Last week I was surprised when a journalism student contacted me for a video interview. He told me of his interest in the philosophy of making your life a work of art. He was making a short video for a class project.
How to make your life a work of art is a topic that has interested me for years. In 2017, I wrote a blog post on the topic. https://wp.me/p2uCOu-11Q
Reading my post after a Google search piqued his interest. He contacted me.
My first instinct was to delete the request which came in the form of a comment on the blog post. But, something told me to respond. I remembered my student days and the difficulties that I sometimes encountered when researching topics. I also remembered my strategy of saying ‘yes’ to unusual requests to keep me from getting into thinking ruts.
From our email correspondence, I learned that his name was Tyler Ryan. He is a journalism student at the College of the North Atlantic. The request was for a practical newsroom class that involved a weekly publication of print, video and audio pieces for the school paper. I agreed to a Zoom interview.
After a year of relative social isolation, the 30 minutes we spent speaking with each other proved refreshing. We connected on many levels including, of course, our discussion about different ways to make one’s life a work of art. He recorded the session and edited it to a 2.5-minute video clip. He also interviewed another subject for the project.
With permission, he shared this link to the video clip to include in my blog post, https://t.co/lU82IByE7b
My online encounter with Tyler reminded me of how often we tend to interact only with people who are similar to us in terms of background, age, and social interests.
Older people are more likely to have infrequent contact with young adults. We forget how much energy and curiosity they exhibit. What a loss!
If we are sincere about living with a bigger purpose it’s important to interact with a diverse group of people. They offer new ideas and new energy. What good fortune that I decided not to delete the request!
Thanks for reading this post. I hope you watch and enjoy Tyler’s fun video clip!
Thanks for sharing and encouraging others to make this short journey a work of art.
It is a short journey! We can enjoy the ride and make the most of every day. Living well means something different in each of our lives as we honour the unique choices for how to ‘make’ art.
Be well — and, live well!
Jeanette
I always love reading your blog. Today’s topic really connected with me, and I am inspired to think more about life as a “work of art”. Thank you for sharing. It was a gift to see you and to hear your voice in the video.
Robin, from your Facebook posts, I know you make all kinds of art with your life — how you live, what you admire, and what you make with your hands. I’m happy to know that the post ‘spoke’ to you. Seize the day!