In this article I’m going to share with you a concept that allows you to harness the natural cycles of your brain to the greatest effect in both work and when travelling.

You see, when I travel I seldom plan out exactly what I’m going to do on a certain day. Instead, I review my options before I set out and allow time and space for events to flow together organically and spontaneously. Granted, some of your travel commitments may have firm attachments to certain points in time and space, but acting merely on intuition is incredibly worth it whenever possible. In fact, I find that when I wait to plan a given day until the night before, I’m much more sensitive to how the day is going to go; and I’m more in tune with what my needs will be on the upcoming day.

Travelling is a creative act, and your ability to jump into a creative state ebbs and flows throughout the day. In my experience, there is much magic to be found when we are conscious of those changes; and when done consciously, this kind of flexibility allows moments to snap together like magnets.

So how exactly does this apply to work? I’ll ‘splain.

The Intuitive Planning Approach

Lately, I’ve realized that I’ve approached doing work this way for a while now. Instead of stating in big red letters that I’m going to write a rough draft of a given article on Monday or bust, I find that I work better when I have a general idea of what I need to accomplish by a certain day and then allow myself to be drawn to the tasks to complete that goal in its own perfect time.

For the purposes of this article I’m going to call this approach “intuitive planning”, because, while it’s still technically a form of planning, it allows your intuition to have a say in what you should be doing at a given moment. People who use David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” system (as I do) may recognize that the GTD “Next Actions” list can be used exactly this way because it’s a list of shorter tasks that can easily fit into the gaps between larger projects.

We can expand on that though. And as in both work and travel, defining the next physical action you need to take to achieve your goal is immensely helpful and can often give you clarity if you feel stuck. But if you already know what you’re going to do (and when it needs to be done) and you have some freedom over the order and speed at which the steps are completed, then you can experiment with the Intuitive Planning model.

For instance, I’m currently writing this sentence at 00.57, which is well past midnight. I didn’t even plan to write an article tonight; but inspiration struck me, and I had the time flexibility to act on it. By listening to my intuition and following it, this article was allowed space to manifest. Simply put, the Intuitive Planning approach has completely changed how I view my working time as well as my travel time. (Although you could say I’m “on the job” whenever I’m travelling, but you know what I mean.)

This model works best for me on a week by week basis. For instance, if I’m working on a big article about McWay Falls, I know that I have a few dozen photos to crop, color-correct, name, export, upload to the Byteful Gallery, and resize for the article. Then I need to outline the article, write it, proofread it, categorize it, and finally set the article to be posted in the wee hours of the morning. This whole process involves over 10 major steps with plenty of tiny steps in between; but because I understand the steps that it involves, I can set small milestones to let me know if I’m on track. (For instance, I like to have the photos done by Sunday night and a rough draft of the article done on Monday). Yet if I really get on a roll, I may have the article rough draft done by the end of Sunday. It all depends on my level of inspiration and energy level. The key here is really listening to myself and my mental state.

Inspiration & Expectation

Let me be clear here. I’m not saying you should wait for inspiration to get you started on your work. A wise man once said that inspiration must find you working; and in my experience, I think that’s putting it lightly.

There’s no Inspiration Faerie that’s going to come down and give you tons of energy. Your will and your will alone must start it. However, if you change your attitude to be open to inspiration sneaking up on you, it’s far more likely to.

Have you ever noticed that it’s those times when you don’t feel pressured and boxed in, that some of your most inspired ideas come through? In my experience, inspired ideas are more likely to come through because expectations cause a constriction in the mind. By “forcing” yourself to do a specific thing at a certain time, you will naturally feel limited and probably stressed out, too.

Don’t get me wrong. This certainly isn’t always a bad thing. Indeed, without that kind of discipline, we would not complete many things that legitimately need to be done. Yet, whenever possible, creating from a place of non-expectation is much more enjoyable experience for me, and I find more original ideas come when I’m not painstakingly looking for them. What about you?

How to Create the Flow for Yourself

The real trick here (which is a skill that can be developed) is the ability to consciously decide what you’re going to focus on and think about. I learned an important lesson about this in my teen years when I would push myself to the limit for school projects, and I continued to refine my approach when I was in college.

While it may come as an incredible shock to you, I really disliked being forced to do a project I didn’t enjoy, and I experienced a lot of stress in having to push myself to complete such a project on time. If I didn’t really care about the end goal of the project, it didn’t spur me to action. At all. In fact, I would have a lot of trouble “getting into the groove” of it. Therefore, I had to create that flow for myself. (I can’t not state the importance of this enough.)

I would often experience false starts and slow progress in the beginning, so I’m not saying this is easy. Sometimes it can be very difficult. Sometimes you may feel as though you don’t even know where to start. Trust me, I’ve been there. But in those situations, I tried to take away as much complexity as I could and simply took the most logical first step. Keeping it simple is a very important tip to remember whenever you get stuck.

Discipline is what allows us to take those first few steps. But I’ve found that once I get going, less and less discipline is required because I’ve created the groove that I was looking for. And by creating it for myself, I make it easier to get back to that place of creativity whenever I want.

Choose your Focus & Make Alpha Waves

Remember, this all hinges on you being able to consciously decide what you’re going to focus on. You must choose where to place your focus. Will you focus on the part of your brain that is worried about failing or the part that simply relishes in the act of creation itself? Have you ever noticed that when you’re really in the flow of creating (whether it be writing, reading, painting, or designing) that you completely lose track of time?

This is because a different part of your brain is engaged. When you feel truly immersed in your work, your brain is actually at a different frequency than when you’re walking around during the day. The brain is in beta frequency during most of its waking hours, but when you’re really in the flow, you enter alpha brain frequency. These alpha waves allow distractions to fall away and allow a much greater depth of focus. For instance, I’m in an alpha state right now as I write this. How do I know? Because the words keep flowing out of me, effortlessly.

Things certainly weren’t always this way. To be completely honest, there was a time when I absolutely dreaded writing; but the more I practiced, the more I learned about what it felt like to be in this state. I gained a better understanding of how my own brain worked, and so can you.

In some ways, it’s like riding a bike. When you first rode a bike, you had no hope of balancing without training wheels, right? But in time, you refined your sense of balance, and soon you didn’t even need the training wheels.

Intuitive Planning: Create Abundantly!

