thoughts and ideas

In Coma

2009-05-02T11:49:00.001-07:00

Here is a look at an unofficial music video for In Coma, directed by Nathan Mielke. I was fortunate to get to be the Director of Photography on this project. I even fell in the creek during production.

Cure for Common Fear

2009-02-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

I wanted to write a blog posting each day this week, but a lack and alas, yesterday was the day from hell, and I was up until 2:30 AM working. There were a lot of challenges throughout the day, I felt frustrated and was full of fear.

However things would change as the night progressed. Around 8:00 PM, I played a league racquetball match at the club I belong to in Vancouver, and after winning the match and giving my opponent some pointers, I had a revelation. A realization that the cure for common fear is simply sharing my knowledge and experience with other people. Focusing that thought a little more, having the confidence in the knowledge and experience that I have accumulated over the years and sharing it with the people that need or want it.

Last year, I had the opportunity to read "Strength Finders 2.0" by Tom Rath, and through the process of taking the test, my top five strengths were:

Futuristic: "You are the type of person that likes to peer over the horizon. The future fascinates you...You are a dreamer who sees visions of what could be and who cherishes those visions."

Intellection: "You like to think. You like mental activity. The theme of Intellection does not dictate what you are thinking about; it simply describes that you like to think. You are introspective."

Input: "You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information -- words, facts, books, and quotations -- or you might collect tangible objects...Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting."

Empathy: "You can sense the emotions of those around you. You can feel what they are feeling as though their feelings are your own. You help people find the right phrases to express their feelings -- to themselves as well as to others. You help them give voice to their emotional life."

Adaptability: "You live in the moment. You don't see the future as a fixed destination. Instead, you see it as a place that you create out of the choices that you make right now. And so you discover your future one choice at a time. You are, at heart, a very flexible person who can stay productive when the demands of work are pulling you in many different directions at once."

As I reflect upon this list of strengths, the important thing that I learn is that all of the strengths require an ability and desire to share the results with other people.

For example, If I don't share my visions for the future with others, will those visions have an opportunity to flourish and come true? If I don't share what I am thinking about, how will I know that those thoughts and ideas impacted someone else? What if someone can learn from what I know? I won't know, unless I share my collections of information with people. And finally, sharing empathy and adaptability creates an environment of relationship, community and trust paving the way for life to flourish.

The true cure for common fear is to share that which has been given to you with others, and that is what I hope you take from this blog posting, a desire to share with you, what I know. It may seem incredibly simple and easy for you, but for me it is a life-altering attitude that needs to invade everything that I do on a daily basis.

Unblocking Creative Blocks

2009-02-17T09:19:00.000-08:00

It is safe to say that I have been creatively blocked for sometime now. I'll grant you that by running a digital media production company, there is a certain sense of being "on" that I need to maintain, but I know deep down inside that my ideas are growing stale, that my techniques and stories need to grow, and that I need to take more creative risks. I couldn't find any way to overcome the blocks to creativity that I was struggling with. The work kept piling up, and grew incredibly tired and frustrated.

Enter a few tidbits of advice that I have read, heard people tell me, or personally experienced along the journey that I have been on.

The first morsel of advice is a concept, from the book "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron, called the morning pages, a simple exercise of writing three pages each morning. Stream-of-consciousness, journaling, reporting the thought process of your inner mind, whatever you want to call it, it comes down to freeing your mind of the things that occupy the resources that you need creatively. I have been doing this every morning for 5 days and have accumulated 15 pages of writing filled with thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, things that have been building up inside. The obvious observation that I have is, "wow, I haven't written 15 pages of material in a long time, probably since college." It is followed by, "you know, I can do this!" It feels great to write. To spend time writing about the things that I have been neglecting. Spending time pondering, wondering, wandering, and loving the process of creativity that is really the essence of the life that I have been given to live.

