The Cynical Optimist

A few of my favorite things.

One of my favorite professors once made the accusation, or maybe observation, that I was a cynical optimist. I’m still not sure if that was a compliment or not but I liked it either way. It made sense to me that I could be frustrated by the state of things but still want to try to find beauty and joy in them.

Recently I started trying to write a book called Deep Play that is about embracing curiosity and creativity to become a better listener, communicator, designer and leader. I have loved working on this project and I finally got far enough in to show it to a few people. The response was positive until I got to the commercial side of the equation. Suddenly everyone wanted to know if I was marketable. Not if I had good ideas but did I have a big social media following.

Nope.

In fact I have all but given up on social media. Its not that I don’t like the idea of it. I think its amazing. Its the reality that I don’t love. Before I stepped away I found myself getting annoyed with people I genuinely like and admire because the shear force of the algorithms makes people behave differently. Why would I want to be part of that!?

To get a book published apparently.

This really spun me out. So I started looking for a way to engage with an audience without falling into the trap of chasing likes. What I started to think about was how I could share “a few of my favorite things”. What I want to focus on are things that I connect with intuitively. These things might be simple or obvious but they might also be profound and enlightening. What I want to find are things that matter and make things better because they exist. Maybe that would be a way back into the book itself.

Last year I stumbled into Ren’s world. Certainly it blew me away but part of the joy of it all was that this guy who had struggled so much (I won’t belabor that here but feel free to look him up if you want the whole story) was suddenly blowing up. Not just blowing up but also doing it with a message that was really touching a lot of people. He also happens to be an amazing musician and was doing this all without a commercial machine. Short version is that he went from much loved but barely know busker to a #1 album in the UK over the course of 2023. If you missed all of this then lucky you… I only wish I could hear him for the first time again!

Hi Ren… is a good gateway.

Listening to Ren and hearing his story made me realize that I could put things out there. I wouldn’t have to have an agenda and if I wanted to be free, I would have to do it because I wanted to and because I enjoyed it. To do this I wanted to find a format that would be occasional, short enough to enjoy in the moment but deep enough to actually matter more than a meme. Some will be new things, some will be old but all of them will be optimistic because in a world that makes it easy to be cynical I want to share the things that still make me an optimist. If you enjoy it, then great and if it doesn’t resonate all the time, that’s ok too. I just hope that some of these will help you be more of an optimist too.

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