As I said before, your ability to jump into a creative state ebbs and flows throughout the day, and “intuitive planning” is merely intelligently harnessing this quality of the human brain in the most intelligent way possible. To really put all of this in a nutshell, when you give yourself the freedom to create in the order in which your mind wants to create, your creative process can flow much more effortlessly and with much less stress. And if the time never seems right and begins to run short, you can always revert back to a more logical discipline-based approach.

Remember, you are not your brain. You are also not your thoughts. Realize that your mind is a wonderfully complex and dynamic tool; but it is still a tool, and when you use this tool with greater skill, you can create more abundantly and more meaningfully.

And fewer things are more enjoyable or more rewarding than that.

Read related articles

1. Create with Passion or DIE
2. How to Create, Host, & Grow a Blog Carnival in 7 Proven Steps
3. How I Solved my Travel Dilemma in 60 Seconds using the Law of Attraction

Since the l’m currently in far-off lands visiting a friend, I’m using the small amount of downtime that I have to complete a project that I’ve been tweaking off and on for the past month. So instead of highlighting a place worth visiting in the “real” world, I’m going to transport you to a strange, vibrant place, birthed from pure imagination. What I’m about to show you is the result of many hours of patience and focus, and I’d love to hear what you think about it in the comments. Even if you despise it!

Today I’m releasing a complete refresh of Crescent Island, and I’m calling it Crescent Dawn. I think this one will be more popular than the previous wallpaper set (called MorningTide), because it’s easier on the eyes, it’s more elegant, and has a more relaxing and dynamic color palette. I’ve even added some surprises.

You remember the old Crescent Island, don’t you?

I created it nine long years ago when I was first getting comfortable with the (now mostly-forgotten) 3D rendering app called Bryce. And, oddly enough, years later I discovered that island that I’d created bared a striking resemblance to Molokini Island in Hawaii, despite the fact that I’d created it years before I’d ever seen photos of that island. (Coincidence, or something more?)

I first revisited Crescent Island in 2008 and released a new version called Crescent Island Nightfall in the summer of that year. While being an improvement over the original (mostly because I understood lighting much better than I had when I’d created it six years previously), it still lacked a certain elegance. The atmosphere still wasn’t quite there.

The Warm Cozy Colors

Fast forward three years to a couple months ago when I began toying with the scene again. That’s when it hit me.

I realized that Crescent Island would be beautiful bathed in the warm, womb-like colors of the morning. So, after hours of experimentation and tweaking, I’m very pleased to present Crescent Dawn to you now. It’s the result of uncounted hours of fine-tuning and revision. (Somewhere between 10 and 10 billion hours.) And, per the suggestion of a friend, I even added some wildlife to give the island a more lively flare. I hope you find it refreshing. I’m especially pleased with how the sky came out.

What do you think?

Get the new wallpaper in Widescreen (up to 2560×1600) —>
Get the new wallpaper in Fullscreen (up to 1600×1200) —>

— — —

All content released under a Creative Commons license. These wallpapers look great up to resolutions of 2560×1600. That’s over 4 million pixels of goodness to make your desktop look as incredible as possible. With so much free content on Byteful Gallery, why not tell a friend?
 

Read related articles

1. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Crescent Nightfall
2. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Indigo Island
3. New Widescreen Wallpaper & Be A Mind At Play

I’ll explain.

Nearly nine long years ago, I created a 3D scene in the now mostly-forgotten rendering program called Bryce. The scene wasn’t complex. A lake, a mountain peak, and a couple trees were all that was under its blue sky. I called it “Calm Peak”, and as simple as that wallpaper was, it was a clear step along my path of understanding what made a good image different from a boring image. (You can see the original, “Calm Peak”, in the Byteful Gallery.)

Then, in 2008, I returned to “Calm Peak” and started tweaking it. I wondered what the same place might look like if the atmosphere were actually interesting. You know, something besides typical boring blue with white stratus clouds. So I added some haze into the atmosphere and moved the sun to right about morning time.

Fast forward three years, I discover this often forgotten remnant of my early work. I realized that, knowing what I know now, it could be tweaked and made into something interesting. So last night, after some careful positioning of the elements in the scene, I left the computer to render the final scene at a size appropriate for even the largest monitors (2560×1600 pixels).

The Glorious Result

I awoke this morning to find a vibrant, warm image on my screen. But as I often do, I opened up Photoshop and started tweaking again. I tweaked its specific color curves using a “selective color” adjustment layer (a technique that has utterly changed how I work with color in Photoshop and worth an article all on its own), and I ended up being swept away by inspiration and created 2 derivative flavors of the wallpaper, as well.

So, long story short, I’m pleased to present to you 3 delicious flavors of a new wallpaper set:

• Morningtide – Mango
• Morningtide – Strawberry
• Morningtide – Boysenberry

The one below is mango-flavored. Doesn’t it look positively yummy?

Get the new wallpaper in Widescreen (up to 2560×1600) —>
Get the new wallpaper in Fullscreen (up to 1600×1200) —>

— — —

All content released under a Creative Commons license. These wallpapers look great up to resolutions of 2560×1600. That’s over 4 million pixels of goodness to make your desktop look as incredible as possible. With so much free content on Byteful Gallery, why not tell a friend?

Read related articles

1. Widescreen Wallpapers Now Mobile Wallpapers
2. Why Being Obsessive isn’t always Bad (& New Snowy wallpapers)
3. How to Avoid Getting Sick in the Winter (& Relaxifying Snowy wallpapers)

Despite the cold, it was a beautiful day for biking; and the sky was a pristine blue that, ironically enough, was very nearly the color of the wallpaper that I’m going to share with you today. Often, we travel less in the winter; so although your body won’t go anywhere, I hope that this wallpaper will help transport you to a more relaxified place in your mind and remind you to keep your focus on the positive: the warmer days to come.

As we enter the last few weeks of winter, I’m excited to present “Joyful Day”, the final piece from the Snowy Cascade wallpaper series. It’s the brightest winter-themed wallpaper I’ve ever released, not to mention one of the brightest wallpapers I’ve ever created. And what better time to brighten up the mood than in late winter?

In fact, as I type these words the wallpaper is set as my own desktop background, and it seems to exude an interesting mix of calmness and focus. Compared to most of the other snowy wallpapers, this one is much more relaxing on the eyes; and it definitely has the most relaxing color palette of them all. In fact, it’s probably the best winter-themed wallpaper I’ve ever created. So why does it work so well?