Advice often comes best from people that know you best, and the next nugget comes in the time that I get to spend with a friend, almost weekly, as we talk about business, ministry, and life. It is amazing how freeing the words, "just be yourself" can truly be. When you spend as much time comparing yourself and your work to other people and companies, you get tired. So, when someone says to "just be yourself," it helps you to break through a block. A block of envy and jealousy that increases the fear that you will never be as good as person A is, keeping you from attempting to do something, to risk, to find success through failure.

Lately, I have been inundated with so much work, that I have felt overwhelmed. I have never been a disciplined or structured man, but the amount of work got to a point, where a little structure and discipline was definitely not a bad thing to really invest some time in developing. The fruit of that effort as been creating a weekly schedule of the work that I need to get done. I know that sounds really simple, mundane, and possibly counter-intuitive, but it really helps me to see what I need to get done, and what I can communicate to clients.

You probably ask yourself, how do you schedule creativity? You can't schedule that, it's intangible, you can't grab hold of it whenever you want. I'll be the first to agree with you, you can't. Creativity is elusive. But I'll tell you one thing that is consistent with the experience of others, creativity will honor the daily pursuit of it. The only word that I can think of is courting. Creativity wants to be courted. Not taken advantage of. And that is what a daily schedule does for me. It helps me to schedule jobs, play time, and most importantly, encourages me to add things like writing blog postings.

Finally, the only real way to unblock my creative blocks, is to get in the bulldozer and drive at it full steam ahead. Hard work and determination, with the focus not being on this exact moment as the culmination of my life, but on the fact that my life is comprised of millions of moments like this one, all growing together, making me who I am.

Getting beyond the fear of being blocked, leads to freedom. It helps you to rise up and walk in the creative sense, makes your life richer, livelier, and one step closer to fulfillment.

Finding the Right Book...or Letting it Find You

2009-02-16T08:58:00.000-08:00

I'm a huge fan of books. I love to read them, I love to smell them, and I love the way that they accumulate in front of the bookcases in my apartment because I have too many of them.

In line with my love for books, is the trip to the bookstore. Rows and rows of books towering overhead. The smell of old and new books mingling with the scent of coffee, and occasionally cigarettes. By going to a bookstore, I experience something that Amazon.com does not have: the chance to wander amongst the infinite offerings, touch them, preview them, and see what they have to offer. I can also talk with people that have recommendations, actually hearing and experiencing why they feel so passionate about a certain book. Through this process, I find exactly the book that I need. Or as I like to think, the book finds me.

Case in point. Friday night, my wife and I went to Cover to Cover Books in Downtown Vancouver, an independent bookstore that offers new and old books, the chance to talk with some incredible people, and a huge cat that is friendly. It is a glimpse at what bookstores used to be before corporations turned the bookstore into a mass-produced coffee-cafe-music-books-videos-magazine store catering to the person wanting to spend list price on everything. Anyway, I wandered the store, found what I wanted to buy, and as I perused the section about writing, a book stood out to me, "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. In a nutshell, it is a book about creativity blocks that you, as an artist, could be struggling with and encourages you to be free in your pursuit of creativity. It was exactly the book that I needed, and it found me. As I go through it, I am re-inspired. I feel more alive. And it was worth every penny.

And without the experience of the local independent bookstore, I don't know if the book would have found me. I'll never know at this point, but I am grateful that it did.

Update on Three Leaves on a Branch

2009-02-13T15:13:00.001-08:00

I'm happy to report that the three leaves on a branch are still alive and hanging in.

A Backup Nightmare Over

2009-01-28T14:46:00.000-08:00

Found what I was looking for on the drive I should have started with.

A Backup Nightmare, Pt. 2

2009-01-28T14:27:00.000-08:00

It's not on this one. Or that one.

A Backup Nightmare

2009-01-28T14:23:00.001-08:00

Where is it? It's on one of my backup drives.

Three Leaves on a Branch

2009-01-26T21:20:00.000-08:00

Three leaves on a branch, hang in the midst of fog, bathing in morning dew, not knowing whether today is the day that they fall and are swept away.

