Fifteen Minutes

Fifteen minutes is definitely not the amount of time for the discovery happening right now and over the past few days.  While it may not be the most riveting thing in my life, I have been coming out of an inspirational low.  Perhaps inspiration is just playing games with me, like the economy–hell I even compared my inspirational track to one that follows how the economy is doing.  But in fifteen minutes I am going to blog about what I have experienced in the past week.

One of the biggest thoughts is that I am trying to brand myself incorrectly.  Perhaps you may think that I wasn’t trying to brand myself at all.  At least not as a product or something.  But yes, I am in some senses and everyone is trying to brand them self as a product that someone (maybe not you, personally) but someone or some company will need.  Wow, my mind just exploded with a new thought.

Yes, you are a brand.  Brand FirstName LastName.  Brand Seth Nenstiel, or whom ever you are.  We are all going to school or building up a resume to brand ourselves.  But I feel as if I am trying to become a movement, with out having a following.  I am putting a product on a shelf with out a purpose.  That is me right now.  I wan’t to learn.  I can see the finished product but I am not taking the steps to get there.  I want free time and money, but I don’t have a business system in place to do that.

I like business. I can understand it–easily.  It’s too easy.  The concepts. The thoughts.  I could understand most of Calculus 2 before I left high school.  I can appreciate the pome ‘Ennui‘ by Silvia Plath.  This makes me arrogant and makes me want to leave the school and subject at hand for bigger and better things.  But whenever I see myself moving on to a better school.  I move my studies to something easier and less challenging!  Argh!  The frustration.

I don’t want to be arrogant.  I want to calm down and market myself as stable and dependable.  Always there for whatever purpose I need to be for the ones I care for.  But it is so frustrating when I can’t be because I need to go to school or earn money so I have to sacrifice free time.  And it goes in circles like this.  I don’t mind going to school. Learning it’s great.  I just need to find a path, study it, and move on to a career that offers me place to advance and free time.

I want to study and learn in my free time and often do.  I used to play hundreds of hours of video games. But not any more.  I don’t know when the last time that I fired up Counter Strike: Source.  And when I did last, gauruntee you that I didn’t play for more than about an hour without moving on.  I have been constantly watching Twitter and reading different blogs.  I am having a love affair with music and last evening I found ‘Good Morning, Hypocrite‘ by Electric Presisdent.  I love it!  I also found–within minutes of Electric President–’Casper the Friendly Ghost‘ by Daniel Johnston.  I love wandering the internet and getting inspired.

I follow @ftrc on Twitter and recently I moved through his site, and then beyond it to find Dimitri Daniloff’s work, which I feel is incredible photographic and digital alteration work.  It really makes me want to settle down with a subject and focus.

But the only thing I seem to really want to focus on as of late is my photography work.  And I really need to read more of the theory and practice bits of it before going into the darkroom and out into the world to shoot pictures, but I don’t. I want to!  But I haven’t this weekend.  It’s so frustrating.  Fall with all the colors and leaves and what not and I am shooting in black and white!  Oh my gosh!  I can focus on things that don’t require me to make linear decisions.  What is best for me?  What is best for me when photographing–change of scenery of course!  I love to drive around and see new things. I am completely picky about what I take pictures of–especially with film.  I usually go out with a partner from class and take pictures.  She will shoot two entire rolls in the time it takes me to get 20 pictures.  Good or bad?  I don’t know.  But the money spent on gas outweighs the money I would lose in film if I took more pictures.  I just don’t want the same things all the time.

So I mentioned Plath, Daniloff, Electric President, Daniel Johnston, Felipe Tofani via @ftrc and 15 minutes was up ten minutes ago.

I don’t want to limit myself as a brand of something that is hip, something that is in, something now and cool.  I want to be the boring brand like Morton Salt.  Something reliable but still able to change.  Maybe I want to be Apple and make Macs and iPods and stuff.  Free to expand beyond salt, but still limited to electronics?  No that’s not me at all.  Maybe I want to be like General Electric and just make whatever the hell I feel like.  Do you understand?  I don’t want to be held back by time or money.  I want to be free.  Anywhere I need to or want to be at any time.

I was talking with my father tonight about doing some carpentry.  It’s something I haven’t really practiced in the past–beyond making a few things with the scouts or, oh yeah, building a solid body electric guitar.  But it is something that I really want to do.  Initially, it started with me thinking that I needed a new matteress because my back hurts everytime I go to sleep.  Then came the suggestion that my bed may be too small for me–it is a single bed, built for me when I was younger by my father.  I said that I thought it would be cool to build a bigger bed.  I was also thinking about building a desk a few day’s earlier.  I have this PoS desk that really is a folding table–the legs are standard bent pipe and the surface is particle board with a sticky wood grain sticker on top that has been rubbing up because I sit at it everyday for hours on the computer–alright maybe not hours everyday now–but it get’s its fair share of use.  I was just thinking to myself ideas.  But my father suggested that I perhaps think of designing something similar to the Stickley Arts and Crafts line because, hey, we own a bunch of Arts and Crafts type furniture.  I do love the simplicity of it.  I think having a desk as simple as a table like this, would be great.

My gripe is with all the dross that society throws at us everyday.  I don’t want to deal with it.  I want to be insouciant and blithe. I just want to complete my goals.  Twenty five and counting.  Here goes nothing.

Church, It Should Be Interactive

Maybe I am addicted, but maybe I have a point.  Every time I sit in church and listen to the minister talk about whatever daily lesson he has for us that day, I think to myself, “Gosh, I wish this was interactive.”  In reality I would love to raise my hand and just start asking questions during the sermon.

Then I think of the power of Twitter.  Maybe my church should get a Twitter account and put TweetDeck showing Replies on a projector.  That way when the minister is talking someone could tweet in a follow up point.  Like @examplechurch John 3:16 really hit home for me. or @examplechurch Your slide show is showing Genesis instead of Exodus! or @examplechurch I am a bit confused about how you explained why Jesus died for us. Could you offer a few more words on it?

Yes, some from the older generations would find this a bit disruptive.  But others maybe glad for the opportunity to be able to ask questions semi-anonymously.  Plus it tells you where peoples questions lie, points the minister needs improving upon, it offersadditional thoughts on the subject at hand or provides good segways, and not to mention, it keeps people paying attention and builds relationships.

To those who say it would be abused, someone could filter it in real time–the guy running the slideshow.  It would only take a few adaptations to TweetDeck or I am sure a similiar more focused/caitored program could be written to do the same thing.

But why stop at church?  Surely big businesses could be running the same thing in their offices and stores.  They could get instant feedback while customers shopped.  People could agree with each other @jcpenneys The new fall wardrobe looks really good. or @jcpenneys Everyone stay away from X brand towels in here.  They fall apart! Not only would stores get great information about what customers are thinking, they can also market themselves as customer conscious and in return would get marketing feed back.

Restaurants could use it too.  @pizzaplace Ugh, I am at table 6 in PizzaPlace and my food just came to me cold. That could warrent an immediate response by the waitor to resubmit an order or go and attend to the person at table six.

In today’s world, being interactive with your customer is necessary.  Be it church, a department store, or a restaurant, promoting interaction is all good.  I just think it would be cool to sit in church and tweet @examplechurch Yeah, Jesus Rocks! and have it pop up on screen for the entire church body to see.  And with the size of my church 800 - 1000 people per service a lot of perspective could be gained.