The Deceptive Yet Powerful Nature of Color

Well, if you haven’t done any graphic design before, you may not realize that the concept of color can be extremely tricky. Some have even said that color’s nature is to deceive, but it’s more accurate to say that color’s nature is to be relative and surprisingly unpredictable. For instance, have you ever tried putting a bright red shape right beside a bright blue shape on your screen? The edge where the red and blue meet will look really wild, creating a dissonance that is uncomfortable, to say the least. Color dissonance like this can even cause headaches. Yet other color combinations can produce a calming effect. How?

The reason for this is due to how your eyes and brain process color. As you probably know, a color is basically a specific frequency of light, and these frequencies can be mixed to produce interesting effects. In fact, according to some studies, seeing certain shades of blue can actually cause the body to produce chemicals that are calming. And I’ve experienced this firsthand.

How did I choose one shade… out of thousands?

Art is deceiving. At first glance, you’d probably never guess how much time went into fine-tuning the final shades of blue used in “Joyful Day”, but it was completely worth it. As I usually do, I relied on my own intuition for choosing the right shade. But there are thousands of shades of blue. Pick the wrong blue, and the work becomes cold instead of calming. Pick the right shade of blue, and you can change the dynamic of someone’s workspace, creating calm. Pick the perfect shade of blue, and you may even be able to evoke childhood memories of Easter.

The kind of excitement and expectation found during Easter and Spring is exactly the feeling I hope this wallpaper evokes in you. To me, this wallpaper represents the tail-end of winter and the promise of a green spring. (A time when, in my opinion, it’s much more enjoyable to travel.)

If winter is getting you down, let this radiant wallpaper transport you to a brighter vision of winter that leads to a swift spring. Remember, spring is fast upon us!

Get the new wallpaper in Widescreen (up to 2560×1600) —>
Get the new wallpaper in Fullscreen (up to 1600×1200) —>

— — —

All content released under a Creative Commons license. These wallpapers look great up to resolutions of 2560×1600. That’s over 4 million pixels of goodness to make your desktop look as incredible as possible. With so much free content on Byteful Gallery, why not tell a friend?

Read related articles

1. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Snowy Crystal
2. How to Avoid Getting Sick in the Winter (& Relaxifying Snowy wallpapers)
3. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Snowy Sight Indigo (& Tedium in Art)

So today we’re going to talk about keeping art (and your health!) from falling through the cracks, how to prevent yourself from getting sick in the winter, and a lesson in being aware of your surroundings.

I’ve gotta be completely honest with you though: I’ve been holding some stuff back. I purposely waited until after the holidays to release these three chillaxed flavors of Snowy Cascade that I’m releasing today. Because what’s the point if I release all 11 wallpapers at once? It’s too much at once! And inevitably some would fall through the cracks and fail to be appreciated. These 3 new additions to the Snowy Cascade Clear wallpaper set are:

• Snowy Cascade Clear – Morning
• Snowy Cascade Clear – Dark
• Snowy Cascade Clear – Night

Based on some profoundly unscientific polls that I’ve done this month, I expect that these three flavors will be even more popular than the previous 5 flavors because people seemed to prefer the “Clear” look.

Avoid Falling through the Cracks (In Art & Health!)

As I mentioned above, I held these back because if I released too much content at once, some would fall through the cracks. Good art can fall through the cracks not unlike how a harmful virus can get through the armor of one’s own immune system. When travelling it’s extremely important to pay attention to how your immune system is doing, because you’re certainly not going to have any fun if you’re bedridden the whole time.

And this time of year, people getting sick from viruses is more common because people often indulge in lots of sugary foods during the holidays, which produces a spike in blood sugar. What they don’t know is, the resulting blood sugar low leaves you with a highly weakened immune system, which is precisely when viruses take hold. Another reason we have weakened immune systems in the winter is the fact that sunlight is much less direct in the wintertime (due to the tilt of the Earth) which means it takes much more exposure to sunlight for your skin to create enough vitamin D for the day. (Not to mention that you probably don’t want to be outside getting some sun anyway since it’s so cold!)

This combination of increased sugar and decreased Vitamin D is the main cause of the “flu season” that is so common during these winter months.

I should know since over the past few days I narrowly avoided catching a virus myself. I could even feel my body fighting it, and when I was hit with a wave of sleepiness, I listened to my body and took a nap. (And naps are unusual for me.)

I’ve only managed to successfully fight this virus off through careful nutritional planning and a high level of awareness of my own body. For instance, I’ve been making sure I get lots of a vitamin C (I ate 4 oranges yesterday), as well as Vitamin D. Being a vegan most days of the week (and a vegetarian on the other days), most of my vitamin D comes from fortified sources. (Right now my favorite way to get Vitamin D is from Almond Milk since, for a variety of reasons, cows milk actually decreases immune function.)

By carefully avoiding refined sugars, making sure my Vitamin C & D levels were high, and drinking plenty of water, I was able to fortify my immune system to deal with the current buggy environment.

A Funny Story about Mistaken Identity & Vitamin D

Speaking of Vitamin D, when I was a kid I was walking through a grocery store, wandering away from my family and daydreaming, as usual. (Are you surprised?) After a few minutes, I stumbled across a strange kind of milk. The cap was a different color than I’d seen before, and I turned to my Dad who was nearby to ask him what kind of milk it was.

“What kind of milk is this? It seems different”, I asked.

Except that the man wasn’t my Dad at all. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought it was him, but that reality soon shattered. This man, who was about the height of my father, turned around and in a very deep voice said, “VITAMIN D.” (Yes that warrants all capital letters. If you’d heard him, you’d put capital letters too.)

Taken aback, I gasped and looked up at him. I tried not to look surprised and just went with it. “Ah! Thanks…”

On that day, I learned a valuable lesson about being very aware of your surroundings. And this applies equally to travel and health. Think about it.

Fits the Times Perfectly

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the 3 new wallpapers and have amazing New Year celebration. Remember to be aware of your bodies and eat sugary foods in moderation!

As a sample, I’ve put a preview of the muted Snowy Cascade Clear “Dark” version. And I think it fits this time of year perfectly, don’t you?

Which flavor do you like best?

Get the new wallpaper in Widescreen (up to 2560×1600) —>
Get the new wallpaper in Fullscreen (up to 1600×1200) —>

— — —

All content released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. These wallpapers will look great up to resolutions of 2560×1600 (about a 30 inch screen). That’s 4,096,000 pixels of goodness to make your desktop look as incredible as possible. With so much free content on Byteful Travel, why not tell a friend?

