(Net)work

Lets face it: ever since the internet came about, the world has become a whole lot smaller. Austin Kleon writes in his New York Times best-selling book Steal Like An Artist that we are no longer ruled by geography. Instead, sites like Twitter allow us to effectively connect with and be inspired by a select group of like-minded people.

Kleon dedicates an entire chapter to pound home the fact that the world is a small town, so be nice to everyone with whom you cross paths. In other words, what goes around comes around. I like to think of each interaction that I have as an opportunity to expand my world and every new person I meet as means by which I add a link to my ever-enlarging web of connections. Each day I strive to be intentional about networking (both in person and online) because I have seen first-hand that hard (net)work pays off. I am fortunate enough to have a role model like my father, Mike Dobreski, who is an extremely gifted person and fully understands both the importance of networking and the steps to networking efficiently. In fact, he recently started an organization called Executive Educational Consultants, which has gotten where it is today because of my dad's hard (net)working and lots of prayer.

The Photograph as a Seal

In this fast-paced world, the time that we spend in person with friends is not only becoming less and less, but it is also subsequently becoming more and more valuable. Sharing a meal or an intimate conversation in the heart of a bustling and monstrous suburbia is an enjoyable experience, but can be easily forgotten. And this is where the power of photographs comes into play. When you hand the waiter your iPhone and ask him to take a picture of you and your friend, what is actually happening is that the pleasant rendezvous is actually being solidified and made into a concrete entity - one that will last much longer than a lone memory. Susan Sontag writes in her book, On Photography, how people in modern societies look to the lens as a way of confirming the authenticity and reality of the event in which they now stand. 

The Subconscious & Civilization

     "It is a profoundly erroneous truism that we should cultivate the habit of thinking what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them." - Alfred Whitehead

     This idea of our subconscious controlling our actions has magnanimous implications, especially for the art world. Often we hear artists describe their process of creating an art piece as such: "I didn't even know what I was doing!" or "I had no end goal; I just watched the canvas, and eventually there was something beautiful upon it."

     Similarly, this concept emerges as we look back through history at some scientific discoveries that were found by accident(In other words, the scientist didn't originally intend to invent what he invented.) Examples include: penicillin, Viagra, dynamite, and many others.