Oh Captain, My Captain

For the first time in my life I feel I can’t spot the horizon. I have a sense of the path I left behind but in some profound way I need guidance. I’m at a crossroad. It’s exciting and it’s scary.  

In the older days, we used the stars to guide us. At sea, a captain would look up and gaze at the nightly wonder above, a wonder our intellectual capacity can not begin to fathom nor comprehend. But nevertheless, it guided us. It rewarded mankind with a hint towards a home, another shore or a remote continent. For Columbus, it helped (or rather cheated) him into finding America.

We all get lost. And some of us do gaze up in times of despair. We can’t help it. It’s rooted in us. And we all need a captain at decisive check points in our life. Or, in modern terms: a mentor. For some more greedy (such as I) we need more than one mentor.

I’ll use this opportunity to share mine with you – maybe their pearls of wisdom are useful to you, maybe they’re not. But what’s certain is: they all have – in their own way – attempted to put a small dent in the universe.

Steve Jobs:
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”
His innovations made me use a computer. It made me become a designer, it helped me discover my passion for typography. His meticulous attention to detail is a trait that’s rooted in me, as well. And his constant pursuit of excellence is an inspiration to me in all commercial and corporate fields. 

Charles Saatchi:
“I have spent too long being able to manipulate the answers I want from market research to rely upon its findings any more than I do weather forecasts.”
The first advertising agency I ever worked for was Saatchi & Saatchi. And in advertising I find no greater inspiration than Charles Saatchi. He’s unorthodox, provocative, ruthless and the fact that he left advertising and devote his life to discovering aspiring artists is something I respect above all else. This quote brilliantly displays the ludicrousness of the advertising industry’s obsession with data and numbers these days (ever heard of “Big Data”?). You can’t predict the next big thing. And the numbers are just used to provide some pseudo-scientific weight to a campaign so the white-collared client can feel a false sense of comfort.

Bukowski:
“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
When I watched the documentary about Bukowski, I felt an uncomfortable understanding to his crude nature. In regards to women, I’ve been as hopeless as he is in many ways. But above all else, his writing is the example of what I see as good writing: clear cut, straight to the bone and no detours. And on a diet of cigarettes and scotch. I can intimately relate to that.

Hitchcock:
“Give them pleasure. The same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.”
In storytelling, namely in an audio-visual format, I find no greater inspiration than Hitchcock. The first story I ever wrote (yes, it was written in a coffee shop and yes I’ve used it to woo some, OK a lot, of women) drew its inspiration from his movies. Hitchcock is credited as the master of suspense but more importantly, he was a pioneer on several levels. In Hitchcock’s movies the villain was suddenly sympathetic and had endearing qualities, something unheard of in its time. He displayed several layers of the human condition and his ability to captivate an audience through his trademark storyline is still mimicked by some of the greatest filmmakers today.  

All of these mentors share one vital thing in common: they fought hard to shape a life, and a pursuit, that’s true to their unorthodox nature.

Your life has an expiration date. But to let it be guided by the convictions of others is simply cutting it to short. Steer your ship, choose your captain and find that continent you can one day call your home.