Read related articles

1. Why Being Obsessive isn’t always Bad (& New Snowy wallpapers)
2. How Color Transports You Across the Seasons (& A New Winter Wallpaper)
3. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Snowy Crystal

Instead of taking you on an adventure to the West Coast, today I’m going to take you on an adventure through color and form. We’re going to discuss powerful perspective changes, breaking tradition, and why being obsessive isn’t always necessarily a bad thing. And on top of all of that, I’ve got a Festivus gift for you: 5 gorgeous desktop wallpapers to get you into the Festivus spirit. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

First of all, welcome to the Winter Solstice. There really is nothing like Mid-December, is there? It’s a time when much of North America gets under 9 hours of daylight, and people who thrive on daylight start to get slightly grumpy.

Tomorrow will be the 7th anniversary of when I first created Snowy Sight, one of my most popular desktop wallpapers ever, and I’m so pleased at how far this piece of art has come since then. In some ways, it’s hard for me to believe that I’ve continued to return to it again and again, refining it for over five years; but I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy creating it and using it every winter. So today, I’m excited to present to you the new Snowy Cascade wallpaper set, based off of the original Snowy Sight wallpaper from all the way back in 2003. And this year I’m releasing 5 variations (what I like to call “flavors”, which you can see slices of each to the right). It’s my gift to you all, my loyal readers, and I think you’re going to love them.

Isn’t it funny how your perspective changes?

I hadn’t used the Snowy Sight wallpaper in about a year, but once Wisconsin was hit by its first snowstorm a couple weeks ago, I started thinking about it again. I felt the urge to improve it once more.

In a strangely metaphorical way, you might even say that this image is a reflection of myself over the years. As time passes, it becomes more crisp, more honed, and more dynamic. And, like all of my work, it builds on what came before it.

Breakin’ all the Rulz

Traditionally, Snowy Sight has been a shade of blue or indigo, but I really wanted to spice things up this time, so I added new dynamics of color: magentas, violets, and greens. I’d been taking some photographs of Christmas lights the day before, and on whim I decided to drop one of the photos into the Snowy Sight project as a blending layer.

At first, I was intrigued, but I soon realized something wasn’t quite right. Adding the photo added color, but didn’t look right just yet. I needed a way to communicate this new color mix more abstractly.

After experimenting, I realized that my old friend, the crystalline filter, worked really well in this case. Ergo, the crystalline shapes you may be familiar with from Snowy Crystal are back, but they filter from behind the snow flakes this time.

Originally, perhaps I got a little too passionate about the new color scheme and used a super vibrant version for about a day…

Until I realized that my eyeballs were metaphorically bleeding. It was just too intense for everyday use which is precisely what my wallpapers are intended for, so I did lots of experiments before I found a good balance of subtlety. In practice, this can be a difficult balance to strike because you don’t want a piece of graphic design to be too tiring on the eyes, but you don’t want it to be bland either. However, since this a matter of personal taste, one of the 5 flavors I’m releasing today is pretty colorful, but it’s not too intense either.

Radical Combobulations

Remember when I invented wallpaper mashups three years ago?

If you do, you may recognize this wallpaper as employing that technique. By creatively combining a crystalized photo with the existing smooth shapes of the snow flakes, I drew on techniques from the two previous Snowy Sight wallpapers, and the result is unique and quite pleasing to eyes.

But it wasn’t as easy as you may think.

More Time than You’d Ever Suspect

An inordinate amount of testing went into testing and refining these desktop wallpapers — more time than you’d expect.

Why?

Well, unless you’ve created things like this yourself, you probably don’t realize the amount of tiny details and refinements that must be made before a wallpaper is published. For instance, the new delicate outlines around the flakes had to be meticulously tweaked to look… “right”.

To be brutally honest, you can’t fully appreciate a craft until you do it for yourself, but that’s okay. This is the nature of all art, and nothing to be ashamed of.

However, it is helpful to keep in mind that much more goes into these wallpapers than what can be assumed at first glance. Each wallpaper is tested on multiple displays, and small details and blend modes are refined until they’re just right.

Even Digital Art can be Unforgiving

Much enthusiasm has been generated over the flexibility that artists now have with programs like Photoshop and Lightroom because changes can now be made much more quickly and precisely than with any previous non-digital method. But creating this wallpaper reminded me that even digital art can be unforgiving sometimes.

For instance, when I was nearly done refining this wallpaper set, I noticed that one particular crystal was touching the edge of a flake, creating a small shining line that looked completely out of place. So I had to shift the entire crystalline layer and export all 5 versions again. And this involved manually changing multiple layers to different settings for each flavor of the wallpaper. (And situations like this are not uncommon when refining a piece of graphic design.)

I do it for the Love. Why do you do it?

Maybe I’m crazy to be this particular, but I love creating these images, otherwise I wouldn’t do it. And for me, part of loving it is being obsessive about the small details, because when added together, all of the small details either make or break the whole.

Yes, these details require time and patience to get right, but it’s definitely worth it. Being “obsessive” about something has got a bad reputation in western society. But at the end of the day, being obsessive isn’t always such a bad thing if you’re aware of your own behavior and still able to control yourself; especially if the end result is something enjoyed by many. Which is why today, I’m very pleased to present to you all: Snowy Cascade.

All 5 flavors of this desktop wallpaper (Warm, Morningtime, Dark, Night, and Cyan) are available in Fullscreen and Widescreen sizes, in resolutions up to a fantastic 2560×1600 pixels, in the Byteful Gallery.

I hope they bring you joy and delight you during this holiday season, whatever you celebrate. But to me, it’s a Festivus miracle.

Get it in Widescreen (up to 2560×1600) —>
Get it in Fullscreen (up to 1600×1200) —>

— — —

All content released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. These wallpapers will look great up to resolutions of 2560×1600 (about a 30 inch screen). That’s 4,096,000 pixels of goodness to make your desktop look as incredible as possible. With so much free content on Byteful Travel, why not tell a friend?

Read related articles

1. How to Avoid Getting Sick in the Winter (& Relaxifying Snowy wallpapers)
2. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Snowy Sight Indigo (& Tedium in Art)
3. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Snowy Crystal

Now you’re probably familiar with “Where’s Waldo” or the “I Spy” books. And if you’re not familiar with them, you should definitely check them out, because there’s a whole genre of wonderful books that feature huge drawings (or sometimes photos) which contain a hidden person or item that you need to find. And on humid summer days or cold winter mornings when you don’t even want to even think about going outside, opening one of these huge books and discovering their hidden gems is a fantastic way to relax, not to mention a fun activity to share, as well.