They could live in fear of the leaf blower. The street sweeper. The incinerator. But all they know is that today is the day that they live. And that it is enough for them to enjoy all that they see from their view. People going to work, joking with one another at a locked door; an old man on his morning walk. The simplicity of a man sitting in his car staring at three leaves on a branch as he waits for a meeting with the people going to work, joking with one another at a locked door.

All good and beautiful things of life that drown out the noise and propaganda of the real world, and the pain that will come when the three leaves on a branch fall and are swept away.

The Million Dollar Question

2009-01-23T10:25:00.000-08:00

If you had a million dollars, what would you do? A seemingly simple question, evoking a certain feeling of far-off dreams stored deep inside of the person being asked. A twinkle fills the eye. All of life's boredom disappears for a brief moment. Then it all returns. Haze. Boredom. Mundane. Life.

I have thought a lot about that question lately, not because I wish that I had a million dollars, but more in line with the question of what is it that motivates me to accomplish the dreams in my heart?

We often ask that question of one another in an attempt to learn more. But is it really a good question to ask? Does it really get us closer to knowing a person? Does it get the person closer to the dreams that they think of for a brief second? Or does it further the frustration of the life they haven't lived?

These are questions that I have been wrestling with in the past month as I pursue the twinkle in my eye. The dream in my heart. The stories that I long to tell.

The most important thing that I have learned, is that it hasn't taken a million dollars to get me to do the things that I want to do. It has been honesty. Being honest with others, myself, and a realization that I'm not too far away from doing what it is I really want to be doing. I was just afraid of fully committing because of fear.

Money can never make you unafraid of the things that scare you. In some ways, it makes you even more afraid. Paranoia. Fear. Trembling.

And learning to do what you want to do, in the face of fear, makes you come alive.

That is inspiring, and forever changes the million dollar question to: "What would you like to do, in the face of fear and yourself, that would make you come alive? Regardless of the cost?"

Dreaming for the Stars

2008-10-28T00:55:00.000-07:00

As I watch Deep Space Nine for the first time, it talks about wormholes to other galaxies, and I wonder, will we as a species, make it to the furthest reaches of space? Will we dream big dreams today and in the future? Or will we rely on the dreams of the past, visionaries dead and gone, somehow alive in the systems and procedures built decades ago?

I wonder about the American Dream, how we used to dream big dreams. Dreams of going to the stars, no matter the cost. Personal sacrifice led the way, as people died for their dreams. They believed in what they could do. They believed in where we, as people, could go.

As the economy continues to take a dump on us, I wonder if it will open our eyes collectively to dreams that were there, providing a time and a place for them to come into focus.

Action is the only way that dreams become a reality. Maybe one day, the American Dream will become realized as an active pursuit in dreams for a better world. Not just pipe dreams or things to get people excited so that they will vote, but real visions of the future that inspire people, ultimately motivating them to get off the couch into the laboratories of life.

Apple Pledges $100,000 Toward Gay Marriage Fight

2008-10-28T00:20:00.000-07:00

Today, in the local Vancouver paper, The Columbian, they published a story about Apple pledging $100,000 to defeat California's Proposition 8, which would ban same-sex marriage in California. Read the posting on Yahoo's news site.

This got me thinking about the majority of churches that rely heavily on Apple computers for their operations, either in design, video, music production, and office use. Does the money that these churches invest in Apple computers directly fund a cause that they are so adamant against? Does the money that consumers pay directly fund causes that they wouldn't normally support? It makes me wonder how much of what I buy directly supports politicians that I wouldn't support, or other issues that I haven't thought about, or have opinions on. Is this really that big of an issue, or has it been swept under the mat of acceptability?

Interesting questions as I continue my journey throughout the world.

Tacoma/Seattle Vacation

2008-10-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

I just got back from my vacation to Tacoma and Seattle with Kristina. It was a great trip! We visited the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, the Underground Tour, Pike Place Market, Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Hall of Fame, the Seattle Public Library's amazing building, and a trip to my sister's house for her housewarming. As I said, a great trip, and I'll post photos soon!

