‘In the end, the only thing you really own is your story, you better try and live a good one.’ - Baz Luhrmann.
I was lucky enough to see Baz Luhrmann speak at the premiere screening of Faraway Downs at SXSW in Sydney in October. I have been mulling over the above quote for the past few months, with a niggling desire to experience, to stretch myself.
I think COVID generally made people comfortable being comfortable. With all our remote infrastructure it’s easy to fall into the trap of not exploring, zooming in everywhere and zooming nowhere. Humans need to physically interact with our environment and with each other. I created my 2024 mantra (EXPERIENCE -> GROW -> CONTRIBUTE) to consciously surrender myself to experiencing, to exploring, to existing.
Why? I need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I need to experience to grow, and I need to grow to contribute.
Our purpose at House of Kitch is to change the universe spectacularly.
We know major change can be achieved when people are inspired. As Yuval Noah Harare describes it “Stories are the single most effective way to get a disparate group of people cooperating to achieve a common goal”.
There are significant problems in the world that need creativity to solve them. Some problems are too big to be solved by any one person or organisation – they need a collective of people and organisations that are inspired to make big changes happen.
My year of EXPERIENCE -> GROW -> CONTRIBUTE is about being curious, experiencing new things, getting new perspectives, learning from people’s stories, and making stories together.
But it is not story for story’s sake. Its story to shift the universe forward, to solve problems, to improve society.
I’m looking forward to experiencing as much of the universe as possible - lighting a spark to inspire others on things that matter.
Next stop: SXSW in Austin!