Growing up, I loved these types of books, and not long ago it occurred to me that I could have a lot more fun with the Byteful Gallery than I currently am, and more importantly, I can make it more fun for you all in a completely new way, too. Fast forward to a few days ago when I was hit by inspiration to finally sit down and experiment with this idea that had been floating around in my head for weeks. And if you’ve been following the @Bytefulcom twitter stream, you already know I’m pretty excited to share this with you.

Meet Marco the Spacefarer

Meet Marco.
He’s from space.

Where, exactly?

I don’t know, but I do know he’s an explorer and the impetus for a new game called “Where’s Marco?” which is similar to “I Spy” or “Where’s Waldo”.

You see, he’s been following me on my adventures around North America ever since I visited Portland’s Lan Su Garden. He’s a tiny guy though, so you’ll have to look REALLY closely to find him. But he’s there. In fact, I found Marco in all 16 photos in the Portland’s Lan Su Garden gallery. I had a lot of fun finding him hidden in those photos. So, let’s go ahead and learn how this works:

How to Play “Where’s Marco?”

The “Where’s Marco” game is played similarly to how “Where’s Waldo” is played. There are three things you should know when playing “Where’s Marco?”:

1. Remember to click on the “full size” link in the gallery. Marco is quite small. The full size link is under the “Your Screen Size” indicator on the top right. Important: If you’re using an iPad or mobile device, it will often be easier to find Marco if you save the image to the “Photos” app first. (This is because devices like the iPad won’t show full pixel detail in their web browsers if the image is above a certain size.)
2. Watch out for Marco’s black cloak. Sometimes, when Marco has a tough time finding a place to hide where he can blend in, he’ll activate his cloak and turn completely black so he can blend into the shadows. This is pretty rare, but when it does happen the photo’s description will say that Marco is cloaked in blackness for that photo, such as in this photo. Just remember: if the description of the photo says he’s cloaked, he’s hiding in the shadows and darker spots of the photo. If the photo’s description is blank, then he’s definitely not cloaked which means he’s in the whiter areas of the photo.
3. Remember where you can find more Where’s Marco photo galleries. It’s easy. You can always find the latest “Where’s Marco” photo galleries by visiting the “Where’s Marco” gallery collection in the Byteful Gallery.

What are you waiting for?

Why is Marco following me? What his is mission and motivation? I don’t know yet, but I suspect he’ll show up again soon. Luckily, he seems friendly. But if you have any questions, please let me know in the comments.

And remember, you can always find all of the “Where’s Marco” photo galleries in the “Where’s Marco” gallery collection.

So what are you waiting for?
Find Marco! —>

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2. New Widescreen Wallpaper & Be A Mind At Play

Ever since I wrote my review of Steve Pavlina’s wonderfully unconventional self-development book Personal Development for Smart People, I’ve wanted to create a Truth-Love-Power Pyramid worthy of the ideas that it expresses. And today, I’m really pleased to be able to present you with the picture that was more or less in my head.

If you’re not familiar with the Truth-Love-Power Pyramid, it’s a visual representation of 3 irreducible principles that Steve Pavlina, the most well-known person growth writer on the web, has identified as being the keys to growth. There are also secondary principles like Oneness. The short version of all this is, the more in alignment you are with Truth, Love, and Power in your daily experience, the more intelligent you are. If you’re curious to learn more, I highly recommend you checkout my review of Steve’s book, which I found to be the most unique and useful book I’ve ever read on personal growth, as well as the basis for the principles visually represented in this article.

An Alright Start

The pyramid to the right is the pyramid Steve has used on his blog in the past. Not a bad start, right? It clearly shows how the principles of Truth, Love, and Power combine in different ways, such as a combination of alignment with Truth and Love opens you up to greater alignment with the concept of Oneness, for instance. And it clearly shows that the combination/culmination of all 3 principles is Intelligence.

So while this simple graphic is clearly functional, it’s not much else. It doesn’t communicate the ideas with as much depth as the ideas deserve. (For instance, it’s not leveraging color or depth to communicate the ideas.) In the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to do this when I originally wrote my review of the book, but I had other projects on my plate at the time. Because of this, I published my review of Personal Development for Smart People without any graphics included.

Today, that changes.

Networking Works

Then, while reading some other reviews of the book, I came across this graphic over at Life Coaches Blog:

Now this was a HUGE improvement! By using color to represent the principles, Alvin draws an elegant parallel between how color frequencies combine and how the principles themselves combine in a very similar way. And although he missed out on a great opportunity to emphasize Intelligence as a natural combination of all these colors (i.e., a beacon of white light), his elegant parallel with color really inspired me.

Fast forward almost two years to a couple months ago, and I stumbled upon this colorful graphic once again. And, after setting aside some time, I decided to begin experimenting with this idea, this metaphor of colors combining just as the principles of Truth, Love, and Power do. I realized I didn’t agree with Alvin’s choice of color. Love should definitely be red, right? At least in the Western World, it makes more cultural sense for Love to be colored red. (That being said, I fully realize that many of you are not from Western countries, and I’m very grateful for you!)

For slightly more complex reasons, I decided that blue is an appropriate color for Truth. (And as I write this article, I’ve noticed that “trueness” is listed as a common connotation of blue in its wikipedia page). So that leaves green for Power, which is excellent for the logical inferences of which I’m sure I don’t have to explain.

The Perfect Parallel for Intelligence

So! With the colors set, the secondary colors came automatically. After creating and tweaking the appropriate radial rainbow gradient in Photoshop, I started adding in the labels of Truth, Love, Power, Intelligence, etc. And I realized that white is the only logical color for Intelligence.

Think about it.

When you combine of all three primary colors of light (those being red, green, and blue) the wavelengths overlap each other and produce white light. You can see the reverse of this effect when white light enters a prism. Even beyond the obvious logical parallel to white light, there are also cultural parallels such as knowledge being the light of the world, and so on.

And so, through much experimentation and testing, I’m very pleased to present to you two new desktop wallpapers today. One with the labels, and one with the TLP Pyramid without any words to distract from its spectral beauty.

I’ve exported these as PNG files because the gradients needed more color depth than a JPEG file could provide. They should work fine, but if you have any problems with them, please let me know in the comments.

Get Them!

Widescreen Wallpapers (up to 2560×1600) —>
Fullscreen Wallpapers (up to 1600×1200) —>

— — —

All content released under a Creative Commons license. These wallpapers will look great up to resolutions of 2560×1600. With so much free content on Byteful Gallery, why not tell a friend?

