DAY 003 – DESIGNING DANGEROUSLY
Agree
I am an incorrigible people pleaser. I grew up the eldest of three, and though I made more than my share of mistakes and I’m certain I was incredibly selfish at times, I’ve always used others as a mirror for my efficacy. As a child, operating this way has some drawbacks. As a grown-ass adult, this becomes a sure bet for running yourself around in circles until you’re mad and exhausted.
I run into a lot of young designers that are also people pleasers, many of them religious as I was...or as I am. Design is the perfect conduit for these tendencies. It provides plenty of room for working with a group, not being in charge but working toward a common purpose. It is work that is seen, even if only quietly acknowledged by a few. It is a melody that everyone in an audience hears, but only a few are conscious of. It is the opportunity to be awake while all else sleep--this is both literal and figurative as I used to pump R.E.M’s “Daysleeper” on my MiniDisc Walkman at 6am as I walked back to my dorm room to crash for a few hours.
I was proud of that, proud of how much I could shoulder. My grandfather was at the end of his life, I was at the end of my freshman year of college, and all I could think to tell him was about how hard I was working at Les Schwab, a chain of tire stores with squeaky clean attendants that were “running to serve you.” Working like a dog equalled success and was my context for a good life. It seemed like a sure bet. Enter adulthood; turns out it’s not a sure bet.
So, there are some negative things about being a people-pleaser, and I would encourage everyone to shake themselves free. However, here’s the upside and why I appreciate reformed people-pleasers: we’ve been clocking people for years and have spent a lot of time studying human behavior. We’ve been interested in the human condition from the word “go,” albeit for ultimately selfish reasons. Like a dog tilting its head, we’ve been one foot in and one foot out of moments, hungry for that affirmation, digging through every twitch or verbal tic to see ourselves. Our self-satisfied and self-purposed peers have many phenomenal qualities I would like to emulate, but they have the potential to be oblivious, both to others and how their actions affect others.
I chose this mandate because I imagined talking about improvising, the indomitable Tina Fey’s “yes, and,” describing how to channel agreement into change. I’m sure we’ll get to all these things. It surprises me, but I’m most concerned at the moment about saying yes to myself, to the things I know please me and bring more light. That is a challenge, particularly in the fields of education and theatrical design. Both are buckets that you can pour all of yourself into and they perpetually stay half full, always happy to consume your energies, passions, and thoughts, never satiated. I want to overflow, run over my banks, cut a new bend in the river.