Quote of the Day

2008-10-08T21:57:00.000-07:00

I use Google Apps for my business e-mail and calendar, and on the start page is a Quote of the Day. Today's made me laugh:

"Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this, that you are dreadfully like other people." - James Russell Lowell

Just goes to show that no matter how hard I try to be original and unique, I may very well be dreadfully like other people.

Is that so bad?

Random Late Night Thoughts...

2008-09-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

...While the DVDs Burn.

I'm sitting here spacing out at the monitors, waiting for the last couple of DVDs to finish burning for tomorrow morning. My church does a fall series every October through November, and this year we are creating our own, instead of relying on a Rick Warren or John Ortberg study. Based on "The Monday Morning Church" by Jerry Cook, I filmed a conversation between my pastor, Dave McCabe, and Jerry, as they discuss what it means to take Christ to the world each day. It was a great discussion, and we were able to create 4 sessions, each with two sections, corresponding with the chapters in the book. We will be filming the rest of the discussion next week, so I am looking forward to that.

It's amazing how long it takes to burn 3.3 GB of data to a DVD-ROM. Let alone to make 30 copies. In the time it took to that, I ate dinner, watched "The Thirteenth Floor", playing Yahtzee, drank half a case of diet root beer, surfed the web, wrote this blog, and thought about looking at the spiffy DVD duplicators on DiscMakers' website.

Oooh, I just put in the last disc now!

Becoming the Vision of the Future

2008-09-25T14:37:00.000-07:00

What does it mean to dream up big things for the future if they never get accomplished? Just a quick thought for the day.

Is Compartmentalization Making our Lives Easier?

2008-09-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed that people like to form their opinion about something based on a small percentage of what lines up with their held belief?

Take the oft-quoted stance of atheists that all Christians are hypocritical. Compartmentalization says: if a small percentage of Christians are hypocrites, it is safe to assume that all Christians are hypocrites.

How about politics? One of the core differences between democrats and republicans is the right to choose versus the right for life. Compartmentalization says that I am going to label whether a democrat is good or bad based on how I feel about the right to choose versus the right for life. Every issue in politics is at the liberty of compartmentalization. Economics, foreign policy, how much experience is necessary to hold the office of the president, the list can truly go on and on and on.

Here are a few interesting uses of compartmentalization: all heavy metal is satanic because a small percentage of heavy metal bands are actually Satanists; all Muslims are evil because a small percentage are Islamic Fundamentalists; all of Hollywood is morally corrupt because a small percentage of people enjoy making films that can be deemed as immoral.

This seems to be a fine line between actually bringing peace and diplomacy to the world, as opposed to labeling everything so that we know whether it is good or evil, and how we need to act against the said issue. It is a dangerous line, and it is no wonder that people get upset when stereotypes are formed on the sole basis of a small percentage.

What Does it Mean to Worship?

2008-09-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

In the previous post about Young@Heart, I mention that the old man sings "Fix You" by Coldplay in such a way that he showed me a picture of remembrance, respect and love. He infused his life story into the song, and brought it alive. Several of the shots that followed were people singing with their eyes closed, probably envisioning their friends that were gone, and I couldn't help but ask the question, what does it mean to worship?

Is worship an industry that cranks out songs for people to sing in church? Is worship remembering what God has done for you? Is worship inspiring passion for people to live for God? Is worship boring? Does the American, Evangelical church have the wrong idea of what worship is? Is it more than just singing? What does it truly mean to worship?

I think worship can be defined as infusing your story into the meaning of what you are doing, singing, creating, thus inspiring remembrance, respect and love for God and others. Nothing can point to God better, than to do what He has created you to do, with all that you have, regardless of what others will say.

Well, I have rambled enough, I'm sure I'll ramble more...

Young @ Heart with Time to Change

2008-09-22T11:55:00.001-07:00

When I am old and close to death, I want to die having lived a full life, still active in the things that bring me excitement, passion and inspiration for life.

