Posts of Thomas Keily RSSMon, 24 Oct 2016 23:47:41 GMTAs I track through this journey, I know that personal energy (enthusiasm, passion, commitment, optimism) have a big influence on success. So I want to offer an insight in how I’m managing my energies, relative to my project. I think it starts with asking myself, “What am I really trying to do here?” If I get as close as I can to the essence of what I’m trying to do with this life, what do I have? Most days, it’s a doughnut. If I am honest with myself, the deeper I dig down through my motivations, the more I find that the centre is empty. I want to write poetry, because I want to give beautiful things to the world, because I want to better the human story, because one day we will all be annihilated by a collapsing sun. Oops, I mean… I want to bring people together, because I believe in the power of community, because the human that is supported is a human that is open to love, and because one day entropy will reduce everything to mush. Ah. Crap. If the end is written, and if the end is the same no matter what happens along the way, does it matter what route we take to mush-town? Bertrand Russel, one of the great lights of 20th Century philosophy said that every system of thought must make peace with this idea at some point. In a flourish that would make any poet blush: “That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly c... Read more

]]>Mon, 24 Oct 2016 23:47:41 GMTSo one of the first tasks is to describe in the broadest, most heroic terms what my website is going to be about. This is ‘The Epic’. The Epic helps any one on the UNA.IO team who is new to your project get a quick handle on what it is all about. And it’s been surprisingly hard. As Einstein said, if you can’t explain something simply, then you probably don’t get it. It’s my project and I probably don’t get it. Writing the Epic has made me realise how many vague notions I have floating around this project. It’s like I have bunch of jigsaw pieces laid out on the carpet in front of me. The pieces come from three separate jigsaw pictures, but I’m just trying to complete one. And I’m still not sure what that ‘one’ looks like exactly. So the Epic has forced me to focus on exactly who my community is, what their needs are, and what I’m offering. It's time well spent. This is my first cut. It’s still a little clumsy. What do you think? Somecoolnametba.com Mission: To create space for and encourage artistic relationships and art-rich communities. The Problem: Outside the mainstream, it is possible to thrive as an artist if we focus not so much on the “products” we sell, as on the “relationships” we have with the people who enjoy our art. Patreon and their ‘subscription’ support service are a proof of concept. However, we do not have the tools to reach out to new supporters, or to actively engage with existing supporters. Artist websites are too blunt and non-social, and Facebook Pages are useless and/or expensive. As experiencers we want to be able to intimately relate to the artists we get excited about, to see into their creative processes, and be part of their artistic conversation. We also want to be able to share our passions with others, and find more acts that inspire us. The Solution: This site will be a social network focused on artistic relationships. Somewhere between a personal website, and a facebook for art lovers. It will be a place where artists can: Showcase... Read more

]]>Tue, 18 Oct 2016 06:31:15 GMTMy career as an economist ended the day I woke up shitting blood. I had been working at the Reserve Bank of Australia for six years. I had graduated at the top of my class at university, so I think its fair to say that through those six years I was a pretty solid disappointment to the Bank. I just couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for the work, and I modulated between occasional good work and falling asleep in meetings. As my last performance review said, “Tom is capable of good work, and writes very well, but if he’s serious about a promotion he should consider wearing shoes.” Not that these were easy days for me. Work felt like a dysfunctional relationship, and I spent my non-work hours trying to figure out what it was I actually wanted to do with life. I ended up putting a lot of time into the local writing and performance scenes, and I maintained a very active activist schedule. And in the end, I think, I just burnt out. In the end, I woke up one morning shitting blood. My housemate, who was a nurse, rushed me over to the hospital on his motorbike, and I went in for observation. I still don’t quite know what happened. But for 36 hours I went through that long, dark tea-time of the soul. And at one point, around 3 in the morning, I had that dreadful thought. “What if I go out like this? There’s so much I want to do.” The life that I wanted to live was still waiting for me to live it. And so I bit the peach. The first day back at work, I announced my retirement. For the next 7 years, I just gave myself to my passions. I recorded an album. I joined a radical theatre troupe and went on tour. I spent three years in Turkey living with a Sufi community. I learnt to salsa dance. And by the end of 7 years, I had reached a point where I could honestly say that if I died tomorrow, I would regret nothing. I had lived a life well lived. And that, mum, is why it took me so long to have kids. I have now have two incredible children, a boy and a girl, and an utterly fabulous wife... Read more

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