As a designer, my job is to help people com­mu­ni­cate visu­ally. My work is con­sumed by an audi­ence in one way or another. Ide­ally, they are not con­sciously aware of my work. I once read that people notice bad ser­vice all the time, but good ser­vice is invis­ible. I think it’s that way with design as well.

In order to com­mu­ni­cate with people, I must con­tinue to interact with people. I need to know how to com­mu­ni­cate with them. I have to see the ways in which infor­ma­tion, ideas, memes are dis­trib­uted to large audi­ences. To do this, I need to battle my nature. My instinct is to turn inward. I escape from the world instead of reaching out into it. In escape I find plea­sure. But escaping pro­vides me with no insight into other people. It does not let me sample the visual stew brewing in the world out­side my apart­ment. No inter­ac­tion takes place.

I hate the sports cliche, but I need to dis­play a sense of urgency. Life is only going to become more dif­fi­cult. Work will be harder to find. All the neces­si­ties of life are going to cost more. It’s time to plan my con­tin­gen­cies. The moti­va­tion must be found to pursue excel­lence beyond ade­quacy. I hate the therapy cliche but today is the first day of the rest of my life – no better time to begin. If I can main­tain an aware­ness of the world, per­haps the urgency will per­sist in it.