Jessica Banks. RockPaperRobot.
Where you lost your creativity.
9 AM. Morning. NYC.
Indian beats, melodies and amazing voices doing some awesome a cappella singing.
They say New York is the city that never sleeps.
In spite of what you might think, it doesn’t mean things only happen late at night. Lots of interesting stuff happens early morning.
I personally think the most interesting happens before the first rays of Sun.
It often happens that we, creative weird people, love to wake up early and start creating before the rest of the world starts thinking.
I love these hours between 3 and 6 AM. It’s the quietest time. The most peaceful. The most beautiful.
Party crowd usually goes to bed by this time.
Normal early birds are not up yet.
But weird, creative, outside-the-box, rules-are-for-breaking kind of people like to be up at this hour. People who dance to their own beat. When they want. How they want. As much as they want.
Anyway.
9 AM.
Hardly any seats left at the BAM Fishman space (Multi-venue Brooklyn destination for contemporary, cutting-edge theater, opera, dance, music & film).
Why are we all here?
For Creative Mornings meetup, to listen to a one-of-a-kind maker, renaissance woman, founder of RockPaperRobot,
“a company that redefines traditionally static objects (e.g., furniture and lighting) into ones that respond and react in real-time. Inspired by physics principles, Jessica’s creations expand the functional and aesthetic versatility of homes and workplaces. From levitating and disappearing tables to robotic chandeliers and shelves”
a trained roboticist, with an Engineer’s and a Master’s degree from MIT, where she was in the Humanoid Robotics Group within the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab,
Jessica Banks.
Why did we all wake up so early to be on time here this morning? Why did we come all the way to Brooklyn from all over the city and packed the room?
Because it’s so freaking energizing and inspiring to see people being outrageously creative, unique and yes, to the most of the world weird. It inspires a weird, out-of-this-world, playful, original and abundantly creative child in each of us to go, make something, even if it doesn’t make any sense to anyone but us. It inspires us to just do stuff because it’s cool, interesting, and because we can make something, that didn’t even exist before, something straight out of our heads!
And maybe, even, make it into something the whole world can use and have fun with!
Like these amazing disappearing-into-the-walls tables and chairs Jessica and her company came up with, using their most powerful tool — imagination, plus science and latest technology.
I don’t know about you, but when I see things like these, when I have a chance to meet people like Jessica — my whole world gets bigger, dreams get upgraded, and I want to run out of the room and create something of WOW!, SO COOL! Quality. Something, that the world hasn’t seen yet. Something, that can re-shape the world around into something even more interesting, beautiful, and these days smart.
I met Olga and Jan at the event, two cool people from Russia and Czech republic, people sitting next to me in the front row. (By the way, there no NOT-COOL people at the Creative Mornings. Might be a good place for you to check out — they have local chapters in 152 cities around the world. And if your city doesn’t have one — organize one to meet cool people-makers!)
We got to know each other. Olga is in sales for lightening company. Jan works as a computer programmer for some tech company.
Olga said to me,
“Ты просто молодец что выбираешь путь в жизни, который тебе подсказывает сердце и не сидишь закованная в офисе как большинство нас (потому что это удобно)”
In case you don’t speak Russian it translates as,
“You are so amazing for choosing the path that your heart tells you to choose in life. And because you chose not to sit in the office, like the most of us, just because it’s convenient.”
I was flattered, but it also made me think.
Office job and creativity, and choosing the path of our heart are not opposite to each other.
You can work for a company you really love, doing the work you really love in an office with normal office hours. And you can be incredibly creative too. And have amazing people around. And have an awesome life.
I’d love to work in a company like RockPaperRobot! And I’d be OK with office hours, and structuring my day around projects and working with a team of like-minded awesome people. Why not? Office doesn’t mean boring and dull and not-creative. It just means what it says — you got to get to an office to do the work. To work on something with people, you got to have a space, right? Sometimes it’s called OFFICE.
And being self-employed is not a fairy-tale either.
It’s not all traveling and beaches, and working 30 minutes a day on your laptop watching another sunset.
If anything, it’s the opposite of all of that.
You got to be disciplined to show up and do the work, not when you want, but when it needs to be done.
You got to work very often more, than if you worked for a company.
You have to take care of all the details of the work flow yourself. Be a multitasker, a problem-solver.
And you’ll have to do lots of boring stuff too. Stuff that is not necessarily awesome and inspiring and incredibly creative.
And yes, you can be on your own schedule and do the things you want when you want. As long as you get the work done as you promise when you promise. So you are still kind of on a schedule that is not entirely up to you.
So what am I trying to say here?
Go. Make something happen.
No matter, if it’s in an office or at your own home.
Make a difference.
Make this world a bit more interesting, because you are here, decided to use your imagination and creativity, like you were meant to.
Need inspiration?
Go see interesting people.
Go see mind-blowing stuff, that makes you ask the question — is it for real?! People do that kind of stuff?! COOL!
Nothing is created in a vacuum. We all get inspired by people, by places, by books, by events, by music, by art, by technology, by nature.
The better the quality of the things you expose yourself to — the better the quality of your creations.
Want to think outside the box?
Put yourself outside the box.
Museums, creative events, workshops, classes, unusual shops, makers-collaboration spaces, places with interesting stories.
Go. See. Knock yourself out exploring!
Need more energy for the creative juices to flow?
TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH
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Choose healthy food
(You are a lazy chooser, if you’re still eating junk. And this is why.)
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Move
(Sitting Kills. Moving Heals. Why GRAVITY is the answer to Everlasting Health and Weight Loss.)
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Explore
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Make Cool Shit
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