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Now, let’s start off with the big, controversial question:

What is art?

This question has been posed for hundreds, probably thousands, of years; and the answer will forever vary from person to person. After entering the Denver Art Museum and heading up the stairs, a sign on a blue wall posed this question to me. Visitors were instructed to write their own answer to the question “What is art?” on a blue piece of paper and stick it to the wall.

Some of the answers people posed were insightful, some were hilarious, and didn’t even consist of words at all. My favorite answer hinted at a higher truth through its humor (and we’ll come back to that later); but as it turned out, the contents of the museum itself answered the question best. The closest I can come to summarizing this answer into a single sentence is that: Art is simply a product of the Imagination brought into reality. That’s it. And as with most answers to abstract questions, what I found in the museum may surprise you, so I’ve gathered the top 5 biggest surprises at the Denver Art Museum here for your reading pleasure.

Surprise #1 – The Museum’s Extraordinary Architecture

In a previous article, I mentioned how wacky and fascinating the Denver Art Museum looks from the outside, but it’s even more extraordinary on the inside. The first floor stairwell is one of the first things you’ll see when you visit, and it’s a great example of the kinds of angular shapes that you can expect to see when you come. See those three blue dots towards the top right of the photo? Those are LEDs that make up a work of art called ENGI by Tatsuo Miyajima which features 80 of these small LED number displays. These LEDs, which cover parts of the walls and ceilings of this part of the museum, display numbers from 1 to 9 at varying speeds.

To create ENGI, Miyajima asked a few Denver citizens for a four-digit number that meant something to them. This four-digit number was then plugged into a computer program that controls how fast an LED display cycles from 1 to 9. The ENGI digits were interesting to watch, and they made the strange architecture seem more alive. You can see more examples of how ENGI is used in the Denver Art Museum photo album.

Surprise #2 – Bizarrely Hilarious shortfilms

Tucked away on in a cavelike room on the second floor is a small darkened theater playing a series of very odd (but very funny) shortfilms by Bjørn Melhus. This one is called “Captain”; and it was pretty hilarious because Melhus borrowed sound clips from episodes of Star Trek and sci-fi movies and inserted them into the movie. In some versions of this movie, the man in the center has James T. Kirk’s voice. In other versions, the older man has the voice of a young woman, and the result was really amusing. The way the Melhus inserted sound clips from other works makes it similar to a song mashup.

Surprise #3 – Weird Interactive Art

Now this one is called Zero, and it’s really bizarre; I didn’t like it at first. Basically, this is a doll inside of a suitcase with a projector aimed at its face. The projector is connected to a DVD player, and it projects a video of a face onto the dolls face, thereby giving it the illusion that the doll is looking around, and even talking to you. The face would often call out to people looking at it, and occasionally yell at people. Yet after a while, in a saddened voice, it would ask if anyone was still there. I can’t even begin to accurately hypothesize what “Zero” meant to its creator Tony Oursler, but it was delightfully strange and somewhat hilarious.

Surprise #4 – Awesome Exhibits like the Psychedelic Side Trip

Without a doubt, the Psychedelic Side Trip is one of my favorite temporary exhibits I’ve ever seen… in any museum. As you can see above, right as you walk in you feel transported backwards in time to an era where clothing, music, and communication were changed forever. This highly-accurate replica of a 1960s living room is complete with a tiny 4×3 TV, musical instruments, and light fixtures from the era. (Wow, that sentence almost makes the 1960s sound like they happened a hundred years ago! But you can’t deny that we’re in a different era now.)

The entire Psychedelic Side Trip exhibit was contained in a very large room divided into separate sections, and it was one of the most interactive art exhibits I’ve ever seen. Past the replica of the living room was another room with a bathtub full of pillows (as was the style back then) and some tables with famous magazines from the era. Beyond that was a table where visitors could create their own psychedelic posters, and nearby many classic LP records from bands like Jefferson Airplane, Santana, and the Beatles were on display.

The entire exhibit fostered creativity among the visitors. Around the corner you could even make your own light show on the wall using colored oils. It may not sound so entertaining, but it was actually a blast.

Another fantastic interactive element was a video phone booth. You could sit down, close the phone booth, and briefly talk to a camera about your thoughts on the 1960s. When I visited, this part of the exhibit wasn’t completely working, but when doing research for this article, I discovered that the museum had uploaded 693 of these videos to YouTube. Yes, you read that correctly: SIX-HUNDRED AND NINETY-THREE videos. So apparently the art museum kept a lot of what was recorded there.

And some of the videos are pretty entertaining to watch, even if the people who created them weren’t even born until decades later. Here’s a great example:

They’re all 50 anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Their time has ended, and now it’s our time… and we’re going to play guitar hero! (They didn’t have guitar hero back then.)

~ Anonymous Young Museum Visitor

Classic.

And to finish up this section, here’s a short story about the 1960s from people who were there to experience it:

Yet another example of why you should explore while you still have time. (And you gotta love how the guy in the video mimes the reactions to her story. If you didn’t watch him the first time, I recommend you watch it again and pay attention to his face. It’s pretty funny.)

However, I’ve got bad news. Unfortunately, this exhibit won’t be a permanent part of the Denver Art Museum. But lucky for you, the Denver Art Museum has extended the life of this exhibit to July 26, 2010; so if you’re headed to or thru Denver any time soon, don’t miss out on this opportunity.

If you’re curious, there’s a lot more information about the exhibit over at the exhibit’s section of the Denver Art Museum website, and you may want to check out their YouTube channel, as well.

Surprise #5 – Super-sized works of Art you can walk around in!

The fifth and final big surprise the museum had in store was Fox Games by Sandy Skoglund, which is basically a room that is an art piece itself. As you can see from the above photo, it features a series of dining tables and sculptures of foxes jumping all over the room. That alone isn’t so strange or surprising, at least for an art museum. What’s surprising is that, except for the foxes, everything in the room is BRIGHT red, including the silverware, cups, and the chairs themselves. It’s definitely a strange sight to behold, and luckily there’s a path that leads you thru the exhibit so you can see this scene from all angles.

While I explored Fox Games, I overheard someone mention that there was actually a single red fox hiding in the midst of it all. I found him, and I wondered why this fox was red when all of the others were grey. Then, after looking again and thinking about it, I realized why. If you figure out why, let me know in the comments! (It’s easier to see why if you look at the picture of the single red fox in the Denver Art Museum photo album.)

