There are times for dry spells. To get through them, I feel myself bargaining for something to drink instead of searching for a downpour of thundering rain.
I am a creative. Self-expression is my joy, and connection with you is my reward.
A digital product designer, I design applications for a living, something I love. Just as much, I love being moved by music, beautiful spaces, movement, images, and words. I love making things and understanding how they work.
Every day, the world is talking to us. It communicates with all its mediums– the people, the internet, the colors of the sky, the tastes of our favorite foods, and the countless things people make. Being alive is to listen to the world and search it with all five senses, no matter how beautiful or harsh its message. In conversations, the only natural response is to respond. Feeling alive is to engage in this conversation with everything around us by molding the world, creating something in it, tell stories and writing. Feeling alive is expression, and creativity is a letter back to the world, whether it be a love letter or hate mail. Either way, you’re alive.
Today, I’m moved by Margaret Zhang, the new editor-in-chief of Vogue China and creative polymath. I’ve only recently discovered her through the headlines congratulating her on her new role. I was struck by the fact that she looked like me and her name was like mine– an ordinary first name, and a Chinese last name, the hallmark traits of an immigrant’s kid. When describing her work, giving her one title would truly be inaccurate. A director and writer of gorgeous films of critical acclaim, a stylist and fashion influencer, a consultant for global fashion brands, a photographer, and a model, she has a long list of labels.
At first, this list hit me with skepticism. I wasn’t used to seeing a long list. Immediately, I thought, well, which label is the main label and which labels are the hobbies? Digging into her work, I was moved by all of them. There was no main label. She was excellent in them all. I was moved by this film, and this film, and this film, and her thoughts in this writing, and every beautiful outfit styled here.
So why do I assume there can only be one label? Even though fitting my being into one form of expression feels so off, I still think this way. Why does “career growth” seem like code for getting taken over by one thing? Why are product designers who are conventionally “further” in their careers burnt out? Giving so much of themselves to the single label, to the point where there is little of themselves left for other forms of creativity? Or other forms of creativity become mere escapes from the main label. I don’t want that. I never want to have to escape from product design.
Next, is self-expression only valid if it is excellent or critically acclaimed? A creative hobby implies that the work created is of lesser quality than something a true professional creates. For some professions, a hobbyist just can’t be given the label a professional has. In an operation room, we’d want a professional doctor, not a “hobbyist doctor.” In fact, “hobbyist doctors” are not doctors. But this doesn’t apply in the field of self-expression and creativity. A bad artist is still an artist. As long as you’re just making music, a terrible musician, who loves music, is still a musician.
Perhaps, in the realm of self-expression, labels don’t have to be for things you’re good at. In fact, it’s not even the label that’s important. It’s the being that is. The label is only a side effect, a manifestation of being. And I’ve started to feel that it is possible to be, in all its different facets — being and feeling alive.
“If you’re truly inherently creative, it’s really not that crazy for you to be the photographer, the stylist, the writer, the director and the model. You can be all of those things. For our society today, especially American society, the corporate culture is a very specialized culture, where one job is split into 4 jobs. That’s not the inherent nature of an entrepreneur or an innovator.” — Margaret Zhang
