacting with people who might not only disagree with him about politics but who likely have a different faith, ethnicity, and nationality. Wisdom shows us this. It takes mental agility to get along with others.

Quick fixes or shortcuts will fail us.

The rare humility required for an open mind alludes us in a world of quick fixes, hacks, and shortcuts. We often presume progress advances with speed instead of deliberation, collaboration, or evolution. In fact, we prefer revolution over evolution. Bring out the guillotine! The mob stands ready for change. But they aren’t ready to think, let alone listen. None of us are, if we are honest about it.

Certainty, authority, and power allow the bulldozer to flatten the forest and push people further apart from each other. In our world, we don’t have time to listen. We feel slighted by the system, too weary to empathize in the aftermath of a pandemic while we live within a world of vociferously angry victims. But, what if the answer, the truth, the hope lies within nuance rather than certainty? What if the pervasive ambient ruckus distracts us from hearing our own deeper human longings? Without that, we can’t even begin to hear the needs of others.

Certainty is our enemy. Nuance is our friend.

When the heat rises, the best thing we can do is reject the path of least resistance. The scapegoat, the conspiracy theory, the thing in the bushes are all tools of manipulation. As I’ve studied the creative process, the idea of thinking divergently and then bridging back and forth to convergent thinking improves perspective as well as generates more and better ideas. I practice the divergent thought to imagine, empathize, and expand ideas then switch to convergent thought to sort and test the ideas generated. I repeat this, with humility.

To have an open mind is not about compromising my conscience. Rather, it is about seeing myself and other people with all the information available in front of me. It is telling that this way of thinking is called “divergent”—or not normative! Yet, research shows that we must learn to open our minds to change, to imagine, or to see other possibilities. I can be more certain in my lack of having the full picture than in the opposite. Recent research proves that those who are too confident in how they think are susceptible to conspiracies. With such pride, even the most brilliant person is susceptible. It’s not about how smart you are. It’s about how wise.

Your humility makes you wiser than your IQ.

The lesson is this. Be more like my friend, Mark! Listen deeply, sip pints with the opposing political partisan, and humbly open your mind. Nuance, whether in the taste of whiskey or experience of fellow people, requires effort. Patience proves truth. When the stakes are high, we rightly turn to faith. The comfort of faith isn’t in having certain answers for life and the hereafter. It is in the certainty of relationship with our Creator and each other.

Being right is overrated! Being right with each other is underrated. And, experiencing what it’s like to be with our Creator is misunderstood. It’s love not hate. Grace not anger. Kindness not wrath. Hope not despair. Life not death. But am I humble enough to have an open mind?

As a young person at music school, I lived 1800 miles from home. It seemed like a big leap, jumping from High School to accept a full scholarship to a music trade school. Another leap raised me to start as an 18-year-old sophomore. We are taught, especially in the arts, to be inspired and dream big. But to compose a symphony, we must start with a simple motif. The truth is this. It is in the small steps that creative genius arrives. When we make a leap, we either fall into the chasm or pay for it on the other side. You can’t expect to rise too fast. Like good bread making, the dough slowly rises in a little heat. Are you ready for the heat?

I would play through several of Bach’s chorales every single day, among other habits. All of my efforts trained my ear and solidified my composing skills. But this started when I decided that playing piano and learning jazz music theory inspired me more than playing ball or riding my bike. Lessons upon lessons lasting less than an hour added up. I took independent study and as a high school junior, passed the Advanced Placement Music Theory exam. Each hour of study raised a 16-year-old to college proficiency in music theory. What seemed like a leap resulted from small steps, like the bread dough patiently rising in the oven. 

What seemed like a giant leap as I entered music school was an illusion. Reality is not as exciting. It was the incremental consistency of study and the passion to stick with it that catapulted me. Of course, once at a music trade school, you are simply among peers. Talent in music wasn’t rare there. But I earned a few meals from correcting music theory issues on fellow student’s assignments. I also earned the heat of resentment for being the youngest sophomore and youngest pupil around. The rigor of music juries, competition for placement in performing groups, and high expectation from instructors humbled the strongest of us. It took little steps to endure.

In the creative process, all that I have shared is really the underground first steps. We call this the preparation phase. Before I could earn money as a vocalist or pianist, I had to prepare for many years. We take little steps when no one is looking or cares. We likely offend with singing off key at first. In the long run, it is small iterations and improvements that make our creations stand out. Like the many music lessons I endured, our honing of skill gives us the platform to achieve what might look like a leap—at least to those looking from the outside. But creative people know well the truth. 

In Steven Spielberg’s ​The Fablemans​, young Sammy is nearly traumatized by a graphic movie scene of a wreck involving a car and train. Sammy is obsessed with figuring out how the filmmaker created the scene. With some effort and many failures, he accomplishes reproducing the film’s scene, using the family’s movie camera. I felt like Sammy when I heard a girl in middle school sing at chapel. Hormones made me notice her, but when she sang, I fell in love with singing and quit band to join choir. One, I got to be around the girl. Two, I began trying to reproduce the act of singing—the kind that moved people like it moved me. Sammy became a filmmaker. I became a singer-musician. And it wasn’t the leap or sudden launch that got either of us there. It was all in steps no one ever cares to mention, celebrate, or count. 

What small steps can you take for your next project, business, or dream?