The Funniest Answer

After reflecting on my time spent at the Denver Art Museum, my favorite answer to the question “What is Art?” is:

“Art is my uncle!”

As funny as that may sound, it also hints at a higher truth: Art is in the eye of the beholder.

I certainly saw this expressed in the museum since it included everything from blinking numbers to a bizarre talking doll to a living room itself being an expression of art.

Yet perhaps the most surprising thing is that the funniest answer to the question “What is art?”, might actually be the truest answer of all.

Continue the journey —>

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Photos from this trip are in the Denver Art Museum album. All photos in the Byteful Gallery can be used as desktop wallpapers because they are high resolution (1920×1440) just like the fullscreen & widescreen wallpapers.

Or select a city to explore its attractions:

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Does the concept of Oneness relate to travel?

And how important is the concept of Oneness when travelling?

Today I’m going to discuss some of the answers to those questions. Consider this as a thought-provoking reminder: while you may not consider yourself a creative person, you most certainly are. Even if you never write, photograph, or make a single coherent note, your friendships are your creation. So today we’re going to talk a bit about purpose, growth, oneness, and how they relate to your role as a creative being. Yes, you’re a creative being. Sorry, but its unavoidable; you can’t help it.

An Unexpected Outcome

The Element of Surprise is often overlooked as a key element in creation, whether it be visual, audible, or the written word; so this certainly applies to travel writing. For instance, travel writers must constantly put their readers into a state of wonder and surprise. Without it, the writing feels stale and predictable. Even if you never write, a good example of creativity in a social setting is humor; and as any comic will admit, surprise plays a key role in humor, as well.

Have you ever sat down and asked yourself, “What exactly is humor anyway?” If you think about it, humor can only arise out of an unexpected outcome. It can only arise if there is some flavor of surprise. Good writing is no different.

Our Shared Mission on this Blue-Green Planet

As a travel writer, it’s my mission to provide you with enlightening new perspectives of this beautiful blue-green planet we call home. It really is a magical place, and too often we forget that as we sit in our man-made above-ground caves as beauty lurks outside. Life is so much more than our routines. It’s about discovery. It’s about growth. It’s about inspiration.

And as a travel writer, I deeply feel that it’s my purpose to inspire you with these new perspectives, and (if I’ve really done a good job) make you think differently about the world around you. Perhaps through what I share, you’ll realize more and more that the Earth isn’t the dangerous, unforgiving place that some sources would have you believe. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying it’s without danger. Any environment that fosters growth will have dangerous elements, but danger is certainly not the defining characteristic of Earth. In my experience, the defining characteristic is Growth: a natural unfolding of progress.

You’re lucky, because people who live in a growth-inducing (catalyzing) environment such as Earth’s, will mature over time. Life paths that are dangerous and self-destructive are not a sign of a mature, conscious person; but mature, self-aware life sees itself as a fragment of a larger whole and doesn’t seek to destroy its neighbors because it realizes a universal truth: by hurting others, it hurts itself.

Our mission is to always remember and act on this truth.

It Takes 10,000 Hours

A popular idea floating around right now is that it takes 10,000 hours to become a professional at a skill, so it’s no surprise to me that after writing over a hundred articles, I am only now finally beginning to feel good about how I balance length, depth, and personality in my writing. And I’m excited that I can see this improvement quite obviously when comparing some of my articles from years passed. It’s truly a great honor to be able to share my experiences with you, and I feel that I’m just beginning to hit my stride in my writing capability.

I’ve realized that as I mature as a creator, I become better and better at discerning the quality of the creations around me, and what I see in the writing sphere is a good example.

What’s the deal with travel sites “churning” out content?

These days, I’m surprised sometimes at how some sites seem to write rather passionless articles again and again. I find myself asking certain questions: Does the web really need another story about how to best spend your money? Does the blogosphere (if that’s actually a thing) need another guide on how to use your time most effectively? Does the computer-internet really need another post talking about how “blogging saved my life”?

Maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t.

Maybe this whole web would be better served if writers were painfully honest and wrote about what they actually cared about instead of what they felt would generate page views (or worse, what they were being paid to write so someone else could generate page views).

At what point do people begin to stop recycling ideas and start actually doing their life’s work?

More Honesty = More Value

So here’s the crux of the matter: the more honest you, as a creator, are about your own feelings, the more valuable what you create is. Say it out loud if you didn’t the first time: The more honest you are, the more valuable what you create is. You need to say that out loud because your more likely to actually remember this timeless piece of information.

No matter what kind of content you create, it’s very important to be really, really aware that you’re creating for a real person, who may have arrived at what you’ve created from a variety of places. They may be seeking inspiration, comfort, or any one of a million things.

If you’re a travel writer, they may want a specific question answered, they may want to hear a story, or they may want to just look at some of the beauty you captured on your last trip to Galapagos. But no matter what they seek, the more honest you’re able to be with yourself when you create it, the more they’ll be able to identify with what you’ve created. And the reason for this relates to the concept of Oneness I mentioned earlier.

You see, when you’re really, really aware of how a person enjoys your work, you can put yourself in their shoes. When you can do this, you can anticipate their needs. When you can anticipate their needs, you can make smart choices about how to frame what you’re trying to say. I’m not saying you should only write what you think you’re audience is expecting. That would actually be the stupidest thing you could do, because if you depend on your audience for guidance, the chances of you ending up in a place that resonates with your heart’s path is close to nil. So find the message that resonates with your heart. Then, stay true to your message, but don’t forget who’s hearing it.

How Travel Writing Encourages Oneness

As I see it, one of the highest goals a travel writer can have is to inspire and grow the awareness of Oneness between people, and other kinds of creativity are no different. In the case of travel writing, when you honestly relate your experiences of another culture, not only do you highlight some of the fascinating qualities that are unique to the culture.

But more importantly, if you’re honest with yourself, you invariably come to the conclusion that, once you look under the surface-level appearance, the similarities between peoples and cultures far outweighs the differences. And sharing these types of stories affects us on a deep level, because we already know in the unspoken places of our hearts, that we are all One People, and always have been.

An excellent expression of this is in the song “Braided Hair” by 1 Giant Leap:

“Because We are One, and We Should Know We are One”

In short, by expressing yourself honestly, you help the entire planet. The practice of telling stories and relating your experiences of other cultures is just one example. Through honest communication, we realize more and more how we are so incredibly and intimately connected as a people on this planet, and it serves as a wake-up call for us all. The more harmony and cooperation we can create between the differing cultures of the Earth, the more loving and enjoyable this planet will become; and perhaps most importantly, the sooner this planet will become a congruent, harmonious society that’s poised for exploration beyond our own little star.