Last night, I watched a documentary about a chorus of older people in their 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s singing contemporary songs by the likes of the Clash, Coldplay, James Brown, Ramones, and Sonic Youth. Living up their name, Young @ Heart, it made me cry at several moments to watch a group of people learning and singing difficult songs, despite losing friends, fighting illness and plaguing moments of the senior kind.

The passion and zeal for life that those men and women had, put to shame most people that I know, including myself, and it was a wonderful showcase of a beautiful part of the human spirit that perseveres, regardless of pain and hardships.

The most iconic, beautiful and heart-wrenching performance was a man singing “Fix You” by Coldplay. Originally meant to be a duet with his good friend, who passed away before the performance, the man showed me a picture of remembrance, respect and love, by singing the song with every ounce of energy that he could muster up, infusing the song’s meaning with his story. An important detail that added to the performance, was that the man himself was given two years to live, and was four months past the deadline. He had an oxygen tube up his nose, could barely stand, and at several moments in the film, he too was close to death.

Another lady was 92 years old, feisty, and full of life. In a way, she reminded me of my own grandmother, willing to say whatever is on her mind, not ashamed, not worried what people will think. As she sang “I Wanna Be Sedated” by the Ramones and “Schizophrenia” by Sonic Youth, I felt happy and joyful, not because old people were singing punk rock songs, but because she was 92 years old, active, alive and doing things that she probably never thought she would be doing at her age. She passed away after the film was made, but she was truly someone that loved life and wanted it known that others should live life with that same amount of passion.

It is important for me to take time and really reflect about my life and to make sure that I am living a passionate life. Encouraging others by allowing them to witness my actions, words, examples and relationships. That alone paints an important image of what it means to be young at heart.

A Return to Form

2008-09-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I have been doing the Weight Watchers program since May of 2007 and lost 76 pounds. Around February of this year, I went to Gambia, Africa and didn't stick to the diet, as I was grateful to enjoy some delicious African cuisine. Since then, I have had a difficult time returning to program, and gained 20 pounds.

All that to say, I have gotten with the program again, and I am enjoying the fact that I don't feel like a complete slob and loser.

I'll post weekly updates about my progress. Maybe that will keep me focused. Or not, we'll see.

It's Been Too Long

2008-09-18T23:20:00.000-07:00

I haven't recorded any music in a long time, several years to be somewhat exact, but tonight I put a new twist on a song called Astral Being that I wrote in 1998 in my dorm room in Seattle. Check it out at: http://www.myspace.com/thesongsofchrismartin, the song is called Astral Being 2008. You can also check out the 1998 version, tuned to C#. Fun and heavy, and the guitar tones are so much better today than 10 years. Of course, 10 years I go I was using a Digitech RP12, as opposed to the Line 6 Pod X3 Live that I use today. It's amazing how far technology as come in terms of guitar processors.

Wicked Cool

2008-09-15T16:47:00.000-07:00

Some photos from a brief photo walk today.

One of Those Moments

2008-08-28T10:05:00.000-07:00

I just had one of those moments where I realize my job affects the clothes that I wear. In the spirit of doing digital media production and working on the computer all day, I am wearing a red shirt, green shorts, and blue shoes. Oh brother, I'm even dressing in RGB! There is my moment of pure geekness.

The Saga of the Failed Drive

2008-08-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

The saga of the failed drive is now over. I have all of my data, and now I don't have to recreate the work that I was right in the middle of when it failed.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-22T14:29:00.001-07:00

It is rare when a movie moves me so deeply and shakes me to my core. I have weird and eccentric taste in movies. I like Delicatessen, Amelie, Time Bandits, Brazil, but while those are based in almost fantastical worlds, The Dark Knight is set in a seemingly modern-day reality. And that is truly what makes the film both amazing and unsettling. The late Heath Ledger's performance was amazing, including his stint as a nurse getting some Purell. Equally impressive was Aaron Eckhart's performance as Harvey Dent/Two Face.

More to come as I process the movie. It sure created some interesting dreams last night.