Blog Assignment #3 Brainwashed

Seth Godin - Brainwashed: Seven Ways to Reinvent Yourself

As the title suggests, Godin brushes over ways to reinvent yourself to break free from a life as a compliant cog trained for an older, quickly passing society.  One important change one needs to make in their life is to "acknowledge the lizard". The lizard is a resistance in your mind that keeps you from stepping out of line. It is our fear that people will punish us or laugh at us that drives this instinct and as soon as one acknowledge's that that fear is there then they will be more willing to question the ordinary. Two other things that are important for reinvention are connecting and being generous. Having a large social circle and doing favors for those in it can help your ideas spread like wildfire. When you help out your fellow artist you will be greatly rewarded with trust and quicker movement of your ideas.


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I believe that this article does relate to what we have been learning in lecture and from our blackboard readings. We have been learning skills that transfers over to the real world as we pursue careers that are creative based. These layers from Seth Godin's article give us tools that break us free from normal expectations and that will let us flourish as artists. It is always interesting getting a fresh perspective on ideas that we have heard from before, it allows it to soak in more that we might lock it into our memory banks. He talks of networking and being quick to do favors for others and I think this is an extremely important concept for people pursuing a career in media to grasp. When I worked for a small video production company in Mt. Vernon, Ohio I met so many new people on the job that are heavily involved in the local arts community. After meeting them and working for them, I know that if I ever had a project in the future they would be more than willing to help me out. No one should be quick to say that these readings are pointless because it just isn't  the fact.

I also think that these exercises do make us a better person. Sure, they are time consuming and they are hard to fit in a busy college schedule, but the things we learn here will carry with us our whole lives. I like reading articles I otherwise wouldn't read if I wasn't taking this class because it gives me a broader knowledge of skills I can use to be successful. We learned how to deconstruct characters down to their most basic elements. After this exercise, I began to look for color, shape, and lighting in other media and found the symbolism to be true in almost every case. The second blog assignment let me explore how the creative process works and made me think deeply how I can access my own creative channels. This has been something I have always struggled with. In the past, I tried to force quality, polished, original ideas, throwing away half-ass ideas without even digesting them. Instead, I should have let my mind wander to pick out momentary burned images and use them as inspiration.

In my opinion, I have picked up a lot of useful information from these readings and blog posts. It has transformed the way I analyze all kinds of media and how I generate ideas myself to grow as an artist in media.