I look forward to that day… don’t you?
Let’s make it come faster.
We can, when we decide.

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The Art Institute of Chicago (which will henceforth be referred to as the AIC) spans an amazing one-million square feet, making it second only to Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Approaching it from the street, you probably wouldn’t guess it’s so vast. Only after you’ve found yourself wandering, and getting lost in the sheer scope of it, will you begin to appreciate the immenseness of this world-class museum.

Put simply, the AIC is a tour-de-force of modern and post-modern art.

Marinara That’ll Turn You To Stone

Paintings and sculptures you’ve heard about, and seen photos of for your entire life, live here. Because it’s featured in the introduction of a well-known television drama, many people will be familiar with the duo of paintings, “Adam & Eve” by Lucas Cranach, for instance. And fans of the board game Masterpiece may recognize “Old Man with a Gold Chain” by Rembrandt, if they aren’t already fans of Rembrandt to begin with.

Aside from the major “rockstar” pieces of the museum, there were also more unusual creations, such as a darkened sculpture room filled with hauntingly black square pillars and a photo of the head of Medusa created entirely out of spaghetti entitled “Medusa Marinara”. (And I must say, seeing Medusa’s image interpreted in Italian cuisine is pretty hilarious.)

But even if you’re not an Art History major, you’re sure to appreciate two paintings in particular. The first is the unparalleled “Nighthawks” by Edward Hopper. Finally seeing this painting in person was a special treat because I’ve always enjoyed the nostalgic way the painting evokes the era it depicts. If you really gaze into the painting, you can almost feel the hard, cold wood of the curving bar. Beside the painting, a sign said it:

…was inspired by “a restaurant on New York’s Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet,” but the image, with its carefully constructed composition and lack of narrative, has a timeless quality that transcends its particular locale.

Indeed it does.

“A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” was just Incredible

But without a doubt, the painting I was most excited to see, and the painting you’ll probably recognize the most, is “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”

Painted by Georges Seurat (pronounced Soo-rah), this painting is one of the truly priceless works in the museum. I was first exposed to this lovely painting when I saw the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” many years ago. Yet when I first entered the museum, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to see any of Seurat’s famous work because I’d been told much of the art had been temporarily shipped to a museum in Texas due to remodeling that was being done. So, you can imagine how glad I was to hear that they did keep one of Seurat’s paintings. And not just any one: the one which is perhaps his most famous.

Seeing “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” in person was pretty amazing, and I even had time to take multiple macro photos, each getting progressively closer to the painting to capture the tiniest detail. I would certainly never touch the glass that’s over the painting, but I did take a macro photo close enough so that you can see even the individual brush strokes that reveal the style in which it was created. Do you see how everything is actually made up of tiny dots? That’s because this painting was created in pointillism style. Check Art Institute of Chicago album for the macro photos that reveal this detail in full size.

The Museum Itself is an Icon

You don’t have to be an Art History major to enjoy this museum. It features many of the iconic images you’ve probably seen before, but seeing them in person delivers a more personal, and more real, emotional impact.

I only spent about 2.5 hours exploring the museum because much of it was inaccessible due to the remodeling. I expect that if it weren’t being remodeled, it would require an afternoon to really to it justice. And if you want to save some money, take advantage of the Free Thursday evenings from 5 to 8 PM. (Subject to change. Check website to make sure.)

A delightful and educational experience, the Art Institute of Chicago is not to be missed. From the truly saucy pieces like the “Medusa Marinara”, to the sublime views of “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte”, the AIC spans an impressive range of artists and periods. It’s a real gem.

So get down there and check it out before they remodel again. For all I know, for the next remodel they could ship the Seurat to Spain!

Note: The author of this website does not make any claims to know the future movements of any Seurat works of art, painted or otherwise. Such claims are purely comedic and probably not even that funny. When questioned, the Kingdom of Spain declined to comment.

But seriously, what is the deal with that medusa marinara?

— — —
Photos from this trip are in the Art Institute of Chicago album. All photos in the Byteful Gallery can be used as desktop wallpapers because they are high resolution (1920×1440) just like the fullscreen & widescreen wallpapers.

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Today I’d like to share with you a visual summary of that message, a high-rez image that can be printed out or used as a desktop wallpaper. Behold! Walt Disney’s famous words:

“We don’t make movies to make money,
we make money to make more movies.”
~ Walt Disney

So beautiful in its simplicity. So rewarding to contemplate.

I won’t lie to you, it takes a lot of effort to get to that place in your own life, but it’s one of the most worthwhile accomplishments you can ever make.

As I said in the last InspirationEverywhere entry, it’s important that you be patient with yourself and remember that everyone is a work in progress. Along that journey of self-improvement, Disney’s words serve as a useful guide of what it really feels like to be aligned with your passion. You see, what Disney is really describing here is his company’s alignment with three things: what they enjoy doing, what work they feel is important, and what other people enjoy.

Let’s deconstruct that for a minute. If Disney didn’t enjoy what he was doing, he wouldn’t really care about making movies that exemplified timeless lessons. If he didn’t feel that the messages could benefit people, he wouldn’t create movies at all. And if other people didn’t enjoy the movies, he simply wouldn’t have the resources to make more.

A Positive Spiral

Another way to describe being truly aligned with passion is the idea of a positive spiral. If you were doing the work you really loved (work that also fed/clothed you), you’d allow yourself really dive into that work, wouldn’t you? And what would happen to your skill level? You would improve in that work, wouldn’t you? Which means your level of contribution would increase, which would in turn increase the amount of people who benefitted from your work. And this would increase your income, thereby freeing you up more and more to increase the quality of your creative output. This is the positive creative spiral: a place of alignment and congruency with who you truly are.

Today, make it your aim to create a positive spiral in your own life. To help facilitate this process, you can print this poster out and put it somewhere you’ll see it so you can be reminded of his message everyday: Disney Quote – “We don’t make movies to make money…”

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The poster of this quote is in the Byteful Gallery > InspirationEverywhere Motivational Quotes album. Selected Quotes from the gallery are now available on T-shirts and mugs at the Byteful Store.

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1. Create with Passion or DIE
2. It Takes A Long Time to Become Fully You. ~ Björk