Results tagged “passion”

Hillman Curtis died on April 18th. He was a talented, passionate creator.

Here's a 4-minute documentary he did on himself a few months ago.

The funny thing about Hillman is I never thought much of his web design work. It wasn't great. It was clean, and organized and a lot of work went into it. But there wasn't passion.

His passion came out when he stepped behind the camera and began making his short films and documentaries on other talented creators like Milton Glaser, Stefan Sagmeister, Lawrence Weiner and Joshua Davis.

It was when he started making his films that I started paying attention to him.

I'm happy he found his true calling before he died.

What a remarkable photo (actually, remarkable series) of Lucien Freud, grandson of Sigmund Freud.

This photo reminds me of the fact that when you're lucky enough to be making a living doing what you love, you never really retire. Look at the wall behind him next to his canvas. Awesome.

This photo was taken in 2005. Lucien died in July of 2011.

*I also love this photo of him shaving with a (clean) paintbrush. Seems reasonable to me. Seriously, it does.

I'd like to welcome my good friend Jory Kruspe to Daily Exhaust. He'll be contributing posts on design, film, music ... who knows!

What I do know is he's a passionate designer and he'll be bringing a unique perspective to this site.

Over at GQ, Julieanne Smolinski has some advice on how nerds can avoid 'creeping out' the opposite sex.

Yes. Nerds are sexy. Yes. We get it. Yes.

Nerd girls are hot. Nerd men are hot. People with cassette fetishes and basement museums now get book deals and "This American Life" episodes instead of swirlies. The word has gone from opprobrium to come-on to something that might be proudly proclaimed via provocatively shrunken spaghetti strap top.

She's using the wrong word. She means geek, not nerd.

Both geeks and nerds share the enthusiasm trait.

Where geeks and nerds differ is in their social skills. Geeks have them, nerds to do not.

But back to enthusiasm. Julieanne has a problem with too much of it:

The problem here is being too into something. It's weird! It's important not to display too much of your -philia to somebody you're hoping to attract. I know a lot of girls who would find a deep and abiding love for protopunk sexy, but if you can say things like, "Richard Hell is a Libra" then I'm going to suggest you don't. Be an enthusiast, not an obsessive. (If obsession lies between love and madness, then let us say that enthusiasm lies between "obsession" and "love." Between obsession and madness? Fan fiction.)

Humans have a problem with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is a gateway drug to passion which in turn leads to fanaticism and fanaticism is a bad word. Someone who's really believes in their religion? A religious fanatic. Some who loves Apple products (yes, self, I'm looking at you) - they're a Apple fanatic or Apple fanboi.

For me? I'd rather be fanatical about something, than somewhat/sorta/kinda into things. I don't want to be ok with my job. I don't want to think my wife is alright. There's nothing worse than being someone who loves a particular music genre who encounters someone who has no feelings about music.

The most successful people in the world are fanatical about the thing that made them rich. The fanatics can also be the most dangerous people in the world (Philly Eagles fans? Red Sox fans? you guys are fucking dangerous assholes), so while the object of obsession can be dangerous or destructive, fanaticism and passion, in and of themselves are not negative traits.

Never be afraid of having too much passion about something.

It's ok to turn the dial up to 11.

David, from 37Signals, talks about motivation:

When you're not working on something you're inspired by, your efficiency is so much lower. You find more moments in the day to let yourself be distracted by email or reading on the Web or something else. That's usually the key smell I detect when I'm working on something I don't really want to be working on: I check email much more frequently and I engage in chats about things that aren't related to what I should be working on.

You could hate on the 37Signals dudes with all their inspirational talk and books, but they run a profitable company based on their beliefs.

They walk the walk.

(I was going to say they eat their own dogfood, but that's such a negative analogy)